New York City may be densely populated with people, but the cricket density is pretty darned low – like maybe one cricket in the whole darned city – and guess where it is? Yep – it’s on my rooftop.
This means that while you folks in rural America are being serenaded to sleep by a soft background hum of millions of crickets –
here’s what I have to listen to –
Any suggestions on how I’m supposed to get to sleep tonight? How long do crickets live, anyway?
Oh, Peggy, that is one very, very loud cricket. But will you get sympathy from those of us who once lived through a 17-year locust invasion in Maryland? We retired from noisy Amsterdam Avenue–only ambulance/fire/police sirens– to another kind of urban rooftop in Portland, Oregon, where we grow tomatoes. What synchronicity to see your roof as I wrote about our “crop” here. My expectation was one of your delicious food concoctions or medical musings.
In China, I purchased a number of cricket cages…
Naomi –
Just returned from visiting your fair city, had an idea I should move there myself. What a wonderful place it is! Loved seeing your tomatoes, and happy to meet another fellow rooftop gardener. Think I’ll hold off on the cricket cages…
Peggy
Oy, that would drive me nuts. This is a male cricket looking for a girlfriend.
Any pet stores around where you live? Ones that sell live crickets as food? I say get some live crickets, release the females into your garden — they won’t add to the noise because only males chirp — and hope that Mr. Bachelor finds a girl who makes him happy.
Note: girl crickets have three little prongs off their hind end; boys have two. Google “how to tell the sex of a cricket” for photos.
Annapolitan-
If I got a female, they’d have babies and with my luck, an only child, who would outlive his father and continue this racket ad infinitum!
Hopefully he will find a mate and they will fly off together somewhere. Soon.
Thanks for reading!
Peggy
I thought you were going to tell us about a NYC sporting event!
🙂
Dr. P,
I’d love that cricket. Would be great white noise for my postmenopausal sleepless nights!!
Peg, we have had a few in the basement all summer. When we are relaxing upstairs, we can hear them chirping loud enough to hear it outside!
Buy a lizard and set it free on the roof. Bye bye Jiminy!
It’s not murder, it’s the circle of life…
Maybe he just needs some cricket friends so that they can serenade you in unison. The sound of crickets (or cricket) reminds us of A Cricket in Time Square-a favorite book of ours. We would cut the little guy some slack…they are good luck after all!