Ewwww Cicadas!

The 17 year locust (cicadas) are here! They've been around for the last few weeks, mostly over in the Lake Geneva area. We took the Youth Group over tonight to see them , since none of these kids have seen these in their lifetime, and the next time they will get a chance is when they are about 29 or 30 years old.

Here is a bag of them I collected for my son to take to Camp where he'll be a counselor this summer... it will be interesting for kids to see them, I think...although they will probably all be dead by this weekend....they say the infestation will probably be winding down by the end of this month anyway.

When I went to Lake Geneva this afternoon to find good places to take the kids, the cicadas were "singing" up a storm then, they were very loud. But they evidently quiet down at night... that is, unless you pick them up by the wings and stick them in a plastic bag...then they "scream" and make a lot of noises. *L*

Did you know you can eat these insects? Blech!! Experts say that the best way to eat cicadas is to collect them in the middle of the night as they emerge from their underground burrows and before their skins harden. When they are in this condition, like soft shell crabs, they can be boiled for about a minute, and they are said to taste like asparagus or clam-flavored potatoes.

Guess since we gathered ours in the early evening, IF we decide to eat them, they'll be tough, and not as tasty eh?...*L*

Here is a skeleton of one of the cicada's on a leaf. There were hundreds of them all over on the ground, I remember when I was in junior high school seeing the cicada shells stuck to trees up near my aunt and uncle's cabin on Lake Wisconsin.

Anyway... it was an interesting Youth Group night as we explored the strange things that God has created, and learned a bit more about them too...*S*