Do You Hear What I Hear???
It's the Year of the Cicada...the 13th year to be exact in Alabama, Tennessee, & Georgia!! These little suckers lie dormant underground and every 13 years they burrow to the surface, molt, and leave the exoskeleton you see here.
The sound is unmistakeable...Love is in the Air!!! Looking for a Mate, the mating sound of the Cicada fills the southern airwaves...drowning out car horns, traffic, and all conversation!
Sitting out on our patio last Sunday Night, we had to raise our voices to be heard above the millions of Cicadas. AAAH, isn't Love Grand??
My Grandson and I actually watched one burrow to the top of the ground to wait for the drying off stage.
He and I tried to wait for the molting process but the attention span of a 3 yr. old doesn't wait for a 13 yr. old Cicada to get undressed!
The loud sound of the little critters chirping these days, reminds me of my first summer in Alabama.
The Cicadas were loud and proud in June of 1977.
Here I was...
24 yrs. old...
9 hrs. away from home...
no immediate family...
no friends...
young mother of an 11 month old little boy
and didn't even know my way to the grocery store.
My first morning alone, #1 Husband had left for work and I walked outside to the mailbox to discover
these little"skeletons" hanging EVERYWHERE!!!!!...trees, stumps, porches, chairs, mailboxes,
EVERYWHERE!!!!
Dear God, WHERE AM I??????????????????????????
FAST FORWARD...
SUMMER 2011....
MORE CICADA doing the Love Dance..............
ONLY this TIME...
I know exactly Where I AM!!
I'M IN SWEET HOME ALABAMA...MY HOME!
Blessings
Cicadas can be very shrill, their sound is sometimes deafening! Definitely a sound of summer.
ReplyDeleteI love hearing them though I haven't gotten that pleasure very often. They are here but not in the numbers you have there! blessings, marlene
ReplyDeleteWell they are not pretty creatures are they? I think I like my visual if you don't mind...MINE looked like a butterfly and it was butter cream with hearts on his body...lol
ReplyDeleteeeek, you said everywhere...? I don't see them from here to the forest..but I can tell you I can hear them this afternoon...x
Very interesting, I did not know this about cicadas. We will be visiting our daughter in Georgia this Summer, so I guess we will hear them for the first time! :)
ReplyDeleteThanks for sharing... enjoy the rest of your weekend!
xoxo...Gloria