The trees are bleeding again. It must be summer in Brookside.
In what appears to be a recurrence of this 2006 outbreak, trees in portions of the north Stockton development are once again covered in a glaze that drips onto sidewalks and, depending on your level of tolerance, is either a big problem or a just a weird phenomenon.
We noticed it the other night while tromping around Nelson Park. The sidewalks there were worse than walking the aisles of Candlestick Park after a 49ers-Raiders exhibition football game.
Leaves from a backyard deciduous tree are sticking to my back patio like postage stamps. They’re sticking to the dog, too, who has managed to track them into the house. She’s a border collie mix, with enough fur to bring in an entire tree’s worth of leaves in one evening.
The culprit for all this is probably the woolly aphid, a bug native to Asia but discovered in California in 2002. The insects perch on the leaves of hackberry trees and secrete wax over their bodies, for breeding purposes. The aphids then excrete honeydew all over the leaves and anything under them.
Here’s a file graphic which we published in 2006:
“It’s just terrible. It’s like pancake syrup. We’ve been tracking it into the house,” Bridlewood Circle resident Leo Gutterres told me in 2006.
I don’t know if the city has sprayed for aphids this year. It didn’t in 2006, saying it had a choice between spraying and planting new trees. Concerned residents can, however, apply an insecticide next spring around the base of their hackberry trees, to prevent this from happening again. Keep in mind that insecticide will also probably go into the storm drains.
I’ll stick with my sticky sidewalks, thank you very much.
How to describe the Delta?
University of California, Santa Barbara
County Supervisor Ken Vogel, a frequent Facebooker, wrote today about a seven-hour bus tour of the Delta with members of the new Delta Conservancy board and staff.
“We looked at levees, waterways, small Delta Towns, agriculture, wetlands, etc and it reinforced my belief in how important the Delta is to our area and how vital to the economies of the 5 counties where it is located!” Vogel wrote.
I was in the Delta today, too. Actually I live within the secondary zone, so I guess I’m in the Delta every day. But this was the real Delta.
I stepped into a bar at Vieira’s Marina hoping to talk stripers and salmon with a couple of guys finishing up lunch. They were more interested in Wednesday’s dove season opener. This year’s harvest is expected to top 1.5 million birds.
Says one guy: “We just got back from dove huntin’. Only caught one.”
Says the other: “You wanna come to dinner? We’re gonna wrap it up in a lotta bacon.”
I agree, Supervisor Vogel. The Delta is important and vital. But it’s much more than that. It’s more than any adjective popular in the bureaucratic vernacular can describe. The Delta is, well… real.