We've been hearing them in varying degrees of intensity for about a week now. First over in neighbor Aileen's trees and then over across the street behind Kim's house. 

I got an email from Kim just the other day with the title "Aliens?" where she proceeded to say that she thought we were being invaded by aliens and that the mother ship was close by. She asked if we could hear that noise (like an air conditioner running all the time, she said) and what was it. She said she couldn't tell where it was coming from. Uhm, Kim, it's the 17-Year Cicada invasion. Haven't you heard? I guess she didn't know because she didn't believe me.

Aliens, indeed. They have black bodies with golden wings and beady little red eyes. And yes, it does sound a bit like the mother ship is hovering somewhere close by. They only sing in the mornings through early afternoon which is kind of odd. I don't mind them at all and find their loud cohesive humming rather soothing.

I finally got to see two of them yesterday. One was hanging on the outside of the dining room window screen, and the other was stuck in Bella's wading pool so it made a perfect subject for a photo. I think in the first photo its shadow does look rather like an alien space ship!

I thought it was dead so I tried lifting it out on my finger, but much to my surprise it was very much alive and held on with all its might with its sticky, strong little legs. Ack! I shook it off and it fell back into the water again. I felt sorry for it so I grabbed a piece of wood for it to climb on instead of my finger (which had felt like it was in a vise grip) and rescued the poor thing. I put it on the railing of the deck to dry off and soon it had disappeared—back to become assimilated by the Borg I assume.

And, speaking of being absorbed back into environments again, Rick's mom is now home once again. We are happy to announce she arrived without taking any cross-country detours and with her luggage! We thoroughly enjoyed her stay. More on that a bit later …

ADDENDUM: Steve found this great link to a video of the cicadas, complete with a musician to sing along with them. You can find it in the comment section or click here.

Linked to Rural Blog Hop!

 I took my camera for a walk around our yard after the rain the other day.

Here is what I found of interest.

 Rain Drops

Violets

When I mowed the yard unfortunately I had to mow some violets. I have never seen so many violets in our yard!

Dwarf Iris

A Busy BumbleBee

Blooming "Orange Goo" Fungus

Remember last year? This time I caught it as it was drying up, but still creepy.

MORELS !

Rick found these mushroom gems growing in their same old spot.

Monarchs on Butterfly Bush, Skylands last week.

Remember the Craigslist guy? Well, he called. Again. Rick had not checked his iPhone for messages over the weekend and he had called and emailed on Sunday to say he wanted to pick it up that day. Then he called again two days later. Rick told him we had sold it (which we haven’t) and he said. “Oh.” Guess that’s the end of him.

The train situation yesterday worked out kind of funny. We planned for my sister to take the train from Penn Station (where her Amtrak train arrived) to the Suffern, NY station that is closest to us at a time when Rick would be leaving from the same station within 20 minutes. My sister’s train arrived at 3:43 and Rick’s was to leave at 4:03. When my sister’s train arrived we soon discovered that it would be the same train as Rick would take. They just pull in, flip all the seats to the opposite position and are ready to go! Weird. That doesn’t happen very often!

This strange bug was skittering around on the deck yesterday. I don’t know what it is.

The chlorinated little frog didn’t make it. Yesterday when I checked the skimmers, one had a shrew in it and the other one had two little frogs. When we opened the pool and skimmed the leaves that had fallen Rick scooped up a HUGE frog from the deep end of the pool. Must be that time of year. I hate to find things dead in the pool. Sometimes I can rescue the frogs and sometimes I can’t. Next week I won’t have to worry about it anymore, but it was nice to sit out there with my sister and brother-in-law to have a glass of wine yesterday afternoon and admire the pool.

Back to the train station twice again today: once to take my sister around noon and again to pick up Rick around 7:00 p.m. Good thing it’s a pretty drive which just happens to take me right past the entrance to Skylands. I just might take the camera with me and stop. Stranger things have happened.

How quickly time goes by these days. It seems like just yesterday the whole summer was before us. Now it’s behind us.

Our trees are changing at a rapid pace. Just over the weekend there are more and more trees turning everywhere you look. A little earlier than normal this year. And I don’t think it’s stress, it hasn’t been that dry. Everything this year has happened a little early.

I have a feeling we’d better get busy transferring our wood stash from outside under the tarp to its winter spot under the deck.

Right now the weather is what I call in its in-between stage. It’s still warm outside (and humid), so it’s not pleasant opening up the windows. Yet it’s not hot enough for the air conditioning to run and the house gets stuffy as a result. I find myself turning down the thermostat a notch just so the air will run. Annoying.

I am sort of in-between too. I feel lazy. No energy to do anything. I need a kick in the you-know-where.

The grass needs mowing, yet with the almost two inches of rain we’ve had over the past couple of days it’s too wet to mow. The ground is too soggy.

I could pull weeds or start moving the wood. But …

Well, like I said. Too lazy.

Yesterday I did sort out books from our bookshelves and filled three boxes worth to be given to the Friends of the Library. Now I just have to get them out of the house. I’m in kind of a purging mood. Out with all the junk sitting around! Be gone! Yet there aren’t many places to get rid of things around here. I’d be more motivated to go down in the basement and start getting rid of things we don’t need/want/use if it were easy to just take it somewhere or have it picked up. But the nearest Goodwill is way down in Wayne. Excuses, excuses!

This morning I rescued a frog from the pool cover. Within two minutes he had hopped right back in again, this time in the water. I scooped him out but this time instead of sitting him down on the concrete that surrounds the pool I dumped him out over into the yard. Stupid frog.

After the frog rescue I happened to look over at the front yard and caught a glimpse of a small animal running down the driveway. It looked like a fox or maybe that ugly little coyote I saw a few months back.

We’ve had lots of visitors. Like this deer family that came last week. A doe with two spotted fawns. Sorry the photo isn’t better, they were on the run and this was taken through the screen.

The turkeys come every day. Yesterday in the middle of a heavy rain I looked out to see one turkey huddled under the protection of our burning bush hedge. It just stood there waiting for the rain to let up. Silly birds.

I haven’t seen any bears recently although our neighbors had one in their garage last week. They had left the doors to the garage open and the bear found the dog food that they keep in a garbage can. Maybe I don’t see him because I always keep our garage doors closed!

Well, that’s all I have today. Now back to my super exciting life!

P.S. The craigslist person called again. He wants to pick up the solar cover and reel tonight. Want to bet he doesn’t show up?