What I love about summer - Fireflies
Days 'till Memorial Day: 6Days 'till A Little Light Magic: 7
Days 'till the Summer Solstice: 33
Flying bugs that light up. What a concept. Honestly, if fireflies weren't so normal, wouldn't you think they were something from a sci fi novel?
The first firefly of the season is a happy event. (As of today, I'm still looking for this season's first.) Some of my earliest childhood memories involve stalking through the back yard grass at twilight, swooping "lightning bugs" out of the sky and into a jar. By the end of the night I'd have a natural light bulb! When I unscrewed the top it was so much fun to watch all the little lights drift away.
I didn't realize until about ten years ago that fireflies are an East Coast phenomenon. They don't appear too often west of the Mississippi, and scientists don't really know why. I met a guy from Colorado who had never seen fireflies until he came east for graduate school, and he was fascinated by them. Even with all the incredibly beautiful scenery out west, it seems there's some natural beauty we easterners can call our own. :)
This week's Countdown prizes! Comment on any post from Sunday May 17 through Saturday May 23 to enter the contest for the following prizes:
- The Grail King by Joy Nash
- Fallen by Cindy Holby
- T-shirt with the slogan "Careful, or you'll end up in my novel"
Check back tomorrow for more summer fun! Coming Thursday: excerpt of Fallen by Cindy Holby.
Joy Nash
www.joynash.com
Coming May 26!
A Little Light Magic
Summer at the Jersey Shore has never been so hot!
Labels: a little light magic, countdown to summer, fireflies, joy nash
posted by Joy Nash | 6:00 AM
15 Comments:
Interesting post. I never knew fireflies weren't out west. I wish the fireflies would come out already. We are in the middle of another cold spell, and I'm tired of it. Come on warm weather already. LOL Have a great day.
Love learning this history bits! I'm on the east and when younger we loved to go find grass hoppers in the yard! I could spend a whole day in the yard finding them and sharing them! My mom taught us that we had to at least find two, one to keep and one to give to another child/friend.
I live in Oregon and I never saw a firefly until I visited Michigan.
What a beautiful photo! I didn't know those things about fireflies, thanks for sharing with us Joy!
Love fireflies. In this area of TN a company comes through every summer and buys frozen fireflies that people catch for them. I like to see them where they belong - flying free. When I was in the Philippines, you could see large trees lit up by fireflies. Picture a large oak or maple covered with fairy lights.
We lived in Colorado but I never really thought about not seeing the fireflies.
I can't remember ever seeing a firefly now I understand why being out west. I've always felt I was missing out on something magical.
Joy I honestly did not know that.
I lived in Ohio most of my life, and fireflies is a common site during the summers. It's always a treat to sit outdoors when it's growing dark and see their lights dancing around.
Childhood, our favorite pasttimes was totting a jar with a lid puntured with holes to catch them. I remember once when one got trapped in the house and with all the lights to track their progress.
They are truly missing a great site.
We loved catching lightning bugs as kids, and now all the kids in the family do it, too. East Coaster, and I never knew that they only like it here, interesting. Quite a few times someone snuck down at night and let them out in the house.
I remember as a kid catching them in jars so you could carry them around lighting up! I love when I start seeing them but I have'nt seen as many this year!
Fireflies, I love them too! And that remainds me there is a great book with that as the title that I have yet to read ...have you read it?
Thanks
Darby
darbyscloset at yahoo dot com
Last year, about mid-June, I took my Girl Scouts camping. The campground included a wide, shallow stream. It was hot, humid, and rained lightly for a bit. That night, there were more fireflies near the stream than I had ever seen before! It truly looked like a magical wonderland.
Darby -
I don't know of a book called Firefly, but there's the awesome, short-lived "space western" TV series called Firefly that was on TV starting in 2002. The space ship in that series was a "firefly class ship" and looked like a firefly.
When I was little, there seemed to be so many lightning bugs around. Sadly, there are hardly any anymore.
megalon22[at]yahoo[dot]com
We had fireflies in Arkansas when I was growing up and we have them here in eastern Oklahoma. I don't know if they are in the western part of the state.
That's so interesting. I never reallized that west of the mississippi didn't have them. I love lightening bugs. Especially seeing my grandchilren's expressions the very first time they see one. Priceless. It wasn't summer until as children we had our jars filled with lightening bugs.
Carol L.
Lucky4750@aol.com
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