What's Bugging You?

On any given day you can find me multi-tasking somewhere in the yard.  Weeding, gardening, watering, goofing off, umm, I mean, being very productive at something, all with camera in hand.  And more often than not, when I am trying to photograph something a little bug flies in the way, or sits in the way on whatever it is that is patiently waiting to be remembered forever in a photograph.  These little bugs apparently like to be photographed so I oblige them, then shoo them away.  Then we head inside and google away until we figure out what it is.

So, this post is dedicated to all things that are bugging us up here in the north.

Scudder's Bush Katydid nymph

This cute little guy will not be cute much longer.  It is in general a Scudder's Bush Katydid baby or nymph.  Scudder's Bush is a generalized category for all sorts of these katydid's and until I see it full grown I can't tell you specifically which one.  And when they are full grown they are not nearly as cute as this.  From some other photographs I found on the web it probably is a Fork Tailed Katydid or Scudderia furcata to be scientifically correct.

Brown Leaf Katydid

I didn't realize this little guy was actually a bug until I tried to brush it off and it started to crawl away from me.  I left my dirty gardening thumb in the picture so you can see how tiny he is.  Still not totally positive if the identification is absolutely correct but it is the closest I could find and I could not find the scientific name.

Clavate Tortoise Beetle

This is one weird looking bug.  When we were de-potato-bugging our potato plants I saw one and told the kids "Eww, bird poo" and then it flew off.  What?!?!?  So we found another and snapped some pics and googled away.  It is a Clavate Tortoise Beetle or Plagiometriona clavata.  Seems like they can do a little damage to your plants so we are going to have to watch our for these little guys.



Colorado Potato Beetle or Potato Bug

Our nemesis!!! We hate, hate, HATE, these little guys.  Although they are really kinda cool looking.  And they are awesome at the whole color coordination thing.  But they do terrible, terrible things to our poor potatoes.  So we have been busy plucking them, their larvae, and their eggs off of all three rows of potatoes.  Ugh, can't wait for their season to be over.

Green Metallic Bee or Augochlora Sweat Bee

This was one of those get in my way moments.  While the kids were loading up the paddle boat at the dock I was wandering and finding little flowers hidden here and there and saw these little flowers.  And this little bee kept buzzing in the way.  He was very pretty though.  I found him called by those two names there.  Scientific name is Augochlora pura.

Long-Legged Fly

Flies, flies, they are everwhere. . . and usually much uglier than this green jeweled beauty.  Not much more to tell other than that, scientific name is Condylostylus and there are a number of species names after that depending on your region.

I have no words of wisdom for you on this one.  Have you ever tried to google "spider" to identify one?  Creepy!  It just makes me squimish and I can't get very far, so for now she is our friendly brown and black spider.

Loads of butterflies

cute fuzzy caterpillars



Jeweled Dragonflies

So many things to "bug" us around here.  And don't get me started on the bugs!  Har, har.  Anyway, so many more pics to show you but my computer is starting to drive me nuts so I am signing off for today.  Love, hugs, and kisses to you all.

Home from Arizona

We survived sunny Arizona!  It was so nice to see all of our friends and family and friends that we have known long enough to be considered family.  We arrived Saturday around noon after stopping in Albuquerque and catching some much needed Z's.  It also insured that we arrived looking and smelling fresh!  Much better impression to those that haven't seen you for months.

We grabbed some lunch and then headed to my niece's graduation party.  Very fun.  My sis was hard at work making cotton candy for everyone.

I think all the kids were in a sugar comatose state by the time we left the party.  Besides the cotton candy they had a candy table set up with all sorts of sweets in different little jars.  Very cute.  They also had Eegee's (yum! yum!) and a snow cone machine.  She also had a blow up obstacle course which I think the adults had more fun on than any of the kids.

Sunday and Monday were relax days spent with family.  The kids all went swimming in Uncle Reuben's pool.  Monday friends from all over came to visit.  So nice to see them all, kids that are growing like weeds and meeting new little faces.



This little guy is so cute and such a pefect blend of his parents.

