For several weeks now, the news stations have been building the suspense up about the arrival of the 17-year cicadas that were expected to come out this spring here in southwest Ohio. Driving around the neighborhood, you'd see small six-foot trees shrouded in tiny meshed netting hoping to foil the arrival of the sex-crazed cicadas who love to deposit their eggs on tender young branches. Any day now they'd say. We had several thunderstorms for a couple of days and they predicted that that would definitely loosen up the soil enough for the grubs to make their way out of the ground and the onslaught would begin. Well, they were right.

Bill and I noticed a few early risers a couple of days ago but yesterday, the cicadas were out in full force. You can see them constantly flitting around the trees trying to find the best position they can to start their mating. They arrived enmasse very quietly through the night. The evidence was there in the morning if you happened to go up close to a tree. Hundreds of cicada shells dotted the trunks of the trees in an uninterrupted upwards flow that spread to the underside of hundreds of leaves. It was awesome to look at but eerie at the same time.

Around the base of the tree were piles and piles of discarded insect casings but they all weren't empty. Upon closer inspection, I discovered there were lots of live cicadas in varying stages of emergence. It was rather pathetic looking actually. I think that a lot of the ones that I saw with crumpled looking wings weren't going to have the fortune of them growing long and useful like they should. It looked like too many of them had come out deformed or that the drying process didn't work right for them. The one with the red arrow pointing at him is one of them that did make it out okay. He just hadn't found the tree trunk yet.

Then there were the ones that had emerged or almost emerged but couldn't shake free of their paper-thin prison and died from the exertion of it. I found one struggling to free one last leg and he just couldn't do it. Carefully, I picked him up and crushed the shell gently away from his stuck leg. Then put him down near the tree trunk. What was sad to see was one cicada who had popped his shell but that was it. The top of his black head stuck through the opening but there was no life left in him when I found him. It's no wonder that they come out in the thousands or millions. There has to be that many to beat the odds.

Bill was reading about cicadas in New York. There's only one area now that the 17-year cicadas come out. The state has become so populated and filled with roadways and parking lots that millions of grubs that burrowed in the ground seventeen years ago can't emerge. They die because they can't break through asphalt.

Another thing I learned four years ago when we lived in Jackson, Ohio and there was a 17-year cicada emergence then was that the 17-year cicadas don't all come out at the same time. They come out in differing years in different parts of the country. This I discovered when I was reading up on them at the time. Bill and I didn't think that we'd be in a different part of the country to experience this again but here we are.

They are rather bumbling creatures. And seem to have no sense of direction. They'll take off from the patio table and bang right into the side of the deck boards. They fly aimlessly about until they come close to something to latch onto. They don't look like they have a lot of stamina either. But I guess an insect that only lives for six weeks doesn't have to have a lot of brain power or muscle.

Two days ago there was nothing. No sound of cicadas at all. Today there is a constant rattle of them. And there will be for six weeks. We have quite a few trees in our backyard and the surrounding backyards but we plan to go to a state park to listen to the cicadas. There it becomes quite a fluctuating metallic roar. Almost like there is a UFO back deep in the forest and alien activity abounding. Bill was quite impressed with the intensity of the sound. Being from Canada, he had never heard the cicadas roar like this. I had. Up in Columbus, Ohio. I've heard the 17-year cicadas now four times. I keep wondering how many more times in my life that I will.

Thought I'd close with a picture of Addy at six-months-old. I've had a couple of people asking for new pictures. I'll get some better ones up next time.