Ever since arriving in Mitchell in the first week of May I've felt no desire to cross the bridge into the outside world. Mitchell has held everything I needed; everything I desired. Now, at the end of November we are leaving our outback home; migrating south for the summer. Like migratory birds there is a pull to 'fly' south to our island -- Phillip Island -- but there is also a sadness to be leaving our friends, the warmth of the land and the rhythms of the mighty river, the Maranoa.
On another subject, the mystery of the hairy black caterpillars is solved. They are white cedar caterpillars that spin a cocoon and emerge as a fairly nondescript pale fawn moth. They have evolved to eat (almost exclusively) the leaves of white cedar trees and are considered a pest because firstly, people like white cedars, and secondly, these caterpillars tend to congregate in large numbers and strip away all the leaves, leaving behind a skeletal trunk and branches.
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