Tuesday we visited more family and then headed up to my big sis's house.  They took us kayaking down the Salt River.  We had so much fun and the weather cooperated somewhat.  It wasn't too unbearable hot and we got too see so much wildlife.  We saw more Blue Heron Cranes than we have ever seen and we also got to see wild horses.  That was the highlight of the trip.  Hopefully my brother-in-law will send me some pictures.  They have a waterproof camera and he was snapping pics for us.

Me and the hubby after kayaking.  We went to this fabulous pizza place on the way back home called "Barro's".  Very yummy pizza.

The cousins.  Proud of themselves for making it down the river.  Z. rode in a kayak with his cousin.  J. powered his own kayak and had fun going through the rapids with his dad.  And, for those of you in the know of A.'s perils with canoes and kayaks you will be proud of her.  She powered her own kayak and at the end decided she loved it.

Me and my gorgeous big sis.  Thanks for making our trip so much fun.  We love you so much and miss you more than you know.

Friday we headed back to Tucson to see more friends we missed the first go round.  Then we hit the big highway.  Sad for those that we missed seeing AGAIN!  Ugh so sorry, I promise we will be back.



So that is our trip in a nutshell.  And now we are back home in our green, green home and busy again.  Garden updates coming soon.  Everything is growing like mad.  And I am happy to say the cages I built around the plants the deer seem to like the most worked well because they are all still alive and growing.

Love you all!

The Garden is Started

Our lovely little Snowball Bush is blooming.  Love it, so pretty.  Our garden is also doing really well.  I should say, what we have planted so far is doing well.

Onions are sprouting.  We tried planting them two different ways this year, so we will see how that goes.  We planted some deep to grow like table onions or green onions and we planted the rest shallow so we can get some nice big onions.

We also switched the garden up a little bit.  Most of the rows are running the same direction this year.  Which means the rows are really, really long!  But I think I like it better so far.  That also means we will be getting much, much more produce this year.  So all you Arizonan's come on up and we will share with ya!

The potatoes are also starting to sprout.

So far that is all that is up.  But those were the first things planted, probably before we will leave most everything else should be popping up to say hello.  Oh, and the garlic, but the garlic is more of an experiment.  I planted them last year without doing any research and discovered I really should read up on stuff before I plant.  Garlic takes a REALLY long time.  So we left it in the ground and it sprouted this spring so we are going to leave it till end of summer and see what happens.  Green beans, green onions, corn, and cilantro are in the ground.  Today and this weekend we will be planting everything else.  That is a long list so I will spare you the details.

Planting corn.  Lovely garden attire right!?!  I learned my lesson last year.  Remember this post from last year.  Yeah, so now garden work involves long shirts with long sleeves and my nice floppy hat.

No stupid sunburn for me this year! . . . yet.

And finally, just for fun, you know us and our weird shaped veggies.  We found a Michigan shaped potato.

Yep, I know. . . Amazing! :o)  And on that note I am signing off, dinner is waiting to be cooked, seeds are waiting to be planted, and I am waiting to go shopping!  See you all in ONE WEEK!!!!!!



Just cause I love those snowballs so much!



Warm Days Mean Water Wars and Croquet

Warm days are officially back!  Yay!  Love the feel of that warm sunshine.

Sunday night we barbequed and then set up the ol' croquet set.  We set it up and played Saturday evening also and Mom kicked butt so we had to have a rematch.  We begged and cried and finally guilted Dad into joining us.  Turns out it wasn't such a great idea.  Sunday night Dad kicked butt.  Guess us young'uns got some practicing to do.



So much fun.  We were having so much fun we forgot to keep an eye on little Roscoe.  So what was he doing while we were all so distractred?  Just like any other kid he was taking advantage of his "free" time.

Yep, he discovered the delicious tongs hanging from the grill.  He was a happy little camper until Rachel discovered him.

We had so much fun on our warm, sunny weekend.  See you all soon!!!!

Slackers and Workers

Spring.  It's a busy time of year around here.  Birds are returning from their warm vacations, animals are crawling out of hybernation, flowers are blooming and the bumble bees have returned to pollenate them, babies are being born, eggs are being laid.  Oh wait, speaking of eggs, here is our slacker.

On the right is a normalish size egg that our lovely little chickens usually give to us.  On the left, well, we are not sure what happened.  Did she sneeze and it came out a little early?  Was she just not feeling up to snuff on that particular day?  Who knows but it is the cutest egg we have ever gotten so I guess that counts for something.

