Thus It Begins
I sent the ChickieNob outside last week to meet up with a friend. There is a clearing between our houses, and they can remain 12 feet apart on picnic blankets. An hour or so later, she came back into the house. “They are here. They are here. They are everywhere.”
The cicadas.
I had been looking in our yard, assuming that if they weren’t in our yard, they weren’t in our neighbourhood. Not quite. It turns out that they were just a few streets away. Some of my friends’ yards are swarming with them.
We had our first on the front step this weekend—both the actual cicada (which I mostly missed as Josh nudged it away with his foot) and its shell (which I jumped over, shrieking). And I saw them on some of the trees while we were driving.
Since then, I’ve been standing by the window with my birding binoculars, searching the trees like a curtain twitcher (a term I learned from fellow former blogger, MsPrufrock, aka BarrenAlbion, that I think of any time I stand by the window). The twins tell me that I’m creepy, and if anyone looked at me while I was standing at my bedroom window, binoculars glued to my face, they would think I’m weird. Think I’m weird? Is that the worst that would happen? Because do you know that the alternative is that I will not know when the cicadas come to our actual yard?
I forgot that they emerge slowly at first and then pick up steam.
I took a few minutes to sit outside yesterday. It may be the last time for awhile.
4 comments
*shudder*
But…what are you going to do if/when they come? NOT go outside some more? Stop torturing yourself. Assume they’re out there until…Septemberish and plan accordingly.
I’d rather have them than the wasps that are trying to build nests on every part of my house. But if you like, I can round up some of the frogs on my morning walk and ship them to you – they’d probably eat the cicadas. (But maybe not, because I’ve seen them both out there on the street in the morning. Maybe I should round up some of the noisy birds instead.)
I honestly never heard of cicadas until just a few years ago (probably from you, lol). I assumed they just don’t exist in the area of North America where I grew up and the area where I now live — but I Googled and apparently we do have them here… maybe just not in the same numbers as you have them? I have certainly heard the hum in the summertime, but I’m not sure I’ve ever seen one!
(Army worms/tent caterpillars, however… *shudder*)
I’m so sorry Mel. I know how you feel about crickets. Cicadas are crickets on steroids. Abiding (and shuddering) with you.