We have these beetles that tell us when it's going to rain. They're pretty accurate too. They can predict rain about 30 minutes before it happens. We call them "Rain beetles", but they are probably some relation to the June bug. They're huge--about 2-3 inches long and about 1 1/2 inches across. They have antlers--well, maybe they're antennae. Anyway, they're scary, freaky looking.

You can tell it's going to rain because they fly at the windows and hit them with a big thud. They do this over and over again until they knock themselves silly. In the morning after the rain you can find them all over your front walk lying upside down. One time I found about 13-15 of them in a cat bowl that was left outside. The cats didn't eat them, so I'm assuming they aren't too tasty. Another time when we were getting gas at the local gas-mart, my dd and I went to get a soda from the machine. When I looked down in the place where the soda can comes out, it was full of these beetles. We decided to pay the higher price and go inside the store to buy our sodas.

Apparently, they live in the ground and come out when it rains. I'm not going to pursue finding out more about these...ahem....interesting creatures. I hate looking close up at bugs. I could never be an entomologist!

I don't know of what use these bugs are. I'm sure God had something in mind when He created them. So far, the only use we can find for them is to put them in the bottom of a gel candle as a freaky gift from our quaint little town. I'm sure we could sell them on the web if we tried. After all, if you can sell tumbleweeds, I'm sure you could sell bugs in gel candles.