Thursday we were supposed to plant the big bluestems in the prairie.  Unfortunately, it was raining so hard I could not reasonably make the students go out.  Instead, we planted some seeds in pots in the greenhouse.  Our thanks go out to Leo, who had dropped off the seeds that morning.  He saved the day. 

Friday I went in to Quincy and ran errands all over.  I ordered a new battery at the motorcycle shop and got some mice for the snakes.  I bought some waders for our next stream team outing.  Many times the water is too high for knee boots (which we have in abundance).  I stopped by Ann's office and had a good talk.  I had lunch at the Hawk's Hangout and went back to the office.  We had a General Assembly meeting, at which I learned a few interesting things, and I went home. 

Saturday morning I started cleaning the garage, which has suffered a few years of accumulation and neglect.  I didn't get very far, but I threw out a lot of stuff.  I did a little yard work as well.  The recent rain had cause a few large segments of the whomping willow to fall.  Soon it will all be down and I won't have to fell it.  One of Nancy's monarch pupae had hatched, and I tagged and released the female.  At least I got one tagged this year.  I missed the season while I was away.  I revised some of my calendars for the upcoming season, so if you want butterfly, dragonfly or Arizona calendars, they feature all new photos.  Meanwhile, Savannah was sick and taking the ACT.  She returned in a rather poor mood.  She brightened up a bit when Lowell and I went to Orscheln's to take her a new laptop.  It was an early graduation present from Lowell.  I think she was shocked with disbelief.   We are still enduring the onslaught of Asian lady beetles.  I vacuumed up about a thousand in the basement.  Stacey and I went to a dinner at Lake of the Oaks where she gave a talk about RSVP.  Some people asked about the new Canton R-V fire station down the road.  The Lake community is part of a different fire district.  Some guy kept asking questions and going around in circles.  I think the gist of his argument was, why should he pay more for fire service that's closer.  Duh.  So your house doesn't burn down.  We saw a big buck cross the road and jump a fence on the way home.  I should have hit him with the Taurus.  I may never have a chance like that again.

Sunday morning I was reading the paper and drinking my coffee when I heard a noise like snap, thud, thud.  I checked the broom closet and there was a mouse caught.  It wasn't quite dead so I put it in a snake cage.  Even though it had just had two mice two days ago, he ate it.  What a trooper!  I heard some more noises, and upon checking the basement, found another of my traps had yielded fruit.  Or mouse.  This one was quite alive, and I put it in a cage (until a snake has room for more).   I continued working on the garage.  I got a little farther and it's starting to look better.  While I was out picking up pine cones I found a dead mole in the middle of the yard.  Another monarch hatched out, but it had fallen to the bottom of the jar and had deformed wings.  I put it outside to see if it could straighten itself out.  I checked on it later while I was shooting my bow, and found that the woodchuck burrow had been dug out.  Dang it!  I thought I had won that battle.  I guess I won the battle, but not the war.  When I see him again, I'll try using more fire power (to the extent that I can get away with it in town).  Stacey was cooking dinner for the crew working on the fire house when, naturally, her pager went off and she had to leave on a fire call.

Mole carcass.  Now that's what I call a forelimb evolved for digging.

Monday the Ecology class went to Main Campus to get some leaves.  I don't think we could have done this lab a day later, as the leaves were falling off the branches as we were cutting them.  In fact, the first dogwood we went to had almost no leaves left on it.  And then my stinkin' scanner wouldn't work, and that was my high-tech upgrade to an old-fashioned lab.  Instead, we photographed the leaves with a digital camera and measured their perimeter and area on a computer. 

Tuesday morning I went to Main Campus to run some errands.  While I was there, I did some volunteer Moodle coaching for some of the staff.  I went to our graphics designer to get some new business cards, but she was gone for the day.  I've never needed to see her before, and the one day I remember to drop by, she's not there.  In environmental science we finally planted the big bluestems that we had dug out at Lowell's last week.  We put on our stream team boots because of the mud.  We broadcast seeded some other stuff, and hoed out some sow thistle that had sprung up around our butterfly bush.  This last effort was accompanied by numerous "ho" puns.