I am Stella, Queen of the Olde English Bulldogges. Someone has been digging holes in the yard and I want it stopped.
Me: Okay, then stop it.
Stella: How?
Me: Stop digging.
Stella: I am not the culprit.
Me: Oh, really? Then what I watched you doing under the picnic table the other day was not digging? You were going at it pretty hard and it sure looked like a textbook case of digging to me.
Stella: Textbook?
Me: Classic.
Stella: Classic?
Me: You were digging. I saw you. Just as I have seen Wiggles, Miss Sweetie, and Tiger digging under the table on different occasions. I don’t really care if that’s where you want to dig and how you want to spend your free time…
Stella: No, no, no! Of course, we dig under the table. That is what we are supposed to do.
Me: Why?
Stella: I have no idea. I think it has something to do with the ground being cooler down there, but I have no temperature device to prove it.
Me: Then why do you want the digging to stop? Just stop it.
Stella: Not that digging! Not that hole! The little holes that are all over our perfect bulldog landscape. All our trails have them. The weird little holes. They cannot be ours. They are the size of one bulldog toe.
Me: Oh, those. Those are locust holes. Some humans call them cicada holes.
Stella: Locust? Si-kay-duh? What? Who?
Me: They are flying bugs. They bury their eggs in the ground and, when the time comes, the eggs hatch and the young bugs dig their way out, each one leaving a hole in the dirt.
Stella: Young bugs? Horrible! Horrible!
Me: They shed their skins and fly off into the trees. You’ve heard them. They make that whirring noise like a windup toy’s gears grinding.
Stella: Horrible noisy young bugs! Wait! I have not seen these holes before.
Me: It must have been a good year for cicadas 17 years ago.
Stella: 17 years?
Me: That’s when these cicada eggs were laid. They have waited all this time for this summer to come.
Stella: Well, they need to fill those holes in. I could be running along and catch my toe in one.
Me: I doubt that seriously.
Stella: Imagine waiting 17 years to set a trap for a bulldog’s toe. To honor their patience and perseverance, I declare cicadas to be the Bulldog of Insects. Now order them to come down and fill in those holes.
Copyright 2017 H.J. Hill All Rights Reserved.
Bulldoggy 