2013 welcomes the cicadas.  They started to come out last week in small bunches, then the cold stretch of weather, but now in the heat they are coming out in groves.  Sabra has been taking pictures of them in  every stage - coming out of the shell, hanging upside down all white except for two black dots like eyes, and then the red eyes.  Yes, the little girl that used to capture wooly bears in her big purse, now captures them on film.  The Kingston Freeman printed two of her pictures of the cicadas right on the front page "photo by Sabra Ciancanelli".

But she doesn't stop there - when ants were attacking one still in the shell, she threw her coffee on them and moved him to safety.  When she read that they need high grass or something to climb up to rid themselves of the shell, she put sticks in the grass for them to climb up.  She even helps some of the struggling ones get out of their shells - a regular cicada midwife.

They ARE amazing - I myself can't get enough of them or am tired of seeing them hanging upside down in the early morning - that's when they emerge.  The trees are full of them at seven or eight in the morning, and then in a few hours, they are the black cicadas, starting to fly.  Birds are having a field day, especially cedar waxwings, waiting in the trees, and when they see one fluttering by, as if in a drunk stupor, swoop down and easily pick them off. 

So it's a regular jungle out there  - as in the song that starts the Monk show....I myself think of them as religious symbols - rebirth, souls leaving their old shell of a body, to go to a better place, mate, die, eggs go underground for SEVENTEEN years, and then the cycle repeats. Why don't I remember this from the past 5 times this has happened since I have been with them on earth?