THE EARTH KEEPS GOING ROUND n ROUND

As daffodils, rhododendron and flowering trees gave up their blooms, we've welcomed summer in Virginia with the sights and sounds of cicadas and rain.

For those who haven't experienced cicadas, they truly deserve the term "unique." These large (over an inch) winged bugs only live a few weeks. The males create a chirping sound to attract the females and when thousands of them are in your trees, they offer quite the background noise---think very loud crickets. The females lay eggs via slits they create in tree branches (doesn't hurt unless it's a young tree), the babies hatch in a few weeks, burrow into the ground to feed on tree roots (again, normally doesn't hurt the tree). The cicadas return 13-17 years later!!!  (Timing depends on the type of cicada according to my Internet sources) The bug crawls out of the ground when it gets warm enough, attaches to your flowers popping out of the ground, then when it dries, the large bug now with wings comes out and flies EYERYWHERE. No harm. You can eat a cicada. Why you would want to do that I do not know.

And rain, we've had LOTS of rain. I couldn't take my precious camera into the yard when we received inches of rain in an hour. Our backyard is anything but flat so the result was a small but rushing stream about 3 feet wide that moved leaves and fallen branches out of its way. No damage, just yard work.

The remnants of Tropical Storm Andrea showed the east coast who is boss yesterday--more rain--but today Mother Nature is rewarding us with a lovely June day. Walking through the water drenched mulch yesterday, I noticed pieces of dead cicadas. Strange. Beautiful. Unique. The sound of cicadas is lessening. Soon I will wake in the morning to birds chirping without the background bug love song as the earth just keeps going round and round.