Oh, I saw the first lightning bug tonight!!
It signals to me the beginning of the best time of the early summer.
Days are warm (though today was almost 90) and the nights are
still cool and breezy.
It brings to mind childhood pleasures and memories of good times.
Sitting by the fire alongside the river watching the fireflies and dodging the smoke.
And I must share the story of the magic holler.
The last place we lived in the mountains was the home of fireflies.
We lived on a rise above a flood plain of a creek. Another low ridge was across the road and across the field. In that low place on a summer night gathered thousands upon thousands of fireflies. They would start the evening down in the pasture along the creekside. The ground
glowed and twinkled until well after dark. It was if you could step across it and your feet would
glow and the light would almost splash beneath your toes.
As the evening went on the fireflies would move further up the ridges on either side of the holler
and settle in the trees.
To look out across the field and up to the ridge top was like being in a huge arena with thousands of flashbulbs flashing all around you. They would continue that deep into the night accompanied, during breeding season, by 4 or 5 Great horned Owls hooting from ridgetop to ridgetop... an eerie, mournful chorus.
And the crickets kept a steady hum and scree the whole evening and in the late summer
they would be drowned out by the cacophony of cicadas.
And all the time the burble and song of the creek that ran behind and beside the house and the frogs and toads that croaked mellowed the heart and calmed the soul with cool murmurs.
What a perfect way to spend the evening, sitting in the yard being washed from head to toe in a cool mountain breeze while all of nature gave a show.
Great. Now I am homesick.
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