[eskielover]

I don't know how many of you are in the area of these 17 year cicadas that are hatching out right now.......but I can attest for one.....they are horrible. I don't know if it's just because I have a tendency towards horrible anxiety attacks or not.....but the constant buzzing sound that doesn't stop all day. You can turn up the radio & they drown out the radio even.....there is no way to get rid of the sound. I look out the window & they are swarming all through the air & then they are clinging to the screen of my bedroom window...which is why the sound is so close. I have a lot more to write about this, but right now, I am overloaded with other things that are falling apart around me.

Would love to hear others take on this 17 year cicada situation....I know for me....It's driving me crazy & this is just the start.....they say there is 4 more weeks of this. What am I going to be like at the end of 4 weeks if I am feeling this crazy at the begining.

Yikes!!!!!!!
Debbie

[Brian37]

oh boy!.............I can make my famous cicada pie again this year!

now where is my net and bucket............need about 200 to make a good pie

yummmmyyyy!

[LMo]

brian, that is so gross even I cannot laugh...

eskie - that ia one thing I do not miss about the east coast. I only remember one year of swarming, but it seemed that every other year or so we'd find cicadas clinging to the screens and to trees. YUCK. those things are totally foul. ugh ugh ugh!!!!!

[moodyblu]

Last year was our year for them in the upper midwest. I find the 17 year Cicada compelling! I was literally enthralled by their sound when they were at their greatest numbers. I wrote a poem about it last summer...somewhere here...
Amazing stuff to me! I guess my perspective may be a little different...but try to get into them....they'll be gone soon enough...as everything goes...nothing here lasts.
Have fun...enjoy life!
m.b.

[HALLIEBETH87]

oh yes eskielover i know! im in ky too and i want them to go on! thier frikin song is annoying and drowns out my loud care/radio and AC at once! i mean...apparently they taste like shrimp but i wish there was a switch to shut them up. gah. ky life, eh?

[gimmeice]

((((((((((((((( eskielover ))))))))))))
Cicadas are awful, I'm sorry they are hanging out around your house.

[LMo]

they. taste. like. WHAT?????????

[wanttoheal]

I found a yummy recipe for you LMo!
Cicadas Recipe :

Adult Cicada Recipe
cicada
Adult Cicadas can be eaten as well as Cicada Larvae. You should pick mature females for your your dish. Adult Cicada males have hollow abdomens and not much of a meat, but the female Cicadas are filled with lots of fat. Before you start your cooking you need to remove all the hard parts: wings, legs and head. These parts don’t contain much of the meat either but may be very sharp, so its best to get rid of them.

You will need: two tablespoons butter or peanut oil, one and a half pound of cicadas, two serrano chilies, raw, finely chopped, one tomato, finely chopped, one onion, finely chopped, one and a half table spoon ground pepper, one and a half table spoon cumin, three table spoon taco seasoning mix, one handful cilantro, chopped, Taco shells, Sour cream, Shredded cheddar cheese, Shredded lettuce.

All you need to do now is:
1. Heat the butter or oil in a frying pan and fry the cicadas for 10 minuts, or until cooked through.
2. Remove from pan and roughly chop into 1/4-inch cubes/ Place back in pan.
3. Add the chopped onions, chilies and tomato, season with salt, and fry for another 5 minutes on medium-low heat.
4. Sprinkle with ground pepper, cumin and oregano to taste.
5. Serve in taco shells and garnish with cilantro, sour cream, lettuce and cheddar cheese.

[sarahlilianne]

Oh my goodness! I'm so glad that we don't have them here in Quebec! They give me goose bumps I would panic seeing and hearing some in my bedroom screen! Yuck Yuck! Keep your spirits up eskielover! This too shall pass!
Lily

[bflatgary]

Apparently you can get cicada ring tones, too!

http://sounds.cicadayear.com/article.aspx?pageId=26

bfG

[MyBestKids2]

We had them here in the NorthEast about 4 years ago...It was horrible. I was working then, and just to go from the building to your car was energy draining; constantly batting them off your head and body...eeww, yuck, gross..and they are soooo BIG!!!

[eskielover]

They are very disgusting that's for sure.....luckily, they shut up at night.....when it gets dark. I went to a wine & cheese tasting party for the local Fort Harrod Beef Festival that's going on this weekend. It was in the amphitheater at the park last evening.....that constant buzzing was getting to everyone.....even after all the wine....lol. The party ran from 7-9 & by the end.....all was silent....except for the buzzing from the wine....lol.

They are thick flyin through the air....even my doggies don't seem to want to be out with them. I let them out for a few minutes & they are running for the door.

I have read the internet sites about these. I thought the 17 year cycle was the same for them all over the country....but from what some of you are saying....your 17 year cycle came at other times.....maybe it's a good thing that all the 17 year cicadas don't come out at the same 17 year point. I guess the horror doesn't end when they die either.....it says that if you don't clean up the dead ones, the smell is horrible.

I do want to take some insecticide out to one of my trees as it looks like all the leaves will be gone in a few days the way they are going.

I think their sound is relative to the temperature.....as when it was light out this morning...it was still silent....now that it's over 90 out, the buzzing won't stop...& there isn't a radio that can drown them out either.

