We're Being Invaded By Aliens!!

Ok, we're not being invaded by aliens, but we are being invaded by cicadas.  Every 13 years, the cicadas emerge from their eggs in the ground and start buzzing around here like crazy.  That means the last time they were out in force like this was 1998.  I was 19 years old. 

If you've never seen one, they look like this:

Don't you love the creepy orange eyes?

Pretty little things, aren't they?  They're probably about an inch and a half long - pretty big bugs!  As I'm running (usually 4 miles every day with the babies), the stroller crunches over some of these guys.  It's impossible not to hit at least a few of them every day.  Yuck.

The males are making this creepy buzzing and humming sound because they're mating.  Around here, it honestly sounds like War of the Worlds or something.  It's a constant reverberating sound that you can hear every time you step outside.  Apparently, people around here keep calling 911 because they think that it is some kind of siren.

I remember, as a child, collecting the shells that the cicadas would leave behind as they moult.  Now, they gross me out a little bit, but I guess I can deal with it if our kids want to collect these things someday.

Cicada Shell.  Yum.