The following was written by my late wife Elaine. She wrote a long book, a diary really, from which this is one passage:
Cicadas
The summer air in “the year of the cicadas” – 1980, I think — buzzed and roared with insect sounds. Their noise went on all day, until dark, and then after a time of random, individual sounds, they seemed to synchronize and “sing” in unison with the sound of “Phar – oah” “Phar – oah” (a musical interval of a 5th from the 5th down to the lower pitch) thousands of times each day.
Mom told her friends back home in Florida about this phenomenon and she said her friends looked at her as if she’d left her brains back in West Virginia. Hey, folks … it really did sound like “Phar – oah!”
Cicadas have always started up their chorus about the time school starts in the fall, with “one voice” at a time, signaling fall weather coming, but the 1980 “swarm” was bigger than all the years combined since we’ve lived in West Virginia.
I’m glad Mom and got to hear this once-in-a-lifetime oddity.
Hummingbirds
My favorite little wild creature is the hummingbird. I have three feeders for them, all different, and during their seasons here they keep me busy boiling water, mixing with one part sugar to four parts water. I call “Birdie, Birdie, Birdie” when I stand on my step stool to take feeders down or put them back up. Sometimes we see one or two at a time, but often there are many, busy darting around and dive-bombing each other, fighting over a “seat” at the feeders. I miss them when they leave in September and October.
Our children and grandchildren have been here for family meals at the picnic table near the feeders, and some thought they were hearing bees buzzing as the “hummers” whizzed overhead. So I’m happy that they, too, have learned about the fun of attracting hummingbirds and enjoying their antics and their beauty. I was surprised when my brother Ron told me that they have hummingbirds, too, in northern Minnesota.
Our children will always remember some of the favorite trips we took during the Warrenton years, many times to Cape Hatteras, and annual trips to Minnesota for as long as we had the wheat-growing project. If it hadn’t been for that project, my children and Ron’s children. (Ron is Elaine’s brother.) His children would have never known their first cousins, and would have missed out on all those good times.
Ron still talks about our kids Paul and Erik and their typical brother behavior during a meal once, when the littlest one said, “Mom, he’s sniffing my food.” Ron laughs easily, and heartily, and every time he reminisces about Paul and Erik’s little routines, he still roars.
To be continued…
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About the Author: RD Blakeslee is a nonagenarian in West Virginia who built his net worth by only investing in that which can be enjoyed during acquisition and throughout life, as opposed to papers in a drawer, like stocks and bonds. You can read more about him here.
Photos: Courtesy of the Blakeslee Family
“…the wheat project…”: https://lenpenzo.com/blog/id44253-grandfather-says-the-joys-of-part-time-farming-2.html
LOL Thank you for sharing.
I’d be upset too if someone sniffed my food.
I looked at the wheat farming article. I’m so glad you weren’t on a Green Acres tractor. I have seen them still in use.
The earliest Green Acres tractor was a John Deere GP; Later, the show switched to a Fordson.
My John Deere R was the first diesel engine John Deere. It was started by a gasoline “pony” engine and once the diesel got going, it fired once about every 10 feet in high gear. It had a heavy flywheel, to even out the jerks.