Cicada
For once, Fayette County has reason to celebrate being tucked away in this southwestern corner of Pennsylvania, excluded from the mainstream. Had we just been located one county to the east, we’d be under the cicada watch. This is the big one, according to Pennsylvania Agriculture Secretary Dennis Wolff. Just about all of the commonwealth, starting with Somerset and moving east, will be blanketed with 17-year cicada starting May 20 and continuing for two to three weeks. During that time, millions upon millions of these locust-looking, red-eyed bugs will crawl from the ground to mate, lay eggs and die. The larvae then crawl underground and sleep for the next 17 years. While on earth, these bugs don’t go about their business quietly. The males “sing” ceaselessly all the live-long day. The noise, if we can recall from our cicada invasion of 1999, is enough to drive one absolutely buggy. And then there’s the dead bodies that must be swept away.
Wolff, in issuing his warning statement, said that “in areas of heavy emergence, the total weight of cicadas have been as high as 11/2 tons per acre – making it the largest of all the broods.”
And Fayette isn’t scheduled to see a one of them. Isn’t life grand?