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At the Dermatologist

Posted on September 22, 2016 by Bill Leave a comment

I have a long medical history. But for modern medicine, I would be dead several times over. Pneumonia, bleeding ulcer, knee ACL and PCL, serious butt stuff, on and on.

Most of my life I went out in the sun without sun protection. That was a bad idea, growing up at some altitude in a desert. I have done a good amount of outside work as well. The only precautions I ever took was wearing a hat, usually a ball cap.

A few years ago I started regular trips to the dermatologist to have patchy pre-cancerous areas on my face frozen. There were always new spots to be treated. Not long after the last visit I noticed my razor scraping a place on my cheek. It didn’t heal, so I called.

Early Stage Squamous Cell Cancer

This morning my Dermatologist took one look and said cancer. She started with a biopsy and saw it was deeper than she thought. She scooped out a chunk about the size of a dime. No stitches, just a band-aid and Vaseline. Squamous cell cancer.

I have always been aware of the risk. A rancher and the game warden in Fruita died from skincancers they ignored for too long. A guard at one of the water plants where I worked had a sore on his face he was ignoring. I yelled at him so much he finally went in and had the cancer cut out.

A friend at work, blonde with fair skin, grew up in Brooklyn and spent his summers at Coney Island. He travels to the Caribbean to scuba dive several times a year. He goes to his dermatologist every quarter to have more cancers cut out. He has a pretty good sized gouge out of his nose.

I thought I was probably safe because my skin is not that fair. I have hardly ever used sunscreen, but have almost always worn a hat, especially after going bald. Usually it was a ball cap. I have used a boonie hat more lately. I think my ball cap days are over. I will also start using sunblock. Once again, modern medicine is saving my life.

Posted in Stories

Fall

Posted on September 19, 2016 by Bill Leave a comment

Quakies on Kebler Pass Pass, Colorado

The seasons they are a-changing. Back when I was a hunter, dove season started on the first of September. Here in eastern Colorado, the first cold front of the fall happens about that time. Hunters hope it comes after the first, because the cool down sends the resident doves south. The birds available are migratory birds, with different behavior and less numbers. The Japanese Beetles also burrow into the lawn.

I no longer hunt, but I miss our neighbor city doves and their calls as soon as they leave. It’s harvest time as well. We didn’t do well with squash this year, but the kitchen is full of tomatoes. Tomato salads, tomato sauce, and tomato soup. Tomato soup is the easiest, throw some tomato sin the Vita-Mix, add whatever zip you want, put the milk in, and whomp it up. The Vita-Mix has enough power to heat the soup. Carol makes a great baked frittata with sliced tomatoes on top. .

The other wonderful thing about fall is the color. Our maple tree leaves are getting a fringe here in mid-September. In some parts of the high country, the Quakies are reaching their peak about now. Peak season for the yellow and gold display varies around the state, so there are several weeks of viewing available.

Squaw Pass

My favorite area near Denver is Squaw (The USGS needs to rename this pass) Pass between Evergreen and Echo Lake on the Mt. Evans road. From the summit the view to the north is spectacular. One can get a feeling for the sheer expanse of the Rocky Mountains. Probably the most intense area for yellow trees is Kebler Pass from Crested Butte to Somerset, near Paonia. There is good camping in the area, and fewer people.

Probably the most popular color viewing drive from Denver is the Peak-to-Peak highway from Clear Creek Canyon to Estes Park. I make the trip every year, usually coming up one of the canyons and back down BigThompson Canyon. I drove it over the weekend. There are some aspens, but not a lot. I think there were more people in Estes Park than quakies along the Peak to Peak.

I am so lucky to be a Colorado native. The Colorado Plateau, with the red oak brush (Gambel Oak) to the cottonwoods in the canyons and the hardwoods in the towns, you go east into the mountains with more brush and those quakies. Out on the plains, the creek and river bottoms have a display, a relief from the relentless tan of the prairie.

I plan a prairie trip soon to go to the North Platte, Chimney Rock, Scott’s Bluff, and Fort Laramie, important spots on the Oregon Trail. Our history is more recent compared to the old country, but there is a lot of it, much of it tragic.

Fall is, to me, the best time for travel. Last year it was I-80 from New York to Denver with all that eastern hardwood color, this year it is running around my home country, bounded by Ely, Nevada; Winslow, Arizona; Albuquerque; Springfield, Colorado; North Platte, Nebraska; Ten Sleep, Wyoming; and Vernal, Utah. More or less.

