What a Weird Summer. Again!

Due to personal and family commitments, I have not been able to do much in the way of posting blogs. Things have however reached a point of unusualness that I felt compelled to write about the unusual happenings which are occurring once again this summer. Now in the summer heat, the southern hemisphere is sweltering under high temperatures, often a lot higher, then previously recorded. Many new records have been broken, for heat. And believe me, it is no fun being in 35°C weather, and like I was last week with a very irritating dose of the summer flu. Our sympathies also go out to those in Australia, our southern hemisphere counterparts who are suffering the worst conditions than we are. We have had a few scrub fires bursts out threatening a few houses, but nothing to compare that frightening scenarios currently running its course in Australia. I wept, for the amount of wildlife that perished in these fires. But here is where things start to get weird again, last year we were inundated with crickets, cicadas and other chirping insects. They were literally everywhere in the garden, venturing at times into the house and hiding among the garden weeds in vast numbers. The sound of the song was a continuing deafening noise would reverberate, both day and night without let-up. This is where a familiar problem arises. This year, there are no crickets, cicadas or any other chirping insects. It was only a couple of years ago, that for some reason insect species such as ladybirds and praying mantises became an absolute rarity, which I have not seen many of this year as well. During this time, if you do not mind me indulging your patience via a flashback to then, we had unusual reports of animal attacks on humans in areas with this wouldn't normally happen. Bats attacking two young men in Rotorua, no doubt drven into the city areas by lack of their natural food, insects. Will we hear more of these occurrences this year; we still have a while to wait, with our hottest month being February. The drought we're currently having is causing havoc for many wetland creatures as at the time of writing. There does not seem to be any relief to the East Coast of New Zealand from this desert like grip which is cruel to man, beast, and plant. Even the usual grass grub beetles never showed up in the numbers that they usually do in November. My friends, we are looking at a totally new world with new seasons and new conditions, and as I do so. I wonder how things will adapt, especially us humans.