The June Extravaganza - Flora, Fauna, and a Cicada Explosion

Though the flowers are not in full bloom, bright colors and textures could be had.  We had a very busy week and tons of pictures were taken so I thought it best to break things up a little bit.  What a hot and humid week...   Great for growing things though!  Here and there I managed to poke around the gardens and took a walk or two to see what could be found.

Little man and I set out to explore some of the 17-year cicadas that are out and about in hoards right now.  It was very cool experience - I was around 17 last time these little fellows came out to play and I am glad that their current arrival came about during a time where little man is so into bugs and could really appreciate it! This was the first cicada he caught. I say "caught" loosely though - if you stood still long enough you could bet on at least one landing on you. He took little time in showing the cicada to his cousins, Z and H.

 

This is the one I named Kristoff. Little man was swimming in the lake (more on that later) and he (?) landed on the dock, hung out, and proceeded to fly right into the lake.

 

 

 

Evidently Kristoff is a bit challenged in the navigation department... Little man took one look at the poor drowning cicada and jumped into the lake to save him, and save him he did (after he dunked him a time or two while swimming back to the dock...).

 

 

 

I don't know if Kristoff was just too traumatized by the experience to fly or what, but he hung out on me for a few hours instead of flying off again.  After a while, I took him to a tree to climb onto since I didn't think my MIL would appreciate a house cicada.

 

 

 

I love the wings. I have a knitting project or two formulating in the 'ol noggin as we speak to highlight some of their wing attributes :)

 

 

Little miss even got in on the cicada action.

 

 

One of Kristoff's friends dropped by for a visit as we were heading to Kristoff's new tree.

 

 

There was one area in particular that was absolutely deafening to walk through due to all of the cicadas. There had to be at least a couple hundred in one little bush so you can only imagine how many there were in the tree above... Little man grabbed a few to take back to the house and we let them all go after he showed them around to everyone.

 

 

 

These were scattered everywhere.

 

 

 

I grabbed a bunch and am planning on creating some sort of artwork with it. I have a few ideas, I just have to see about materials so stay tuned for that.