Next week we are headed to New York for a visit. Central Park will be pretty.

Posted in Stories

Declining and Arising

Posted on September 9, 2016 by Bill 3 comments

The Quarter Moon

A few years ago Carol, my wife, her sister Judi, and I wrote a blog about caregiving for aging parents. The aging parents are gone and so is the blog, but one piece I wrote sticks with me. Watching the decline. I wrote the piece about Frank, Carol’s and Judi’s dad who went into a serious decline in his ’90s.

Frank is gone, so now I am watching my own decline. I had it come home to me when I forgot where I parked the car in downtown Minneapolis and spent three hours searching for the damn thing. By the time I found it I was tired, relieved, and a bit ashamed. Not finding the car has always been a problem for me, a function of my ADD. I keep a little yellow ball on the radio antenna of my pickup so I can see it in the parking lot. Losing the car for three hours is a new one, however. Yes, I have a GPS in my cell phone.

Losing the car is only one symptom. My knee, wrist, shoulder, and back hurt. I fall down. I can’t remember names. Carol and I make a plan every week, and I forget what I am supposed to do. I go downstairs to get something, do three other things and end up back upstairs without what I went for. Three times.

I will be 74 in October. What do I have left? Ten, maybe fifteen years? Aging is reality for me. Usually I take these things in stride. After all what is important is the moment, which is almost always pretty good. The trip to Minneapolis threw me into something of a funk. I got scared when I couldn’t find the car. I went to help my brother-in-law, who is facing some aging issues as well. I still haven’t recovered from the trip.

My life is good. We have a nice home and garden, good things to do, travel some, and have fun together. I can write, which I was unable to do until the last few years after getting diagnosed and treated for ADD. I have gone places and done things. I can ( http://www.insightmeditation.org/ )meditate which I could not do for most of my life. I have found an important role as family caregiver. Caregiving is especially meaningful because it didn’t exist in my family.

The meditation has opened up a spiritual life I have sought since I first asked “Why?”. I now know the answer: Because. The secret to because is becoming. The sun is up every morning. The birds sing, even if I have trouble hearing them. The new in my life outweighs the difficulties. Most of the time. I get myself in trouble when I stare at that unknowable wall out there. If I stay where I belong, here and now, I’m fine. Events, however, sometimes present that wall-my brief time on this world and in this body. I’ll get through it. Writing this has already helped.

Posted in Aging, Balance Problems, Current Activities, Family History, Health Issues, Meditation, Minneapolis, My Story, Stories

Minneapolis

Posted on September 1, 2016 by Bill One comment

I recently went to Minneapolis to help my brother-in-law. He was on his bicycle returning from doing some volunteer work when he was hit by a car. His leg was broken, and the ambulance took him to the Hennepin County Medical Center, a huge facility, where he had surgery on the leg. There he was, in the hospital then in a nice rehab facility, immobile.

I traveled from Denver to serve as legs. He need his mail and things from his place and the police report for starters. The mail and things was no problem. He lives in one of Minneapolis’ hip neighborhoods. Lots of bicycle shops and pizza joints. The police report was another matter.

Minneapolis City Hall

The City website gave a wrong address. I asked around, and was sent to City Hall next door. It is quite an edifice, a big pile of brown brick meant to be in some architectural style. There is nothing on the outside of the building to identify it as City Hall. I found the right office and was told I had to have written permission from Jim to obtain the report. So, back to the rehab center for the note, and back downtown. A little later in the day, I had to park a few blocks from City Hall. I said the location out loud to myself so I would remember.

I got the report ($0.40) and headed back to the car. I couldn’t remember where I parked the damn thing. I walked around for three hours with no luck. I even had to stop for something to eat as I was getting tired. I asked for help at a police station and got nothing but sympathy.

I finally got a cab and we found the car in ten minutes. I was looking on north-south streets and the car was on an east-west street. Later it dawned on me I could have pinned the location on the GPS in my phone. I guess I will have to learn how to use the thing after three years. I was as stressed out as at any time in my life. I just felt old and clueless.

I stayed in a hotel down by Mall of America and the airport, not wanting to stay downtown. It is easy to go back and forth if it is not rush hour. Minneapolis highways seem more congested than Denver, and the streets are in worse shape. It’s an older city and the winters are worse.

