Every 17 years – the Cicadas come out in massive numbers after living in the ground for 16 years – this year happens to be the BIG 17!!!!! We have cicadas everywhere – to the delight of both Tyler AND Brooke. The climb out of the ground and onto trees so they can shed their old skin. After that their wings emerge and they drop to the ground and wait for their wings to dry so they can then fly around, make lots of noise, and hope to attract a mate. A Good Strategy in my experience. So – here they are now in the "Tree" Stage 
(In all the pictures when you see bits of brown below, around and on the tree – those are the cicadas - you will see thousands of them. Just click on Picture to enlarge and see the 17 year Invasion in all its glory!)
If I were to place my foot in the grass right by the tree, I would literally step on about 50. When we are standing by this tree we get pegged with quite a few cicadas every minute falling with their new wet wings out of the tree when the wind blows slightly. ..and many times without and wind at all.. The trees are literally left with thousands of exoskeletons shed all over the tree. Its gross and fun!!!
Brooke has named them all “Charlie.” Each day, she and Tyler will fill up jars and bottles and large toy trucks FULL of these Cicadas.
I am told if you microwave them for 2 minutes in the microwave, they taste like almonds. I mentioned that to the head of the Recipe club in our ward as a theme suggestion for June. (Please note the facetious tone in my writing)
Earlier today I came outside to prune the flowers while Brian was mowing the lawn and I had just popped some corn chips in my mouth. Brian went to kiss me on the lips – and after a brief kiss – he immediately backed away and said, “That’s GROSS!” I was baffled, “What?” I said, “I thought you were eating a Cicada!” “What?!?!” I said. “Yeah, I went to kiss you after you have been doing something around the ground, and I just hear this crunching and see your mouth full, and I thought your curiousity got the better of you – and that you had a mouth full of cicadas” I assured him for the next full minute that I was NOT eating Cicadas.
2 comments:
Wow--that is fascinating. Ryan was especially impressed as he loves some golf tournament on TV when you can hear the loud cicadas. . . anyway, as far as eating them goes, in seminary one year, my teacher fried up some grasshoppers, we were learning about eating "locusts and wild honey." Well, guess who ate one--yep. And it tasted like a pumpkin seed, so maybe cicadas do taste like almonds.
Oh man, cicadas. We went through that about 2 years ago. I still remember that sound--like a giant weed whacker, or UFO. And spiders were everywhere because the birds were all engorged with cicadas and didn't bother with spiders. Ugh. When Jake explained to me that millions of cockroach-type flying bugs were coming out of the ground after 17 years and that they'd be everywhere, I thought he was just trying to scare me--it sounded like my worst nightmare! But I'm glad I was around to see it. Who knows where I'll be in 15 more years.
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