Sparks

[mondhasen]

I love watching fireflies. I can remember doing this years ago, when I was about four or five, at a friend's family's summer cabin in New York State. I also remember raccoons in their trash that night, but that's another story.

Two of my favorite books from childhood have fireflies in them. Sam and the Firefly, by P.D. Eastman, 1958, was my first. I spent years, off and on, trying to come up with this title while remembering only bits of the book itself. I chanced upon it in 1997 by doing a subject search for fireflies in children's books.

The second book wove a story around fireflies' lights. A copy of Voices in the Meadow, by J. Allen Bosworth, 1964, was given to me by my grandmother the year it was published. I read this over and over, but my copy was lost in a move a couple of years later.

When my children were young I'd take them out into our woods and fields to see the blinking greenish lights among the trees and grasses. Some nights there would seem to be hundreds! They'd start appearing in June and peak in mid-July. I've seen one solitary little light as late as November.

Tonight the yard is alive with sparks! They move silently through the canopy and some settle in the tufts of grassy lawn. The shrill bats are out as well, chasing mosquitoes mostly.

*sigh* I miss watching this show with my kids. At least my youngest still enjoys seeing these, albeit alone or with friends, and tells me how he remembers those days gone by.

Comments

[c-eagle.livejournal.com]

I remember that first book! Our first firefly encounter ever was in Suriname, chasing them thru sugar cane fields....

[mondhasen.livejournal.com]

I'll bet that was fun! They've always been unexplainably magical to me, a treat to behold :D

[sabotlours.livejournal.com]

"Lightning bugs" were a big part of my childhood summers back in Illinois. I miss seeing them.

[mondhasen.livejournal.com]

I would miss them dearly were they not around. I've been worried that my nature-taming, insecticide happy neighbors might upset their populations, but luckily not.

[allaboutweather.livejournal.com]

Same here! They were everywhere in the summer! I used to see a ton of them when i would walk my dog!