The hotel restaurant was an Outback Steak House. It was entirely too much noise for me. I ended up at the Denny’s (!) down the street. After running around an unfamiliar city, I was too tired every evening to even turn the TV on.

Lots of years ago I spent some time in Minneapolis Searching For Truth. I don’t know if I found truth, but I came to appreciate the city. It is also where Carol went to high school and the University of Minnesota, so there are connections other than the one with Jim.

As in every big city, downtown emphasizes the diversity of the population. In Minneapolis, I expect to see blonde Scandinavians. Nope, African Americans and Somalis. The city has the largest Somali population in the country. I don’t think they are Lutherans.

The only complaint I have about Minneapolis is the climate. It rained. Several times. Once, a lot. This child of the desert can tolerate some rain, but not much. What happened in Denver when I got home? It rained. Where is the justice?

Posted in Minneapolis, My Story, Rain, Stories, Weather

Jude Stoner

Posted on August 13, 2016 by Bill Leave a comment

For a high school with less than 300 students in the late 1950’s, Fruita High School had some unique personalities.

A year or two ahead of me was Jude Stoner (not his real name, but close ). He was one of those people with exactly the right name. He wasn’t tall, but was well built, dark, and exuded self confidence. He didn’t participate in school activities, but wasn’t what we would have called a hood. He also was not a stoner.

I don’t know how it happened, but Jude ended up as a hairdresser in Aspen. The Aspen ladies must have swooned over him, a rough-cut, good looking guy doing their hair. In those days there wasn’t much going on in Aspen in the summer, so Jude did other things.

Ruedi Dam and Reservoir

At the time, the Ruedi Dam was being built 15 miles up the Frying Pan River from Basalt. That is not far at all in Isolated Aspen terms. Jude got a construction job on the dam. Good money, keep in shape, have a break from the hair salon. The ideal gig for Jude, as he was an experienced construction hand.

The two most beautiful mountain valleys. In my opinion, are the Frying Pan Valley from Basalt to Hagerman Pass over the Continental Divide. The other valley is the Crystal River Valley from Carbondale to Marble. Jude had a fine place to do a summer’s worth of construction.

Construction workers are a rough cut bunch, not known for tact or social niceties. Construction sites, especially in Western Colorado in the 1960’s, were strongholds of homophobia. Gay men anywhere in the rural West almost always migrated to the cities. Denver, for example, has had a significant gay community for a long time, drawing men from all the neighboring states.

Downtown Aspen 1960’s

Well, here was an Aspen hairdresser doing construction work. The word got out Jude was a hairdresser. Now Jude was kind of a formidable guy, so my guess there was a lot of talk about him behind his back. He had to have been aware of the talk.

One day it happened, one of the real men? on the crew called Jude a “Queer Hairdresser”.

Jude broke his jaw with one punch. No more talk.

Posted in Aspen, Fruita, Ruedi Dam, Stories

Arkose, Sand, and Loess

Posted on August 12, 2016 by Bill Leave a comment

Geologists like to give common things fancy names. Aeolian Deposition means wind-blown stuff from the mountains on the land. Here in Eastern Colorado the South Platte and the Arkansas Rivers are in the process of hauling everything to the Mississippi Delta. This is kind of a slow process, but a lot of stuff is already there. Lots more is on the way.

The material coming off the mountains is in three general categories: gravel, sand and dirt. The stuff gets deposited, may get buried long enough to form rock (Castle Rock), but most of it sits around for a while, maybe millions of years, before it is washed into the streams and heads east.

Castle Rock

Along the base of the mountains are two kinds of deposits. As the Rockies were rising, they eroded almost as fast. Out mountains are mostly the roots of what was once there. During wet periods, like when glaciers were melting, the chunks coming down were pretty angular. The geologists call the deposits arkosic. The Castle Rock Conglomerate is a good example. At other times the erosion was so rapid that a mixture of angular rock and rounded river gravel were deposited together. Rocky Flats between Golden and Boulder is an example.

There are huge gravel deposits at the mouths of the many canyons emptying onto the flatter land where all the people live today. Boulder didn’t get its name by accident. I briefly worked for the telephone company in Boulder. I was on a crew burying telephone cable in new subdivisions. I ran a backhoe and a cable plow, a small bulldozer with a ripping tooth in back digging down about thirty inches and paying telephone cable out the back of the tooth (or plow). In some places, we had to bring in a big D8 Caterpillar dozer with the power to rip through all the hard packed gravel so my little John Deere 450 dozer could do its job. It’s sort of a Mini Cooper versus a Hummer.

