What a birthday present! I wanted a new supertelephoto lens, a Nikon all-in-one p900, a DJI drone, or, at least, a Hastings triplet hand lens... what I got was the hatching of the Gypsy Moths. I knew this had to happen right about now—years ago, I had written that the cursed caterpillars came out of their eggs when the oak leaves were the size of mouse ears, and that description is close to currently apt—and over the last few days, the tan egg cases became dotted with just-bigger-than-pinhead-sized black larvae. Each is a kind of arthropod black hole into which, if the predictions are right, all foliage will fall. The caterpillars are eating machines, and, unless they're stopped, we might well experience a species of winter in early summer, with completely bare trees and shrubs. But maybe we'll be saved, because it's been off-and-on-again chilly, with plenty of rain—conditions conducive to the flourishing of a Asian fungus capable of curbing Gypsy Moth enthusiasms. The chill mist on the newly minted Beech leaves and flowers is a potential blessing: lousy weather for people, but a present worth embracing.