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["Donna &/or Kieran" <holycow@cookeville.com>]

"Which would you rather have, a broken leg or a hundred ticks on you?"  One 
of my kids loved to pose questions like this when he was little.  The 
trouble is, we aren't offered a choice in real life.  No one asked us last 
year whether we would rather have drought or hail, we just got the drought 
and someone else got the hail and tornadoes.  This year it appears we will 
be blessed with 17 year cicadas.
    Most of my trees will simply be damaged, but I assume that the pears 
will be eaten up with blight next year if the cicadas have their way.  I 
remember from some 25 years ago in east TN that they like branches of a 
certain size, more or less horizontal.  Some of my very small trees I think 
I will tie with branches vertical.  The next size up I can sew up in nylon 
curtains like I did the previous time.  But that still leaves me with a 
number of pears, and a few apples as well that are too big to wrap whole. 
Some have horizontal branches that I just grafted on the ends, if I lose the 
branch, I lose the graft as well.  I have some old tree wrap, I'm thinking I 
could spiral it on those branches I must save.  Or can I get away with just 
running masking tape along the bottom of the branch?
   Any suggestions?  I'm going to leave some native trees as decoys, trees 
I'd planned to take out but will now wait on.  Wish I'd known this was going 
to happen, we'd have left more.  I made the mistake this winter of deciding 
to tie down my 2oth Century branches instead of letting them stay straight 
up.   I don't have to save everything from damage, but some things need 
reliable protection.  Thanks.   Donna    Z6, Tennessee