All those lakes you see near all the streams exiting the mountains are old gravel pits converted into water storage reservoirs. You can find gravel in the South Platte River bottom in Nebraska that came out of the Rockies. As the gravel is carried along, it erodes from angular pieces to progressively more rounded rocks, eventually becoming sand, clay, or just plain dirt.

The flat country at the base of the Rockies is a patchwork of older rocks exposed by erosion, gravels and arkose near the mountains, then lots of sand, then dirt farther out. A geologic map shows the patchwork. Nature is relentless in its processes, but they are not uniform.

Denver’s Sand Creek

Eastern Colorado has several Sand Creeks, carrying the sand that blew out onto the flats to the South Platte or the Arkansas. You can identify the sand deposits in Eastern Colorado because they are cow country, not suitable for farming. My favorite Sand Creek runs from northern Aurora through some of the old Stapleton Airport property and on west to the Platte. The Bluff Lake Nature Center can give you a good look at the sand and the loess. Bluff lake itself is down along Sand Creek where you can play in the sand. The trail leading down to the creek and lake drops down the bluff from the parking lot. The bluff is loess.

Bluff at Bluff Lake Nature Center. Loess

Under most of the eastern plains is the Pierre Shale or the Ogalla Formation. The shale can be farmed, and the Ogalla holds all that rapidly diminishing irrigation water. The surface is mostly stuff the wind blew in. The dirt the wind carries is called loess, a German word. The soil is fine, and in some places can be hundreds of feet thick. That dust on your car after it sits out in Denver? It will either be Mississippi mud or loess. Well, even the loess will be mud someday, it is just being delayed for a while.

Posted in Colorado, Environment, Geology, Loess, Stories

Cops and Repression

Posted on August 12, 2016 by Bill Leave a comment

Cops are a constant presence in our lives. When I was a young kid, the town marshal in Fruita drove a red Ford pickup with no lights or siren. It wasn’t long before there were real police with a cruiser. I have a lot of interactions with police officers because I am a lousy driver.

Cops

The first really negative interaction was during all the demonstrations following the invasion of Cambodia in 1968. We peace creeps stood across the barrier from helmeted Fort Collins police officers who could hardly restrain themselves from bashing heads. They were putting up with a lot of verbal abuse. The cop across from me was hyperventilating. Fortunately, nothing happened.

Cops today are shooting people and getting shot. Ferguson, Missouri and Baltimore showed the nation how the police are an instrument of repression in some cities. Fortunately this is not always the case. After 9-11, Denver Water placed armed guards at the gates to the water treatment plants. Most of the guards were retired or off duty Denver Police Officers moonlighting. They usually worked one shift per week, and I got to know many of them at the plant where I worked.

It was a shock to me to discover that most of them were really nice guys. That did not fit my stereotype of cops. A couple of them, however, were not nice guys. They were right wing bullies filled with fear and anger. The hate they projected was almost physically tangible. They did not make eye contact and their speech was formal with an undercurrent of menace.

I am sure every police department of any size in the land has a contingent of those fellows. They are the enforcers, using violence to deal with undesirables. They are relatively safe form reprisal because of the need for police to provide mutual support to one another. There is a code of silence and even lying to cover for a fellow officer. This is more common in some departments than others.

These men serve as instruments of repression, usually to minorities. Their self-appointed job is to keep undesirables in line, using any method they think they can get away with, including murder.in the USA, their targets are usually black, with Latinos and other minorities as alternate targets.

Ferguson Riot

At one time, most of the racial repression came from groups like the Ku Klux Klan, with their cross burnings, beatings, and lynchings. Today, those groups have waned, and another means of repression has replaced them-rogue cops and rogue police departments. Cops and police departments have always been part of the system of racial repression, but now they are the default lynchers. There are no cross burnings on South Table Mountain in Golden these days.

This system has run into trouble because almost anyone with a smartphone can record police violence and get the recordings to the media. The code of silence is broken. In times of unrest like today, the violent incidents are on the television screen every evening, just like the atrocities in Vietnam were in the 1960s. Change in technology has made those conducting the new lynchings vulnerable. The old system of other cops and prosecutors allowing the lynchers to get away with their brutality is not gone, as Baltimore has recently shown, but it’s days are numbered.

