Reading the thread on Cicadas made me realize my response to Keberoxu and Joe about the summer bugs in Cleveland somehow never got posted back then. I was likely more poetic when I wrote that, but...

Yes, we have fireflies around here. I was surprised one night to have one flitting around in my bedroom blinking away. I'm used to the various electronic things with lights that stay on, but those manage to stay put.

We never got the cicadas in in the northern part of the area. Where they got hit HARD was down in the Cuyahoga Valley. I was at Hale Farm for Music in the Valley earlier this month, and had a 10 mile detour farther south than I wanted to go with two exits blocked on 271, and so got to see a large section of cicada damage to a shocking number of trees. There were whole sections where the tip of EVERY branch on whole trees were red-brown bunches of dead leaves, like malevolent blossoms. The second day, I took an alternate route and saw more damage all through to Route 8. At Hale farm, you could see the ground around the base of trees pockmarked with holes.

I do not remember this tree damage being the case in previous waves, where earlier memories were of large numbers of crunchy shells on the ground when I was in the Valley earlier in the cicada cycle. It is possible that the tree tip damage is the cicadas' work intensified by the drought. We are losing trees in great numbers. The leaves on the tree turn that red brown in a matter of a couple weeks, and the tree is dead. A city used to being damp and green looks like non-irrigated California. Lawns are golden straw, with a surreal crop of Queen Anne's Lace shooting up all over. Everywhere I look there are more trees in full leaf turned brown.

A friend remarked that it's not just that we've had a dry spring, but we had an unusually small amount of snow this year, so the saturation that trees usually get didn't happen. I'm watering my huge oak tree that is in great distress, with many bare branches. So far it's stayed green, where there are leaves, but I'm praying. Hard.

On the plus side of nature - my combination of two deterrent substances has kept deer from eating ALL of my daylilies! First flowers I've had in about 7 years! Those remembering the river fire - the best remnant of that is "Burning River Pale Ale" from Great Lakes Brewery -if you like IPAs, as I do. The River has come a long way & this winter Folknet put on a benefit for the Cuyahoaga River Restoration group, with the songs of Pete Seeger. At least 20+ years ago, when Pete played a festival in the Cuyahoaga Valley, I drove him around and learned he was college friends with Congresman Siberling, who was going to take him canoeing on the upper Cuyahoga after the fest. The upper river was decent even then.

On the plus side of post RNC urban area - the bicycles bought for police are being used in patrols regularly. There are some incredibly pretty plantings of blooms that are being kept up along 9th street. The Flats area (where the infamous fire happened) is having yet another resurgence in popularity with new housing and concert venues populating that area. Now if we just had a dramatic increase in employment and wage levels...

Joanne in Cleveland, drinking LOTS of iced tea