Field Notes from the Worm War #4: Memorial Day Weekend in Worm Vegas

It rained earlier that morning.

By evening, temperatures had climbed into the 80s after weeks of much cooler weather. The ground was thick and warm. Gross! The humidity hung over everything like a wet blanket and reminded me exactly why I left Louisiana. Michelle and the babies went to sleep despite the popping firecrackers.

Everyone is celebrating.

Grilling.

Drinking beer and participating in normal human Memorial Day activities.

Not me.

I’m outside wearing a headlamp, hunting invasive worms.

Something is different.

Different than the previous 178 nights.

I always start in the front yard, which is Zones 1 and 2. With no weapon in hand, I do a slow glide through the area, counting the invaders and assessing the situation before setting my tactics in motion.

Zone 1 was vacant.

This was a surprise.

Upon entering Zone 2, I saw it.

I saw them.

Much larger.

In one night.

And not just longer.

Many of them looked swollen through sections of their bodies, as though they had swallowed tiny worm-sized watermelons. Like when an anaconda swallows a deer. Some of them are stretched completely across the sidewalk doing some worm hot yoga.

It was then I heard the annoying bass from a passing car and instantly became my grandmother.

“Slow down and turn that shit off.” I can’t believe I say that now!

And there’s that group of teenage boys walking down the sidewalk and looking at me.

I suddenly became very aware of how this must look to them.

Picture a grown woman wearing rain boots when it isn’t raining, a headlamp that keeps flickering because I should have bought the expensive batteries, repeatedly smacking the side of her own head to make the light work again, while aggressively interrogating dirt and carrying a sharpened worm weapon.

Honestly, if I saw me, I’d cross the street.

Then came the DoorDash incident.

This entire time I had been on hold with customer service trying to figure out why my delivery was so late. I was so angry at the worms I didn’t realize the music had stopped and someone was on the other end.

Unfortunately, I didn’t realize it.

What they heard instead was me shouting:

“THAT’S RIGHT (bleep bleep)TONIGHT YOU DIE!”

Followed by several additional statements that probably sounded deeply concerning without context.

Then a very calm voice said:

“Thank you for calling Customer Care. How may I assist you today?”

There is no graceful way to explain to a customer service representative that you were not threatening him.

You were threatening worms.

Who are now drunk and doing their dirty business.

The largest worm so far is nearly 23 inches long.

Almost two feet.

I’ve seen black bears.

I’ve encountered coyotes.

I’ve spent years wandering woods and fields in Cambodia and other remote corners of the world.

Yet somehow, a two-foot worm remains one of the most unsettling things I’ve ever come across.

But the size wasn’t the most interesting part.

The feeling was.

What started as curiosity has slowly become something else.

I know these patches now.

I know where the worms emerge first.

I know which conditions make them move.

I know what normal looks like.

Which is why nights like this get my attention.

Everything about the evening suggested I was witnessing some kind of biological event.

The unusual activity.

The sheer numbers.

The swollen segments.

The synchronized emergence after rain and heat.

I don’t know exactly what was happening.

I just know that after a year of observing these aliens, my instincts keep telling me to pay attention.

By the end of the night, I had removed 217 jumping worms.

And that’s where the math starts becoming uncomfortable.

Even conservative estimates suggest that a single mature jumping worm can contribute dozens of offspring over a season.

Two hundred and seventeen worms suddenly becomes thousands.

Thats —-> tens of thousands.

That’s when this stops feeling like gardening and starts feeling like population management.

Most people still haven’t heard of jumping worms.

But they’re here.

They’re in parks.

They’re in preserves.

They’re in gardens.

They’re in forests.

And if my tiny yard can produce this level of activity after a single rain-and-heat event, it’s difficult not to wonder what is happening across hundreds of acres.

This blog (I still hate this word so not using us) this is to become my field journal.

A record of what happens when someone pays attention to these invaders.

And based on what I saw tonight, I have a feeling things are only going to get stranger from here.