I don’t actually remember that much about the cicadas’ last visit, in 2004. I remember turning onto my parents’ street and noticing how loud the trees were, filled with chorusing insects. But not much about the bugs themselves. Mostly what I remember is trying to convince bug skeptics that a cool thing was happening. My […]
Nature
Early on a Sunday morning a few weeks ago, my son and I headed out to hunt for morel mushrooms, which are pretty elusive here in New England. Though I’ve searched for them a bit the past few years, I have never yet found them. But I could see from a steady flow of photos […]
In the city, during the pandemic, sometimes this view is my best look at nature for the day. But isn’t it grand? A lovely sunny tree, a starling. In spring: flowers. In summer: cicadas. Throughout the morning, light catches it in different ways. Sometime in the next few years, a new apartment building will appear […]
After my disappointment last week I am so glad to say: The 17-year cicadas have arrived. They’re here! We have bugs. The good people of the Washington Post’s Capital Weather Gang explained that the cool weather has hurt the cicadas. A lot came out when it was too cold for them to molt properly. And, […]
Tuesday evening, May 11 It’s the biological event of the decade, and it’s almost here. The cicadas that have spent the last 17 years underground as nymphs, feeding on tree roots, are beginning to emerge. For the last few days, I’ve been seeing friends’ posts on Facebook, of those red-eyed 17-year cicadas, in neighborhoods only […]
First snowmelt, and a month of dry, but the rain finally comes, and everything is flowers, for a time.
Last spring, I wasn’t sure how to use Instagram. I mean, I technically knew how to use it. When I logged on, it was honestly keeping me going each day, watching everyone try to figure out what to do at home and seeing that they were just as uncertain as I was. People made sourdough […]
The flowers that bloom in the spring tra la. I love them faintingly, I gaze at them, hands folded reverently, such dears they are, oh my darlings, my minor bulbs! Minor bulbs are not the same as spring ephemerals — really their name — like spring beauties, dog-tooth violets, may apples, shooting stars, and Dutchman’s […]