I grew up referring to them jarflies. You may know them as annual cicadas, summer cicadas, Dog Days cicadas, harvest flies, or even locust, though a real locust is a sort of grasshopper. Whatever you call them, their distinctive grinding buzz, a whirring cross between a rattlesnake and a miniature chainsaw, is the true voice of summer.
Fact is, in my way of reckoning, summer's season doesn't start at June's passing solstice. No, sir! It officially begins with the drone of a jarfly. A sound I listen for and look forward to hearing—though one which, so far this year, had remained worrisomely silent. Until today. While sipping my morning coffee, I heard the first cicada singing away from some backyard treetop.
"Ahh-h," I said to Myladylove and Moon-the-Dog, both resolutely immersed in their breakfasting, and neither of whom tends to keep sharply abreast of such vital matters, "listen to that strident jarfly's news…summer has finally arrived!"
Fact is, in my way of reckoning, summer's season doesn't start at June's passing solstice. No, sir! It officially begins with the drone of a jarfly. A sound I listen for and look forward to hearing—though one which, so far this year, had remained worrisomely silent. Until today. While sipping my morning coffee, I heard the first cicada singing away from some backyard treetop.
"Ahh-h," I said to Myladylove and Moon-the-Dog, both resolutely immersed in their breakfasting, and neither of whom tends to keep sharply abreast of such vital matters, "listen to that strident jarfly's news…summer has finally arrived!"
