Cicadas are noisy now that the heat of summer is upon us. Hal Borland compares their shrills to “the twanging of a taut and ragged nerve at the peak of a galling summer day, a quiver so painful that you wince a quarter of a mile away”. I don’t mind their noise so much; as kids we always called them *heat bugs* because their calling coincides with the hottest parts of the day.

I was sitting out on the screened patio this evening having coffee when this one flew into the Rose of Sharon hedge nearby. These are big bugs and so very clumsy in their flying! I’ll admit to being a bit afraid of them; as I was taking pics of it I kept repeating over and over, “please don’t fly at me… please don’t fly at me” – of course I spooked it (and it, me) and it took off out of the hedge and I went in the opposite direction.

A few years ago we inadvertently attracted Cicada- Killer Wasps when we replaced our concrete driveway with pavers. The loose dirt was attractive to these digging wasps and I often watched them as they dragged a cicada into their nest burrows in the loose dirt beside the driveway.

Later I wandered into the garden to pick a few grape tomatoes and some basil and found the shed skin of a cicada nymph on the underside of a tomato leaf. I can remember one summer during my childhood when the willow tree in our backyard was covered with the shed skins of thousands of cicada nymphs. My older brothers terrorized me for all of that summer, tossing the crinkly skins at me and putting them in my hair. Propbably explains why I’m scared of them even now.

Take a cold shower

Drink plenty of fluids

Find a shady spot for a nap

Take a dip as often as necessary

This herb is something of a mystery. I purchased it a few years ago at a local native plant nursery because I had read that it was a good plant to attract pollinators. It was labeled only as *mountain mint* and I’ve not been able to figure out today what variety I have. It looks like it might be short-toothed mountain mint, but I’m not very sure of that.

It’s a nondescript plant and doesn’t *do* much more than you see in these pics – no big showy flowers here. Just these tiny white ones that seem mostly to attract equally tiny flying insects that I can’t identify. It’s growing among the swamp milkweed, joe pye weed, and bee balm so it tends to disappear among its more showy neighbors. I like the cool green color of the foliage.

I found quite a few references to the medicinal properties of this plant and one reference stated that it was believed by Native Americans to have strong medicine capable of *reviving the dead*.

I’m not in the mood to fight with Blooger tonight to get it to post more than one pic, so I’m sharing this weird mosaic/hockneyed photo collage I made on Flickr. I’ve always wanted a lace-cap hydrangea and fell in love when I saw this one; a macrophylla/serrata cross. The larger outer flowers have serrated edges which is what attracted me to it – they start out a pretty lime-green and mature to a soft cream color. It should be gorgeous as it gets larger.

I’m using it to replace the Winterthur Viburnum that I planted last fall that died. I’ve given up on trying to grow them – the one surviving is struggling; it has hardly put out any leaves this year, but I’m trying to baby it to keep it going. Hopefully I’ll be more successful with this shrub – it’s planted in moist shade which it should like. We’ll see.

Both my husband and I took the day off from work to go crabbing – I was looking for an excuse to play *hooky* and he offered. It was a beautiful day today – hot, but without the humidity that has been so oppressive all week. Our usual spot to crab is from a little bridge over the Swimming River in Red Bank – further down the river past the railroad bridge you see in the pic this river becomes the Navesink, five miles or so downriver is Sandy Hook Bay and the Atlantic Ocean.

Crabbing requires little investment or preparation, but is a very repetitive pastime. We set up twenty or so traps across the span of the bridge, excepting the middle part of the bridge where our trap lines would interfere with the boat channel below. I watched and took pictures at this point, rather than handle the bait (fish or raw chicken) – left that yuckiness to my DH and his brother. The rest is easy – check the trap every so often, lifting it from the bottom hand-over-hand, and seeing what you’ve caught. There is a 4 1/2-inch minimum size, measured point to point across the back and we throw back any females we catch.

The majority of what we caught today were too small to keep, and these little ones usually fall out of the trap as you pull it out of the water. The keepers present somewhat of a challenge to me, as they often just won’t be flipped into the bushel basket like a cooperative crab ought to. Instead, they find something to hold onto and won’t let go. Shaking the whole trap works, but then you have a crab running around your Teva-sandaled feet. My husband just catches them under his shoe, but he wears steel-toed boots. Crabs can pinch painfully, even drawing blood, and the claws should definitely be avoided!

Here my husband is demonstrating to me the proper technique for holding a crab by the base of one of its swimming appendages called “swimmerets” or “paddles” located at the rear of the shell. My husband tells me the big, snapping male blue claws aren’t able to reach around and nip a finger this way. Once you have a hold of them and are sure the size is big enough and that it’s a male you can then flip it into the basket. Adding a crab into the bushel causes the others to scurry around threateningly – that snapping, lunging mass is no place for your hand! You have to keep the basket in the shade and the crabs moist with a wet towel, but they’ll live with proper ventilation for a few hours until you get them home to the pot.

We ended the day with 50 or so keepers for my husband’s mom and terrific sunburns. My shoulders and the backs of my knees are red like a lobster – sleeping should be interesting for the next few nights.

If you’ve followed the comments on my bad photo post, you might’ve noted that Pam from Tortoise Trail did a little work on the photos. I thought it might be interesting to share the results of her *playing* – hope you don’t mind, Pam!

It feels a bit like cheating to post the same photos twice, but I think you’ll agree that these images are hardly the same. I’m amazed with what photo-processing software can accomplish. I routinely use a basic processing program that is free with my ISP to crop and brighten some of my photos, but I had considered these photos beyond my skills for repair. I also use PhotoShop once in a blue moon to play around with and soften a pic, but that program is so very complicated; learning to use it seems daunting. Being a lover of books, I would really appreciate it if someone out there could suggest a practical guide to improving digital pics – let me know if there is a book that has been helpful to you.

Pam also made a guess at the last (and worst) bird photo. She guessed Seaside Sparrow, but I think it’s a Salt Marsh Sharp-Tailed Sparrow. Patrick is that right?

I haven’t blogged much about birds lately, partly because most of my attempts at photos to accompany an idea for a post don’t turn out well. So, for your amusement, I’ll share some – from bad to worse to really terrible.

Chickadee with young red maple leaves; too dark

Fledgling house wren, too dark again

Great egrets. Lovely birds, busy photo

Just yuck.

Close-up (!) view of a Chestnut-sided warbler butt

Is there even a bird in this pic? Kudos to you if you find it!

Horrible pic of a nice marsh bird. Any guesses? The lores will give it away, I’m sure!

Hal Borland says the bumblebee is “an exponent of the easy life and an example of moderation in most matters” – they are somewhat social, occasionally will collect honey to store in waxen jugs, and are generally even-tempered and not likely to sting. Being long-tongued bees they are able to pollinate clover and alfalfa and will often nest nearby or in old field-mouse dens. In my yard they favor the swamp milkweed (pictured above), bee balm, and later in the season the Joe Pye Weed. Last summer a bumblebee colony was very active beneath one of the pieces of slate near the entrance to the pond – I often sat nearby and watched their comings and goings. On very hot days, groups of bumblebees were found at the various entrance tunnels fanning their wings to keep the colony below cool. Early in the evening today many were napping. Hanging upside down beneath a milkweed blossom or under the big leaves of a pokeweed plant.