They're gone. All the cicadas. Are gone. There is nary a whimper from the trees. Not one single solitary bum buzzing from a cicada. Just like that. They are gone. I didn't realize how quiet summer was till I realized that my ears weren't deafened by the cacaphony of cicadas. Bill's happy. He can sit unadorned by netting at the patio table on the deck once more without fearing that he'll have cicada crotons in his salad or a cicada donut dipping in his coffee. Laugh if you will at the thought. That nearly happened several times until Bill took his meals in the netted gazebo on the deck.

Dusky did a good one this afternoon. Bill called me from work and wanted me to change a port for him on his FTP server. No sooner did I have him on the phone when Dusky stretched out from his hiding/sleeping place behind my monitor and hung us up. Intentional or not? Hmmmmm. He's a funny one. Dusky that is. Well, Bill is, too. Once we got our computer arrangement settled in our new place (we have them back to back), Dusky discovered this little cubbyhole of a fine sleeping place in between our monitors. He is stil prone to hiding when scared so this place provides two options in one. Hiding and sleeping. People don't notice that he's there. Unless they know about it. Usually he sleeps with his head on the left side of the computer not the right like in this picture. The phone is on the left side so that's why he could reach it and hang it up.

Things observed from my window. A chipmunk yesterday. We were wondering if ever a chipmunk would show his tiny face around here and sure enough I happened to be looking down at the tomatoes and herbs that are planted by the garage and this tiny little striped furry thing came running out of the ground cover by the fence. He skirted the low concrete wall and then scampered up it and across the herb garden. Then I lost sight of him. I haven't seen any hawks around here yet so he's probably pretty safe from being some predator's dinner. Hmmm, unless a cat comes into our yard. I have seen a black cat sitting over by the fence on the right. Thankfully, he scurries away when I call out to him. We don't need any more attempts at cat rescue in this household for some time.

We've been watching the progress of a new robin's nest. Two weeks ago we watched three robins fledge out of one nest and then I happened to spy a different nest a few branches away. Momma Robin was sitting on it. We thought that was unusual for two robin's nests to be almost side-by-side like that judging from the way the male robins have a fighting fiasco whenever there is an intruder in their territory. I don't know how Nest No. 2 got away with it but there they are. Two days ago we finally saw little heads popping up to be fed so they will be fledging in a short two weeks.

Now the other baby robins that are a good two weeks old are hopping around the yard and feeding themselves just like the parents. They are as big as their parents and sport nice long tails. You can tell they are the babies because their breasts are still rather dappled not full blown orange. Nature is rather cruel in its own way but it has to be. This morning Daddy Robin had to give Baby Robin a couple of good trouncings. Baby Robin still thinks he ought to be fed by Daddy but Daddy has to keep teaching Baby that he's on his own now. So Daddy popped Baby on his head a couple of times and then bobbed off in search of lunch. Poor Baby sat there in a huddle looking rather perplexed but he got the message. Within moments he was hopping around again and had spotted a nice bug to munch on. A little later the same scene was repeated. I wonder how many times Daddy has to do this before his offspring finally gets the message for good?

Now if only I had tried this on my own kids...