Lights in the Dark

Big oak trees may have kept the front yard at Tara cool, but when shade is not enough, you can stay cool compliments of the machine that transformed the South. It all began in 1902, when Willis Haviland Carrier came up with “an apparatus for treating air” to control the temperature and humidity in a Brooklyn printing plant. The patent for the first air conditioner, however, went to Stuart Cramer whose device regulated humidity in a Charlotte textile factory. Carrier’s machine became the more successful prototype and his company went on to offer the first residential air conditioner in 1928. Twelve years later, the first automobile air conditioner was made available in the 1940 Packard.

Just thought you’d like to know.

Virginia’s hottest day on record thus far came on July 15, 1954 when the temperature hit 110 degrees Fahrenheit. And then there are the thunderstorms that come in the month of the Thunder Moon. Here in the South, July brings either gigantic frog stranglers or no rain at all, it seems. Case in point was last Friday night when the sky was continually lit up with flashes of heat lightning.

Streaks of lightning shot across the sky in bright oranges and yellows; sheets of light burst on the horizon…and all was quiet. The storm was too far away to be heard or to deliver any rain to us.

When my daughter was little, we lived in an old house that had a lovely screened porch.  During summer thunder storms, I would take her out onto the porch and we’d sit in lawn chairs to watch the fit that Mother Nature was having. The tree limbs would be whipping around, leaves all turned upside down, and the thunder would make the windows in the house rattle.  Sometimes the rain blew in through the screen and we’d get an impromptu little shower that made us laugh, and was most welcome since we had no air conditioning in the house.  We’d count the seconds between lightning and thunder and try to guess how close the storm really was.  Thanks to those times spent together, she grew up unafraid of summer storms.  She has made up thunder storm games with her young son, too, and so he is not afraid of the crash and rumble of thunder either. Wish I could convince Fat Dog that the storm’s not going to get him, but under the bed is the safest place to be, according to him.

While we’re on the subject of lightning, whether you call them lightning bugs or fireflies, those little guys are your garden’s friend. There are several similar species, and the generic “lightning bug” is the official state insect of Tennessee­ how sweet.  Regardless of species, lightning bug larvae, which live in the soil for up to two years, are quiet predators of mites, slugs, snails and soft-bodied insects.  Adult lightning bugs live for only about six weeks – long enough to flash up the attentions of a mate, lay eggs and then expire. You can expect to see lots of lightning bugs from May through July, and then fewer as summer wears on.

Indeed, most of the flashes we see are males. Both males and females rest in low blushes all day and when evening comes, the males take to the air, flashing at species-specific Morse code-type intervals as they fly around. Interested females flash back and the males go to them. Lightning bugs flash by releasing a substance that causes the luciferin in their sixth abdominal segment to become oxygenated and light up. This process was used to develop emergency light sticks, as well as the necklaces sold at outdoor concerts. Lightning bug chemistry has found numerous applications in medicine as well.

By the way, the game children play during summer evenings when they run around the yard with glass jar and lid in hand competing to see who can catch the most lightning bugs and quickly slap the top on the jar to create their own little light show…and the pinching off of the bug’s light apparatus which is then mashed onto a finger to resemble a ring’s sparkling gem…well. I heard a story on the radio the other day about a father who, after chastising his children for catching the bugs in a jar, locked his children in the bathroom for several minutes so they could see how it felt to be trapped, with no avenue of escape.

Let ‘em fly free and enjoy the show from your front porch!