I guess it's now legit to say that we've officially entered the "Dog Days," the hot and humid time of the summer at which the dog star Sirius rises at dawn and the weather starts driving canines and their owners insane. The other indicator of the arrival of mid-summer is the constant electric whining of the cicadas, those remarkable insects that take over the tree canopy and "sing," if you can call it that, all day and sometimes into the night. It's actually quite rare to see one of these creatures, but, aside from hearing them, you know they're around from what they leave behind. For most of their lives, cicadas live as subterranean larvae and tap tree roots for sustenance and development. Somehow they know that the middle to end of July is their time to tunnel out of the ground, head up the tree trunks and, in this case, a cedar bench, and break free of their adolescent garb. The cicadas are leaving their kid clothes behind—perfect replicas of what they'd been wearing—and heading towards the serious business of mating and making the next generation.