The solstice.. and the longest day of the year is upon us.
This is something magical about summer nights.. the notion that it doesn't get dark until 9pm or so in the middle of the summer season adds to the mystery.
Also adding to the strange feeling of joy, love, teenage fun, and laughter: Those fast cars with the tops down, motorcycles without helmets, and fireflies littering the night sky.
But I noticed something different this year: Less fireflies than normal. It could just be my little place on the planet lacking them so far.. maybe not enough heat has broiled and boiled the landscape yet. But by now??
We would have sees them..
I can only speculate on the cause. Bees are collapsing due to --something> Monsanto? Other animals are having a tough time escaping whatever affliction is being placed on them by whomever. So if fireflies are next, just as the monarch butterfly started to be about two years ago, it would only make logical sense. I certainly hope not.
I recall summer nights long ago, living in my little home town of Centralia, PA, when I would be accompanied in my childhood by my then teenage brother and sister, with their friends, and run into a large field where hundreds of fireflies just sort of hung out all night. I did the whole childhood collection of fireflies in jars.. and now? Those jars are empty.
Those fireflies just don't seem to be there anymore..
But summer is.