The battle of Mushi Bush

Ready to do battle. Give me death or freedom (from mushi).

We had iced tea yesterday morning with a regular mum at our playgroup, but she has a far from regular knowledge of plants. So, in between us scoffing green tea Swiss rolls, she identified 28 different trees and bushes in our garden. As soon as Shacho has translated them from Japanese, we are going to hang English signs on each to help our students (and us) learn the plant names. But while nosing around the garden, our friendly botanist warned us that one of the bushes had an infestation of insects (mushi). I asked her what pesticide we should use to get rid of them. She looked at me serenely, and said "chopsticks." She explained they were poisonous caterpillars and you should not touch them, so just pick them off the leafs with chopsticks, or if there were a lot of the pests (there were) remove the stem, but don't touch them. I opted for full battle dress of my paint-splattered yukata, Leicester City Football Club baseball cap, gardening gloves and garden pruners. I merrily hacked away at the troublesome bush, taking a leaf out of the Agent Orange deforestation strategy of the Vietnam War (with about as much success) when I stumbled across Charlie. I called in for backup, and with the aid of a plastic bin bag and unsteady hands, clipped away the stems as nervously as a first-time sapper trying to disable a landmine, before cutting the last link and watching the nest fall into the bin-bag trap. I won this battle, but the war goes on.

 

The enemy, shortly before they were vanquished.