Life and times on the Mountain:

The yellow plane came this morning, for the second time this spring to spray for gypsy moths. We live in Spray Block 1 and the county mailed us a notice a few months back, so we knew it was coming. The surprise was the second pass at it, but it has been raining a lot lately. The plane came to spray, starting at 6:30am and was quite a spectacle buzzing impossibly low over the house as we listened, still in bed.

From the WaPo story in 2007:

The county has 15 target areas, or blocks, where it's spraying an Environmental Protection Agency-approved insecticide from a low-flying, yellow crop-duster-style plane. Residents living in and around the areas have been notified by mail, with advisories that people and pets should remain indoors for 30 to 45 minutes after the spraying is complete and planes are no longer buzzing overhead. The spraying will not occur during times when children are walking to school or waiting for school buses.

Check out some defoliation numbers over the years.

Oh, and we pay for the entertainment, cough, I mean moth control, some $ .0025 per $100 valuation added onto our real estate tax bill.