Japanese Beetle Mystery

It is with great joy that I report that, given their usual vast numbers around here this time of the summer, that terrible scourge of gardeners in so many places, the Japanese beetles, are essentially a no=show this year. They usually pop out of the ground and immediately start gorging themselves on a lot of the best stuff in June and don't start leaving till about the third week of Augest. Now it is almost August and if they still have plans, they had better start moving, yet I still see only one or two here and way over there, instead of the usual four or five happily chomping on almost every blossom.

But as happy as I am about that, I still feel a little frustrated because so far I have neither heard nor been able to concoct myself a reasonable reason why.

(Unfinished post. When it comes to those scoundrels, as with a similar political gang, I always have more to say!)