In Some Respects, Soggy Vermont Is A GOOD Thing

 Gawd, it's a swamp out there!  

My St. Albans, Vermont gardens remain soggy as heck after
a week of rain. This might actually be a good thing, though.

My yard in St. Albans, Vermont is on a slope and usually drains fairly well. But it's just a mushy mess of water and mud right now. And snow, at least for awhile this morning. 

Some areas of Vermont, including here in St. Albans, were experiencing heavy snow showers this morning.  It was localized, as I measured 0.7 inches of new snow while just a few miles down the road there was nothing. But the snow added even more water to the mucky mess.

Yesterday's rain just ran off because the ground couldn't hold any more. The trickle of water by my house that we sarcastically call the Woof River was at its highest level in two years.  It actually was a brook at least, for a change. 

I'm sure it's just as soggy pretty much everywhere in Vermont.  Mud season was and is bad, no, gawd awful. Plus, mud season has been extended by this week's rain. In just three days ending yesterday, Burlington got two-thirds of its normal installment for the full month of April.

We're lucky there's no big-ass two or three inch rainstorms in the forecast this week. Pretty much any new rain would flow into rivers and streams, and that amount of rain would surely set off some significant flooding. 

Nothing of the sort is in the forecast. It will rain again a few times this week, but there's no sign of anything torrential.  

As horrible as the muddy roads have been, and as much as people want their sopping wet yards to dry out so we can primp for spring, this wetness overall is actually good news.

Stay with me, here. 

To add insult to injury, heavy snow showers blew through
St. Albans this morning. 

The last two springs in Vermont were dry.  That left us with some trouble with drought for most of the summers of 2020 and 2021 especially in northern parts of the state.  The droughts never got super severe, but there was worries about the trend, especially when it came to ground water and wells. The U.S. Drought Monitor is still listing Vermont's Northeast Kingdom as "abnormally dry" due to the lingering effects of last year's dryness.

Believe it not, here's another reason we want the rest of this spring to  have more light rain, fog, drizzle and mist than usual. 

Last year, gypsy moth caterpillars really wrecked huge swaths of Vermont forests, defoliating many hundreds or even thousands of acres.  A fungus called Entomophaga maimaiga really trashes the gypsy moth caterpillars, but you need wet weather for the fungus to thrive. Drought conditions last year saved the caterpillars from the fungus.

If it's a damp spring this year, the fungus might make a nice comeback and squelch those damn caterpillars.

You never know if this rainier trend will continue or the water will shut off, plunging us into drought conditions again.

Current forecasts seem to indicate frequent but light bouts of rain, which would be kind of a Goldilocks situation. That would keep things wet, but we wouldn't have to deal with flooding issues. 

As we move toward late spring and summer, precipitation increasingly takes the form of torrential showers and thunderstorms. If the ground is super wet and there's far too  many of those storms, we would run into flash flood troubles like we did in 2011 and 2013,  But if it's just typical last spring and summer scattered thunderstorms, then we're fine.

 

Another Vermont Drought Bummer: Very Hungry Caterpillars Defoliating Forests

A large patch of defoliated trees on a hill near my 
house in St Albans, Vermont. Gypsy moth caterpillars
are laying waste to stretches of forest in the state
this year. Dry weather is partly to blame for 'the
resurgence of this pest.

 Especially if you're in the Champlain Valley, you've probably noticed it.

Big patches of normally green hillsides are brown and leafless. Or, if you're particularly unlucky, the trees in your yard are getting devoured and caterpillars are pooping all over you if you step outside.  

They're gypsy moth caterpillars, and they're causing the biggest defoliation in Vermont since 1991.

The dry weather this year is largely to blame. So yeah, another problem created by drought or near-drought. 

A happy fungus took hold in Vermont in the early 1990s that goes after gypsy moth caterpillars, keeping them in check. If you have a succession of soggy springs and early summers, you still get those little hungry buggers, but they are reduced and number and the trees and forests stay more or less intact. 

Recent springs have been dry,  especially last year and this year, so the very hungry caterpillars have come roaring back.  

Sure, it rained early this week, which is nice, but that's far too late and too little to do much to encourage that wonderful caterpillar-killing fungus.  (The quarter inch of rain that fell on St. Albans yesterday was less than in other parts of Vermont, helping cement my town as part of the Great Champlain Valley desert).

Even worse, now that the caterpillars are back with a vengeance, they might stick around for a few years. Lots of wet weather this summer and especially next spring and the spring after that would help a lot. 

I know we like bright, sunny spring weather, but I hope spring, 2022 is just one long slog of foggy, drizzly days. 

I've got selfish reasons for that. There's a big patch of defoliated trees on the hill above my house, and it's creeping closer to my property. 

The trees around my house give me a great deal of privacy in the summer, which I love. Plus, some of the trees aren't the healthiest.

Most healthier trees can survive a season or two of defoliation, but ones that already have pre-existing issues often do not. Newly planted trees are also in danger. 

We sure picked the wrong summer to spend lots and lots of cash to plant a nice big river birch in our St Albans yard to replace the willow that blew over in a storm a couple years ago.  Despite lots of watering, it's suffering from the dry weather, and gypsy moth caterpillars love munching on river birch. Sigh. 

The gypsy moth caterpillars will wrap up their destruction  later this summer, but who knows how many years this problem will last before that wonderful fungus can gain the upper hand?

It's not just us having this problem, by the way. Parts of Ontario, Quebec, Wisconsin and New York, among other places, are having a battle royale with the caterpillars. 

If you have some prized trees, there are only a few things you can do about the problem. You can wrap burlap around the base of trees so egg masses are laid there instead of in the tree.  Then later on, you can remove the burlap and destroy the egg masses. Putting caterpillars and their egg masses into soapy water kills them. 

Experts say the Great Vermont Gypsy Moth Caterpillar Munchathon will continue for about another month before it wanes.  Those buggers will turn into moths, then regroup to torture us next year.