Tuesday I went in to Quincy.  First was an employees meeting to discuss our health benefits.  Costs are going up.  No surprise there.  I met with a prospective student and her mother.  It went really well.  I hope she comes to QU; I need the environmental majors.  I met Leo for lunch, then we went to a friend's house to dig up some plants and transplant them to our prairie.  That added about 40 plants and two new species to the mix.  Overall, the prairie looks pretty good.  All the plants appear to be alive, and we've had some intrusion by weeds, but only small annuals so far.  It was raining lightly, so we didn't have to water the plants.  It kept us cool, too.   I ran some errands, went home, took a nap, and went to a swim meet.  I volunteered to be a timer, since I hadn't yet this year.  We had a 30 minute interruption after some lightning, which meant we didn't get done until 9:30.  That was a long meet.  Savannah won breast stroke, as usual.  She won her heat in 50 yard freestyle, but not the race.  She had a new boy friend over after the meet.  Seemed like a nice guy.  At least he likes to fish.

Wednesday morning I woke with a big headache.  I don't know if it was the swim meet or the lack of a proper dinner that caused it.  Maybe both.  I worked on the computer for most of the day, grading papers and stuff.  I did take the camera with macro lens and ring flash out in the yard for awhile.
My little honey bee.

If this is Royal Catchfly...

...this must be the royal fly.

Cosmo in the front yard.
Thursday I did little projects until the guy showed up to make an estimate on replacing our gutters.  After lunch I went down to Capps and played musical phones again.  Now I have a new Razr and Stacey has my old phone.  Not long after I got back, Fedex showed up to deliver Stacey's 26 boxes of 43 lb each.  I stacked them in the garage.  The delivery person was one of my former students, so It was good to see and talk to her (in person, as opposed to on Facebook).   The boxes are full of big coffee mugs with Census 2010 printed on them.  Stacey gets to give them away.  I walked over to my truck, which I had parked across the street the previous night, to get my GPS.  My neighbor happened to be coming out to her vehicle and she mentioned that there had been a bag of trash on my truck earlier, but it had been removed.  She said she had been having problems with these other neighbors (renters of a beat-up old house).  I opened the door to get into the truck and noticed my windshield had been broken.  Right in the middle, like a big spider web going top to bottom.  Great.  I've never had a problem with these neighbors, but it's possible they don't like me parking next to their house, even though it's a public roadway.  A little later the refrigerator quit.  Turned out the GFCI outlet had tripped.  Actually, Stacey figured that out.  I reset it and it tripped again a few hours later.  Something's going on.  And then I was washing a snake water bowl and dropped it in the sink, breaking it.  My good luck trend is clearly over.

Friday morning I loaded up the kayak in the truck and drove out to Ewing reservoir, only to find it was closed.  I continued on to Deer Ridge, as I was more than halfway there.  It was an incredibly cool day, and lovely.  I saw lots of wildlife.  I went around the entire lake in the morning hours.  I was using a black buzzbait and a small, purple spinner.  I caught 10 bass, only one of which was over 12 inches.  That's typical for Deer Ridge—no big fish.  I had the most fun in a shallow arm where a creek feeds in.  There were a bunch of minnows in there.  I think I pulled three out of that spot.  It turned out to be a windy day too, which is great when going with the wind, but difficult when going against it.  If I had had a sail I really could have made time across that lake. 

This Eastern Kingbird let me pull the kayak right under its tree.  Actually, it was chasing my lure on every cast.

After I came home and ate lunch I ran a load down to the brush dump.  I brought back a trash can full of dirt and a huge sheet of black plastic.  Also I found an old backpack.  There was no dead baby in it.  I found a thorn-shaped treehopper in the window and set him up in the home studio.

Sit still and act like a thorn.  It's a good strategy if you look like one.  Also, it makes it easy to photograph.
I picked up this guy off the back porch.  Remind you of anything?  Ever seen Starship Troopers?  I think it's a juvenile leaf-footed bug.

Saturday we went down to Hannibal to pick up Stacey's power cord.  While we were there we went to see Harry Potter. It was very good, and faithful to the book.  We also went to the hardware store to pick up the screen door.  We flipped down the back seats of the Taurus, but the door was too big by one inch.  We left it hanging out the trunk and took it to Stacey's office for temporary storage.

Sunday I went out to Lowell's early.  On the drive out I hit a quail.  I felt really bad, and cursed myself, even though I had tried to slow down.  We did three rounds of the lake.  The fish were biting pretty well, especially early on.  I was using a black buzzbait.  We took a break and drove around in the mule, digging up a few plants for the QU prairie.  Lowell has completed rebuilding one bridge, which looks very stout now.  We got lunch in Ewing and went back for another round of the lake.  I caught a nice bass on a spinner, but that was it for the whole trip.  We cut free the old cedar trees that were hanging from a floating goose nest (fish habitats), and towed the next platform in, as it was in need of maintenance.  We went up and fished the catfish pond.  Lowell caught three bass and I washed my lure. 
Ladybug on rough blazing star.                                   Big fly with hairy butt.

Monday I took the truck in to Quincy to get the windshield fixed.  I dropped it off and rode my bike down to Quinsippi Island, took some photos, and rode up to QU.  I got my mail and went to North Campus.  They had returned my repaired computer to my office.  I got some work done, then Leo came over.  We picked up my truck, which had the plants from Lowell's in it, and went back to North Campus.  We planted those, plus several more that Leo had brought.  We watered them, and showed the secretary how to turn on the water, as she offered to water after I'm gone.  Most of the plants, or at least those we put in with the first effort, are looking good.  Some are even flowering.  I stopped at Jed's to talk to Laura, and ended up eating lunch there.  I ran some other errands, but the Ben Franklin store had not mounted my print.  So I took it back and bought some foam board and spray adhesive to do it myself. 

Leo pointed out this sow thistle, a weed with very interesting leaves.

When I got home Savannah was with her beau.  I was downstairs working on something when she yelled for me to come upstairs.  I was as surprised as her to see a deer in the back yard.  While I was photographing it through the sliding glass door, another appeared. I believe they were twin fawns.  Later I opened the door and used the big lens, for better results.

Curious deer in the back yard.

The time has come to tell this tale.  A few weeks ago, I received an email with the subject line, "Looking for an Entomologist for TV Show!"  I read with disbelief as a casting agent from California was asking me if I or someone I knew would be interested in hosting a TV show based on bugs.  "Female or male entomologist, 30-45 years old with super outgoing personality who is CRAZY about bugs!!"  I said I knew someone ideal for the job: ME!  So she emails back saying she'd like to set up an interview via Skype.  Meanwhile, I sent her a photo of myself, a brief biography, and samples of some of my work.  I was pretty excited.  She never emailed back to set up the interview.  She has also not responded to a follow-up email I recently sent.  I thought, "Geez, my photo must be really scary!"  They say opportunity knocks but once.  In my case, opportunity was playing Doorbell Ditch.

At least it didn't leave a flaming bag of poo.