It may be that one factor creating the Trump phenomenon is the breakdown of repression. The white working class, already hit by the loss of industrial jobs, is facing competition from people who were once sentenced to remain at the bottom. White working class men once had those minorities to look down on. Now the minorities are on the City Council and the police department.

Posted in Agression, Cops, Fear, History, Polarization, Politics, Race, Stories

At the Crossroads in 2016

Posted on August 2, 2016 by Bill Leave a comment

This is a guest post by my wife, Carol Leavenworth.

At the Crossroads in 2016

By Carol Leavenworth, LPC

Most of the time I try to ignore politics. But this year the presidential campaign has become so bizarre that I’ve been watching with a kind of morbid fascination. How did we get here? How could a man like Donald Trump possibly have become a serious candidate for President of our country?

As a Jungian therapist, I have to ask myself how I and other politically liberal people may have unconsciously contributed to Trump’s success. Observing the contrast that emerged from last month’s political conventions between the Democrats’ positive vision for the future and Republicans’ negative and pessimistic view, I think I have begun to understand why these two wildly disparate standpoints appeal to such vast numbers of Americans.

Garden of Eden

As a psychotherapist I know that the loss of the fundamental safety and comfort that we enjoyed while we were held in our mothers’ wombs is a universal human experience. At birth we are thrust into a world of uncertainty and fear where our needs will never again be met instantaneously and our very survival is not necessarily assured. And life continues to become ever more precarious from there. The story of the expulsion from the Garden of Eden reflects this experience.

Life outside The Garden is filled with danger and risk. Growth is impossible unless we embrace this reality. We must leave our mother’s side and venture out into the world – to school, to work, to new homes that we create for ourselves. That most of us do this pretty well doesn’t mean we are always comfortable with our lives or that we necessary feel all that safe.

But we want to be. A primary motive driving us throughout adulthood is to find the lost wholeness, safety and comfort that some small part of each of us vaguely remembers from the far distant past.

In tough scary times like these, this drive is even stronger. To allay our fears and satisfy deep needs to feel safe and whole we are inevitably drawn to leaders who encourage us to lay down our burdens and give over our struggle to a strong parent figure who will make it better for us. This is a profoundly human impulse, and today Donald Trump is the man who is appealing to that impulse.

Well good, you might say. Why not let him do it? The difficulty here is that it won’t work. We can’t resolve life’s important challenges by giving in to shadowy fears and returning to old dependencies. Going back will not help. In fact whenever we act on these regressive impulses, we risk ending up worse off than before. Think back on your own life. Most if not all of us can find instances in our own personal histories when we’ve chosen what we thought was the safe road only to find ourselves with more problems than ever.

But if we can’t go back, what will work?

It was First Lady Michelle Obama speaking at the Democratic Convention who reminded me of the viable and healing way through dark times. Her remarks swept away the negative and pessimistic mindset that I had fallen into as I watched the nightly news reports throughout the winter and spring. Hearing her, I recalled to myself the truths that I try to impart to others in my work as a psychotherapist. It is the choices we make from our best selves that are the ones that enable us to move forward in resolving life problems, big and small. Even more importantly these are the choices that build the inner capacities and strengths that will ultimately bring each of us to a new experience of the abiding wholeness and safety that can arise only from within. We heal ourselves and the world in the process of creating, developing and expressing our best selves.

Crossroads

The enormous divide that we see between the two major candidates for President tells us that we have arrived at a great crossroads. Eight years ago we made a courageous decision to elect the first African American man to the Presidency. He pulled us back from the brink of worldwide economic ruin and brought us here to the time when we are asked to make the even more courageous decision to elect a smart, politically savvy, seasoned and progressive woman to be our President.

Hillary Clinton points us to a future where we face the challenges that confront us head on rather than building walls and hiding behind them. She invites us all to work together to secure our futures. She affirms that none of the tasks before us can be solved by one person or one group. She does not promise to take care of us. She promises to lead us. And she asks us to dig deep once again and act from our best selves.

When we do, we help the world and we help ourselves. Acting on our best selves out in the world feeds our souls and contributes to the long and difficult task of rebuilding the inner wholeness that is the true goal of our searching hearts.

