Dairy Daze...and Now Beyond

  The emergence of the cicadas is pretty much over.  They say they live for 2-4 weeks, so there are still yet many of them yelling loudly every day.  There are also still husks hanging around.  This one was on Gary's aunts little front yard fence.  I don't know how it managed to get up there, crawling on the wire like that.  They are the clumsiest things when they emerge from the ground.  On occasion I'd find one that had fallen into the dog's water in her kennel.  But they are determined.  We didn't have that many here around the immediate vicinity of the house.  I have wondered if it has anything to do with the fact that the trees here around the house keep dying or getting blown down.  Ellen says that down by the river where she works cleaning cabins the cicada husks were so thick that they crunched underfoot.  Maybe they prefer being close to a water source?   There also have been reports of them attacking people ...

 Magicicada Tredecim is the official term for what the locals here call; "locust." Never mind that a locust and a cicada are two radically different creatures.  The year 2024 is termed by the older residents of Missouri as a "Locust Year;" meaning that the 13 year periodical cicadas are emerging. The picture above is of a nymph crawling up a tree trunk after having emerged from the ground beneath where for the last 13 years it has been feeding on tree root sap.  It likely crawled up and "hatched" into the winged form of the insect, leaving the husk still attached to the tree.  It amazes me that this little guy has been down in the ground all this time as we have walked around over his head living our prosaic lives while he just chills on tree roots.  Somehow, one of God's own miracles, they count off the years and all emerge during two months in the same summer.    There is a 17 year cicada, but a quick Google search didn't tell me whether there is...