And there are a couple of worker bees.  Yep, its that time of year again.  Garden is getting tilled.  Plans have been drawn, and planting has begun.  This year we have expanded the garden.  Yeay for more space to grow more things, but boo for the extra work this extra space is creating.  I had to recruit some extra help.

These little cuties are a friends kids that I was watching for the day.  They started out playing outside while Dad and I worked but decided they wanted to help too.

Busy, busy, busy as always.  But we are in a rush to get it all planted before heading to Arizona.  We are so excited to be there.  My lists are started as always and I am driving everyone nuts.  But I hate, HATE, forgetting anything.  Can't wait to see everyone.  Can someone please order cooler weather for the week we will be there please!  Love you all and see you soon.

A Different Kind of Job Fair - by Request

This past weekend the kids and I attended the coolest job fair ever!  A spiritual job fair.  A brother and sister in the Big Rapids congregation put it together and brothers and sisters from a lot of different congregations all helped out and made it an event that the kids will remember and hopefully cherish for a very long time.

Unfortunately my flash decided to run out of batteries as soon as we arrived, therefore, pictures are not the greatest.  But the event was so encouraging, I am going to share my poor photos anyway.

Upon arriving, we signed in and each of the kids were given a goodie bag and a "passport".

There was a different booth for many of the different "jobs" you can reach for in Jehovah's organization.  Everything from becoming a publisher, to being a missionary.  Each booth was maned with two brothers and/or sisters who have had the priviledge of actually doing what their booth was about.  The "Serve Where the Need is Great" booth was maned by a sister who has served in a few different countries.  The "Spanish" booth was connected and was maned by a brother who serves in the spanish congregation and also gone to some spanish speaking countries.

A and Z checking out all the different language groups or congregations in Michigan

This was the baptism booth.  The brother here had three stacks of questions, beginner, intermediate, and expert.  The kids had to choose a card, answer the question, all of which were taken from the questions for baptism, once they answered correctly there were given three chances to throw a ball into the target.  The brother here pointed out that almost every page in the passport could not be achieved without first getting baptized.


Bible School for Single Brothers Booth

This brother here is an AMAZING speaker.  He seriously gives the best talks.  He has visited our congregation a few times and always speaks at assemblies and conventions.  And he sounds like Matthew McConaughey to boot.  Win, Win!  He was great with the kids.  He also did part of the second part of the night, which I will get to later.

American Sign Language Booth

We spent a lot of time at this booth.  A. has decided she would like to try Sign Language.  So this brother and his brother there next to him were very excited and talked to her a lot about their experience joining the ASL group in Howard City.  The brother the kids are talking to brought along a bible study of his.  A young deaf boy, probably 14 or 15ish.  Later in the day when all the kids were gathered and one of the brothers asked what was the greatest gift they ever recieved, this young boy raised his hand and said his bible study.  Wonderful!

Z. learning how to run the sound at the Ministerial Servants booth.

Regular Pioneer Booth

This booth had something the kids really enjoyed.  They had a board with pictures of some of the tracts on the left hand side and on the right were the titles.  They had to first plug into a photo and then plug the other end into the title.  When they got it right they would light up.  Once they got all of them correct a little flashlight popped out with "Shine as Illuminators  Phil 2:15" engraved on one side and "Pioneer" engraved on the other.

Relief Work booth

This booth was pretty fun.  The kids had to build a lincoln log house just like the model.  They were timed to see who was the fastest.  I am happy to say that I beat (no not literally. . .at least not there) all three of my children.  By a whole 0.7 seconds!

At the end of the evening there was a game of Hollywood Squares.  Our "celebrities" were all either bible characters, early publishers, or current day publishers.  So much fun.  The kids had a blast, although they weren't really getting the idea of the tic-tac-toe part of it because they were all picking random "celebrities" and not really trying to get tic-tac-toe.  Which meant poor, Coleporter Cameron in the middle was not chosen too many times.

The whole evening was awesome.  I hope when the kids look back on this day that they really appreciate how much time and effort went into this event and are all the more encouraged by what was done for them.  Thank you, thank you, thank you to all the brothers and sisters that did this for our children, and thank you Jehovah for allowing us to be part of such a spectacular organization.