Signs of autumn

More so than the drop in temperature, it's the bugs that tell us it's fall. 

Cicadas scream their last screams and fall from the trees to twitch on the ground in theatrical death throes before being overtaken by ants.

Joros string sticky tightropes in the trees, catching everything in sight, and growing rounder and rounder by the day. 

And then there's the oak worms. They're everywhere, black bodies writhing on the pavement, often squished by car tires and people's shoes, leaving yellow goo behind.

Phoebe collected an entire handful of them the other day (not wearing the outfit below—this picture was taken in the morning after when the kids remembered they'd meant to let them go again):

When she was tired of carrying them all, she convinced Benjamin to put them in his shirt—flipping the front up to make a little basket. They were transferred to this butter container when we got home, for observation:

In the coming weeks they will decimate the oak trees. They get up in the branches and strip them completely bare, but because of the seasonal cycle of the tree, it doesn't do any damage. The oaks were already planning on shedding those leaves in the near future; the energy they'd gather this late in the year is negligible. So the worms grow plump and the trees go bare and the seasons turn...