Posted in Fear, Jungian Therapy, Politics, Stories, Terrorism, Trump

Changes

Posted on July 30, 2016 by Bill Leave a comment

I retired five years ago. I waited until I was 68 to pile up some more retirement benefits. I also waited because I was scared of retiring. When I retired I took two part time jobs which soon went to one. I felt like I had to work. That lasted four years. Now, I am truly retired. (Funny thing, I wrote tired instead of retired.).

Another reason I retired from my career in water treatment was noticing I just was not as sharp as I used to be. I have always been fairly sharp, except for the ADD brain lapses I have always lived with. The lapses were more frequent. One of my part time jobs required constant focus. Not good. The other one was working with elementary school kids, and meant unremitting joy. I gave that job up because I didn’t want to work so many hours, and my bad back was complaining.

Now my back still complains, but I can pace myself more and take a time out if I need to. Right now it’s my upper back hurting after yoga and shoveling a pickup load of wood chips. Today I am going for a walk where it is flat.

About those lapses. All older people complain about them. The other day I made four trips to the basement to get something and never did come up with it. Yesterday I was in the grocery store and upset because I forgot the list. When I got home without some things on the list I found it in my pocket.

Well, there is a reason for this. As we age, our brains tend to shift from the executive function-running things- to inner processes. It is certainly true for me. I want to write, read, meditate, and enjoy happy entertainment. There is a huge obstacle right now. Politics.

Prayer

It’s hard to hold on to my equanimity these days. Usually I deal with negativity by praying for the people creating the mood. I have even prayed for Newt Gingrich. I have yet to be able to pray for His Yellowness. Praying for people doesn’t necessarily change them, although sometimes it does, but it does change me. The changes I experience make me more able to live with myself. I am even less of a jackass on the road.

I have more peace. My body doesn’t work as well as it used to, but I think my mind may be getting to a place where I can actually experience the inner connectedness of all life. I can find joy in anyone. Well, most everyone. I also have trouble feeling connected with the Japanese Beetles who want to eat stuff in our garden. I can’t go above the second step on the ladder because I tend to fall off. Some of the evil critters get away because I can’t get high enough.

On balance, aging isn’t so bad. I have lived a life of constant stress from trying to be normal when I am not. Now, I get to embrace being weird and getting weirder, and love life. Mostly.

I will know I am really on the right track when I can pray for THEM.

Posted in Aging, Balance Problems, Beetles, Current Activities, Equanimity, Health Issues, Meditation, My Story, Politics, Stories, Writing

Japanese Beetles

Posted on July 28, 2016 by Bill Leave a comment

We are being attacked. When the weather gets hot, Japanese Beetles come out and eat roses, hollyhocks, buckthorn, linden trees, and grape leaves. The poor roses hardly have a chance. The new flowers are ragged by noon. All that is left on some of the grape leaves are the veins. The hollyhocks lose their flowers as well.

Japanese Beetle

It’s war! They are relatively new arrivals here in our neighborhood. They showed up last year and this year they are all over our plants. The evil little beetles come out and eat during the hot weather, lay their eggs in the lawn, the grubs hatch and eat the grass roots. Next spring, the grubs become beetles, and the horrible thing starts all over again.

When they hit the peach and vineyard area around Palisade, the chemicals came out and the infestation was stopped. They don’t talk about the harm done to beneficial insects. We try to be organic, so the poisons are out.

The first tactic we adopted is to go out with a small pitcher with some dish soap laden water, find the bugs, and flick the bugs into the water with a table knife. It goes on all day. The grape arbor is high, and I am banned from going up more than two steps on the ladder, so some escape. I am not big on killing living beings, but here is an exception.

They are fairly round with an iridescent shell. Ugly little beasts. At the end of the day we have dozens floating in the water. With a lot of research, mostly on University Extension Service websites, we discovered neem oil with a tiny amount of azadirachtin kills and repels the little beasts.

As the grubs get active in the turf, we are going to introduce some nematodes that attack the grubs. With luck, we won’t have those dead spots in the lawn. The nematodes stay around, so one time for them.

On my bug hunt one morning, I didn’t find one beetle. The fortified neem oil is working. After a couple of days they are back and it’s back to work. The neighbors won’t be killing the grubs, so we will have an annual battle.

If you have Japanese Beetles, neem oil with azadirachtin works. Straight neem oil works on lots of harmful insects, but not without some azadirachtin for our little buddies. If you need neem oil and don’t have Japanese Beetles, we have a couple of bottles we will give you. Good hunting!

Posted in Beetles, Gardening, My Story, Spring Flowers, Stories

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