Fireflies
Thought of the Day… “What is life? It is the flash of a firefly in the night. It is the breath of a buffalo in the wintertime. It is the little shadow which runs across the grass and loses itself in the sunset.” -Crowfoot, Native American Blackfoot warrior and orator
This morning on my way to drop off The Offspring at school the Owl City song Fireflies came on the radio. She and I started talking about how we bought the song before it was really popular.
Whenever I hear the song, I think of one thing I miss living in the Pacific Northwest… Fireflies. Growing up in Missouri fireflies were common. When I was younger we played a game of catching fireflies and putting them in a jar with holes in the lid… our own firefly lantern.I miss them… they were fun to watch…
During breakfast I hit the internet to find out why we don’t have fireflies… How many hits do you think you get with you enter “fireflies” into Google? Over 5 million!
The first was a YouTube video of the Owl City song, second was Wikipedia, but I wanted a more “reliable” or “factual” site, so I clicked on the third link… a link to Ohio State University.
I learned something… according to this site, they don’t know why we don’t have them here… “If you live in the United States, west of about the middle of Kansas, you are not apt to have the flashing type of fireflies in your area. Although some isolated sightings of luminous fireflies have been reported from time to time from regions of the western U.S., fireflies that glow are typically not found west of Kansas. The reason for this phenomenon is not known.”
Bummer… I wonder how we can entice them to move here?
I wonder if we caught you a jar and sent it to you and let them repopulate if it would work :). I live in SW MO. We have them :). My cousin and I when we were younger used to do that and one night we accidentally let them loose in my grandma's house. We had to collect up 50 of them or better. that still doesn't beat the time we let a bird loose in her house though 🙂
LOL! I just went on a walk with someone and told them about my post. Back in 2007 The Offspring was in the Little Leagues Softball World Series and I asked Mom to bring some – but then decided it'd probably not be good to bring a non-native insect to the Pacific Northwest.
Yeah, I'd accidentally let them loose in my mom's house when I was little. It was not fun to have to collect them.
I'm terrified of birds… the house I grew up in had a window with no screen and one got in the house and we couldn't get it out… DANG! Haven't recovered (it's been decades).
I love that song! I'm also loving how our little conversation inspired your blog for the day!!! When I hear this song it eventually brings me back to the very first time I saw fireflies at Grandma's house. I went out and was able to capture a few and put them in a jar. Being a little kid I was completely fascinated by little bugs that lit up. At that age it took very little to amuse me. Good times 🙂