Holy Cyclops

Now that I’m back from my cruise to Alaska, I’m noticing that we have lots of butterflies around—monarchs, the ubiquitous tiger swallowtails (including dark phase females), and even, yesterday, a spicebush swallowtail.  I haven’t seen any hummingbird hawk moths yet this year, but I’m confident that I will at some point.

The monarchs, naturally, are attracted to milkweed, and on walks to town, I’ve been pleased to see milkweed plants growing at a few locations.  I’ve pointed them, and their pods, out to my nephews, who enjoy walking into town along the old railroad tracks.  While walking there, we’ve also started seeing a few locusts, although nothing like the hordes that have devastated crops in various places and at various times.  They look like big, brown grasshoppers, and when they fly, their wings—almost black, with yellow edging—remind me of mourning cloaks, a lovely kind of butterfly that I remember fondly from my childhood but that I rarely see as an adult. 

At night, especially, we hear the chirping of crickets; and all day long, we hear the buzzing of cicadas.  I love those sounds.  My nephews and I have also found lots of cicada shells in certain nearby trees—nineteen in one of them! 

All of this means only one thing:  It’s the best part of the year.  If only it were like this all year long!  I love the heat, I love the butterflies, I love the crickets and cicadas.  (My nephew likes the locusts.)  Too, my nephew and I have found a little creek in which turtles can be found, sunning themselves or at least poking their heads out of the kelplike mats of vegetation in the water.  In that same creek, we saw a snake the other day—not a little garter snake, but a somewhat larger northern water snake, grayish-brown with yellowish bands (at least, they looked yellowish once the snake was underwater; before then, I didn’t notice any yellowishness at all).  And, of course, there are minnows. 

It is definitely the best time of the year.