"Bacadas"

As soon as I heard the Cicadas were coming, all I could think was about my sweet Maddie who is screams when she sees a tiny ant inside the house. For those of you who do not have Cicadas in your area, they come out of the ground every 13 years,  and they are everywhere! Chris read somewhere that there can be 1.5 million per acre, which means there half a million in our yard alone. I knew I had to start preparing Maddie, but I wanted to wait as long as we could. They were supposed to come out on May 10th, so the day before I began talking to her about them. We started talking about that they are big bugs that cannot hurt you. They cannot see, so they will probably fly into you. But they cannot sting you (which I later found out was not true - not that it matter to her b/c she screams so loud when one even gets near her that it would not have a chance to sting her). 

But there was another problem, they were ALL over her swing set & all of her outdoor toys for that matter. 

This was day one; we would wipe them off every afternoon and by the next morning the fort would be covered again. The squirrels and birds are having a hey day eating them. We have watch a squirrel climbing all over Maddie's swing set each morning eating them.

Not only are the bugs everywhere, but they come out of their shells and then leave their shells attached to a tree or in this case Maddie swing set. So it became very clear that if we were going to be able to play outside at all for the next 6 weeks, we had to get Maddie something that she could wipe the "bacadas" off with. 

We made a Target run to find a "bacada brush." And the one dollar aisle came to our rescue again! 

 

 There are holes all of my yard from them coming out of the ground. 

 All over the new tree we just planted! 

 This was all of the shells underneath a tree at the end of week1 (there are double or triple that amount now). Not to mention, now all the dead ones are starting to decay and our backyard smelling like there is a dead animal.

At the beginning I thought okay we can handle this, but I will say I am sick of them now. They screech at you when they feel the vibrations of you coming close, which makes working in the yard really interesting. I can hear their "chirping" from inside my house (with all the doors and windows closed). They fly in your car! I am looking forward to end of June, which should hopefully be cicada free.