Along with the excitement of school comes the inevitable cricket invasion. When we moved into our new house last year we hoped the large crickets we found hopping around our house every morning were a casuality of buying a house that had been unoccupied for three months while it was being sold.

Apparently that was wishful thinking on our part.

First, I’ve never seen crickets this big! When I think of these annoyingly loud creatures, I think outside, under a bush, little jimmy-cricket - and I mean little. NO. My crickets are pushing the two-inch mark!

Don’t get me wrong - it’s not like we’re infested with them (and my neighbors tell me, some years are worse than others…sheesh, like that matters? It just takes one to drive me batty!) My cat does love to play with them, usually breaking a back leg so it can’t hop away from him while he bats around the kitchen. When he’s done he usually steps on it, putting it out of it’s misery and leaving it for me to clean up.

All in all, I do prefer the chirping of the cricket over the roar of traffic we heard non-stop at our last house. Rural living does have that country-quiet going for it most of the time…