Pumpkin people

Joseph's class went on a field trip to the pumpkin patch. Danny escorted them, and took plenty of pictures:

Thomas the turkey who was in trouble because he pecked holes in a bushel of apples.

Murray the happy old donkey who plays with balls. Murray finished off the apples rendered unsalable by Thomas.

Corn kernel sandbox. 100% cat poop free!

A fantastic maze/climbing structure made out of stacked bales of hay. Ten kids at a time could disappear inside that thing.

Joseph loved the baby bunnies. I'm not so sure that the feeling was mutual. To be fair, he was nicer to the bunnies than many of the little girls, who clutched the hapless critters with unrelenting zeal.

Arrrggmmm. Smores...

20 outfits

When I was an undergrad at Johns Hopkins, I had this great Linguistics teacher. She was a young Iranian woman who was probably on her first teaching job. She was a fantastic lecturer and she was very committed to teaching us. However, I always found it vaguely depressing that she seemed to have only two skirts and three tops. Although she was always very smartly attired, the three skirts and two tops always made me think of how she probably came here with a couple of suitcases and maybe some boxes of books. Perhaps she was living in a sparse apartment filled with rented furniture. Perhaps the (1990's) unfavorably exchange rate made it hard for her to buy things here, or maybe she needed to send money home?
Anyhow, when I lecture, I always have the vague feeling that I am wearing the same outfit over and over again. So this time, I took a photo of what I wore for personal reference. I finished teaching this week. Here's a half-semester's worth of teaching outfits!

Almost fun weekend

Last weekend was pretty lame. We kept almost doing fun things, but not quite. We accidentally went to the Harvest Festival (lame) instead of the Autumnal Festival (fun). However, we did have some fun at the Harvest Festival. There was a pumpkin teacup ride. Joseph insisted that we not spin, which made the ride equivalent to taking a slow bus around a traffic circle.

There was a portable climbing wall from Upper Limits, this fantastic indoor climbing place in Bloomington. Upper Limits occupies Cargill's old soybean processing plant and you can climb the insides of the scary-high grain silos. It is pretty pricey, though, and I haven't yet been there. So I challenged Danny to a climb-off. I think that I won.


We had planned to visit our favorite local cheesemaker for an open house and pumpkin patch. However, our GPS failed us: we kept driving in circles without finding the place. We stopped at a gas station and bought a map, but the map didn't include the street either. So no pumpkins and cheese.
Saturday night we went to the ISU Biology picnic. Attendance was not great, and there were few other kids there. The weather was a little cold, but we all had a good time.


Sunday was the Champaign Surplus Store's fall clearance event. I had been waiting all year to find a reasonably priced winter coat. I have clearly demonstrated that L.L. Bean and Land's End do not make a coat in my size. Also, Columbia does not make a coat in my size (XS is extra short but extra wide). Only North Face makes (super expensive) coats that fit me. We drove 60 minutes to Champaign, but they had no North Face in my size. I did buy a pair of Frye boots marked down from $128 to $9.99.


Hopefully next weekend will be better?

Aaaargh! Minute Pirate bugs

For the last two weeks, every time I go outside, dozens of the these tiny black bugs start biting the hell out of me. They are incredibly tiny (1-2mm) but they pack a huge walloping bite. Surprisingly, the bite doesn't swell afterwards. Also, the bug never flies away after biting, so they usually get smashed and don't really benefit from biting me.

(Photo by Alex Wild 2004)

As an amateur entomologist with good vision, I can clearly see that they are hemipteran. However, it has taken me the better part of an evening to figure out what they are: Minute Pirate bugs. They don't appear in indexes of biting insects because they feed on plants. However, this year they are just so desperate for food that they will apparently bite anything.
So beware of pirates!


(Photo by UMN Entomology)

Apples! Pork!

It's festival season! This weekend we went to the Apple and Pork festival in Clinton. Last year I was enthused about this thing. This year less so. Half of the festival is really awful kitsch and crap. Which would be fine to skip over if not for the fact that the kids wanted to check out every stupid booth. Literally every booth contained either overpriced cheap crap (John Deere 'collectibles,' bejeweled factory-made clay dragons, T-shirts with trashy slogans, VHS tapes, non-interesting yard-sale items) or terrible crafts (handmade Halloween and Christmas decor, 'witty' yard signs, potpourri and scented candles, and the ubiquitous license plate birdhouse).

We had some sliced apples with 'caramel,' funnel cake and sausages while we watched the decent live entertainment. So why doesn't anyone every come up with food to sell that combines apples and pork? Apple pork sausage? Apples crisps with pork rinds?

The kids enjoyed the scarecrow contest. Surprisingly, SpongeBob did not win--it must be rigged! Check out the perfect little ear of corn Plankton!

We also stayed to watch some women demonstrate how to weave lace, which was pretty awesome!

The kids had a good time at the petting zoo. Sam walked slowly around doling out one crumb to each animal. Joseph gave half of his grain to the rabbit, and the other half to this entertaining llama.

Engines! Engines! Engines! Also cool antique tractors, horse-drawn carriages and antique farm equipment. NPR had a story the other day about antique tractors as the next big investment collectible. (What? Ordinarily I would say that it must have been a slow news day, but lately with the election and the end of the world and whatnot there are no slow news days.)

"Once again, the conservative, sandwich-heavy portfolio pays off for the hungry investor"