May 28, 2008

Things here went from very slow to very busy ! Gerry from the Massachusetts Cicada website came by on Saturday afternoon with his big black Hummer with Cicada licence plates and was thrilled with how many holes we had. He took a female nymph from Uncle Andy's yard, schooled Janni on a Cicada's life cycle and nearly wet his pants when Taylor Wright told him she'd found a nymph skin earlier in the day. Sure enough she did and that was the first evidence that the emergence was under way. Since then things have been steadily building. The Wrights yard is still the hot spot with 14 Teneral Cicada today, we're guessing the mass emergance will be in the next day or two. Gerry will be down again on Saturday and has asked me to Co-pilot and navigate for him since I know the area so well and he doesn't know it at all. We'll see what we can find.

Emily is working her 9th day in a row today. She's looking forward to having tomorrow and Sunday off. I'm hoping that Sally will get her onto some kind of regular schedule so she doesn't get burned out, although she's still young...burn out is for us old folks !

Dan and I went to RI on Sunday for Zachary's 13th and Taylor's 11th birthday party. The usual group, Dan had fun playing with his cousins. It was good to catch up but I've been in RI two weekends in a row now and am looking forward to just hanging out here at home.

We spoke with Nettie on Monday night and she said she'd already bred Marley once so she should be done by Sunday so we can go and pick her up. She's only been gone a month but it seems like much longer.