Decline of the cicadas
The 17-year
cicadas are finally
on the down-swing. They started flying erratically through the
yard about a week ago, and soon thereafter I began to see dead cicadas
on the ground.
Slowly, the nearly
deafening afternoon roar diminished. The silence started on the
hillside to the north of us where the first cicadas began their chorus,
then worked its way around to the shadier areas. There are still
some cicadas out and about, but I suspect by this time next week,
they'll all be gone.
But not forgotten. As
you can see from the color of the broth we extracted from our first
set of broilers,
that insect nutrition is going to continue to work its way through the
food chain for months to come. Maybe trickle down economics makes
sense after all?
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About us: Anna Hess and Mark Hamilton spent over a decade living self-sufficiently in the mountains of Virginia before moving north to start over from scratch in the foothills of Ohio. They've experimented with permaculture, no-till gardening, trailersteading, home-based microbusinesses and much more, writing about their adventures in both blogs and books.
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Fritz --- We're not actually supposed to have this brood here either. It seems to be a very small pocket of them, not even occurring a couple of counties over. For all I know, they're a species never before reported!
Eric --- "You export the cleaned and dressed chickens to me!" Tricky, tricky....
You're totally right, this is trickle up economics. Much more effective.
I generally love the sounds of nature but I am so, so glad we don't hear those cicadas but every 17 years. They are deafening and enough to drive me crazy.
By the way, I love the Aqua Misers I ordered from you. I was surprised how quickly they arrived and how quickly my girls took to using them.
Aaron --- I see lots of references on the internet to folks who are driven crazy by these cicadas, but I find them restful. A bit like living by the ocean....
I'm so glad our waterer suits your flock as well as it does ours!