June 20, 2007

I have decided that I love Cicadas! I thought about their last visit and just can't conjure up a visual memory. So now I am making the most of their 2007 appearance. I've been taking pictures of them and trying to tape their sound (not much luck) but mostly I've just been studying them. The best part?- to see them fly around because they look like big fat hummingbirds. I find them - cute - in a stumbly bumbly kind of way! They just fly around and bump into things. A friend of mine lives in an area with lots of old trees. Her house is on a wooded lot so when I went to visit her recently I was amazed to see all the flying Cicadas! It looked like flocks and herds and hordes! They were so beautiful and yet fragile and the sound they made was wonderful! The sound I remembered - it was a summer sound! Now today I found them climbing up the tree in front of my house and I noticed that they are much better at climbing than flying. They seem very purposeful - they know where they are going and what they are about! I've also been engaging in Cicada Rescue ( a quilter friend told me all about this new organization) when you see a Cicada on it's back just roll him/her over! Isn't it a pity that they just can't do this manuver on their own. It seems to me that this is the least we can do after these bugs have waited 17 years to see the light of day! But I've also decided that I did not like the stage where they climbed out of the ground. I happened to be at an OUTDOOR party, (100 degree heat and 100 mile an hour winds) and I noticed the Cicadas hanging on the wooden fences. Someone at the party said look down ........ EEK, UGH .... the cicadas were coming up out of the ground .... it was a chilling scene of an alien invasion from a horrible sci-fi movie ! It creeped me out! But in another way .... I couldn't look away .... I was mesmerized by their quiet desperate journey. (Will this be the next Disney movie?)