Don't think no matter how good they might taste...I would ever be able to stomach eating anything like this....especially with all the work it would take to get to the edable parts. The bids are having a feast.....the robin that has his/her nest under my deck.....had a huge one in his beak. That is the only problem with spraying them dead is that I don't want the animals to get hold of the insecticide killed bugs laying around my deck or around the bottom of a tree when I spray it......BUT I FEEL THE NEED TO DO SOMETHING!!!!!!!

Four weeks of this sound....as each lives for 2-3 weeks...& it sounds as though there are 2 waves of hatchings......Information is plastered all over the internet under cicadas......so you can learn every little detail. I thought I actually heard one in my house this morning.....will have to go on a hunt for that little devil....I know he's here somewhere....but he silenced down when the A/C came on.....ewwwww!!!!!!!!

Debbie

[ECHOES]

oh gosh, when I was a kid we would delight in picking the cicada shells off of the trees and hooking them on our clothes.

see what today's hj-tech kids are missing!

.................

[LMo]

wth - ohmygod - YUCK!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

[eskielover]

I found out why the noise is so bad in my bedroom when I looked outside of the family room onto the deck. It was swarming with them....the railing was covered. Why? The bush right next to it was swarming with them by the 100's of thousands.....covered.

I decided that was time to mix up some insecticied.....I pray the birds will leave the dead ones alone but I can't let them continue at this level for the next 3 weeks or I will go more than crazy.

The war with the insecticide wasn't the smartest idea either.....as I took the pressure sprayer onto the deck, I stood there spraying with the wand......& wouldn't you know....they decided to take flight....right at me.....by the hundreds. I had loose shorts on & a short sleeve blouce with a towel on my hair as I had just taken a shower. They attacked me & I stood there batting at them with the sprayer wand as if I were playing baseball.....& of course, I couldn't keep the "girl" scream from coming out. I don't scream at anything.....but I just couldn't keep the screaming back at that point. While I was on the deck, I looked up at the side of the house, all outside of my bedroom. The bricks were just covered with them also.....no wonder they sound as if they are right inside of my bedroom.....eeewwwwww...........grose.......THIS IS WAR!!!!!!!!! I don't care how fascinating they are..

I hadn't been out the back part of my house since the cicadas have hatched out.....so it was really a shock.....then I found several inside of my house....how they got inside is beyond me.....but they were dead by the time I found them...however one of them was doing that buzzing sound this morning....that was the loud sound I heard this morning.

Four weeks of this is definitely a challenge. It is amazing how nature can have such a grating effect on ones anxiety level.....it's been raised anyway lately....so I didn't need anything to make it worse

[TaintedGoth1]

ok...that's just plain gross....I hate bugs with a passion!!!!!

[LMo]

ohmygod eskie - i say we take up a community fund drive to get you a plane ticket outta there for the next 3 weeks. i laughed at your note about the girl scream but i would have done no differently. what a living nightmare. a plane ticket would be cheaper than therapy!!!!

[Doh2007]

Cicada, the new white meat?

Your whole sitch makes my skin crawl. Eeew!!

[bflatgary]

Those are really ugly bugs, Debbie.

[gardenergirl]

We had our 17 year cycle a couple of years ago. The noise was truly awful. Headache inducing. Couldn't talk on the phone outside.

This year a different 17 year brood is hatching across town. Last night I found the shell of one hanging on a tree next to the bird feeder. I don't know what that little bugger was doing hatching over on this side of the highway, or if it got eaten by a bird or what. But if it survived, it's got only a couple more days to find a mate before it dies. Good luck, dude. You're on the wrong side of the RR tracks this year.

gg

When I lived on Long Island, we would get cicadas every August. Same thing every year. You'd find them here and there.... Now that I live in the city, no more cicadas-- waterbugs instead! What a trade off! I'd take the cicadas anyday bc they don't come inside the house. However, I was wondering if someone could explain the 17-year thing to me. What do you mean by that?

Eskie, I have never been in a situation like that, but judging by your description and picture, I can only imagine how horrible that is-- I detest insects.

[TaintedGoth1]

I live in PA and have never seen one or heard one.

Note: I think ALL bugs love the heat!

C'mon, help a city girl out-- what is with the 17 year thing? I would look it up, but I'd rather have one of you tell me.

[gardenergirl]

17 year cicadas are bugs that live for 17 years underground, their larvae feeding on the roots of trees and such until that magical 17th year when they all come out at once for a period of about 4-6 weeks. They are a huge brood, and their only purpose is to pupate, mate, and die. The newborns fall out of the trees and find their way underground as larvae where they live for another 17 years until it's curtain time again. There are so many at once every 17th year that it gets too loud to hear, to think, etc. You'll find cicadas completely covering walls, windows, etc. They don't bite, but they are a nuisance as they fly wherever they want to, including onto your head, into your car or house, etc. And then after the first two weeks or so, it starts to stink as the carcasses of the earliest ones start to pile up and decay. And yes, folks do eat them. You'll find all kinds of cicada related stuff and recipes in the media during the season. Sound like fun? My husband took some great (read really creepy closeup) pictures of them when we had them a couple of years ago. I swear I'm getting out of Dodge next time, though sadly I actually moved to "Dodge" 17 years prior, not knowing. So I've lived through two seasons of them now. Still haven't eaten one. Won't intentionally eat one, either.

Also, there are annual cicadas who are "kin" to the 17 year suckers. They just don't come out in such masses as the special ones.

gg

[gardenergirl]

I uploaded some pics from 2004 in my gallery.
http://forums.psychcentral.com/galle...00&ppuser=5034

gg