WTF?

I was up at the local supermarket yesterday, sneering at the tourists, lamenting the lack of goods on the shelves with the locals, chatting to the exhausted shelf-stockers when I saw them...

Easter Eggs!

I'm sorry, but WTF?

The year is but a pup! Four days old! And some marketing schmuck thinks it's a good idea to get on with the next big holiday season? No. Absolutely nuh-uh!

I'm still trying to work out how many ways I can cook with New Year's ham! There are still hidden areas of festive wrapping paper to find (kids are sooo cunning when it comes to hiding good lookin' paper - and busted toys). There are empty beer bottles/wine glasses to find (why do people put them in places where you won't find them until All Hallows Eve?).

Sure, it's chocolate and there's no such thing as bad chocolate.

I'm still in shock. Easter Eggs. In January - mid-summer - with nary an Autumn leaf to behold. It's just not right.

***

Got another shock walking home. This:

dropped out of the tree right in front of me. It's a Greengrocer; a type of Cicada. It may not look like much, but it's head had been scythed off - very neatly. It's legs were still in the process of crossing over in death. I didn't see the creature who did it, but wow! It was so neatly done. Not a bird, I think, but something else. (Of course, the imagination took off and images of a giant Praying Mantis slashing away, or a Huntsman spider - bigger than the hand - going thwack; you get the picture.)

It's supposed to look like this (pikkie from the Australian Museum site:

The head has been taken off just above the wings. Pretty awesome; a straight line that could have been done with a knife it was so neatly done. And yeah, I could have found one of my other photos to post, but this was just so amazing, I couldn't help myself.

This is Mother Nature at her most brutal: a quick decapitation, a body falling to earth and a creature becomes food for the ants. By morning, the body was gone, except for a delicate, iridescent wing.

I love the colour of the cicada; there's also a Yellow Monday which is, as expected, a golden colour.

This new camera is gonna get a work out, I just know it...