Target Practice

My teenaged son has an etsy shop! The shop is called Target Practice. He is selling slingshot ammo that he makes in a mold. The lead he uses to make the ammo is stuff he's collected on our nature outings. So he's recycling, cleaning up the environment, and being creative. Awesome. I'm giving him a hand with the sewing of the recycled jean denim ammo pouches. These sets of ammo, pouch and amusing targets would make a really neat Father's Day gift, if the father happens to have a sling shot. Or a great outdoor activity starter for any boys in your life.

He's looking into making bullet shell and glass jewelry, too, and i hope this comes to pass. It sure won't be from lack of support, gentle nagging, and light shoving on my part.

Some Pretty New Crow Beads

Finally! New beads. These are in the shop now.

I like beads that look handmade, as opposed to being made in a bead pressing machine. I like a little variation, particularly in color, but a little variation in size and shape doesn't put me off usually. But since i'm in the business of selling beads, not buying them, i get into this mindset where i don't think my beads are perfect enough for public consumption. Eventually i always argue myself back to a position of: i make beads that i like and people don't have to buy them if they don't like them. And then my job/hobby is enjoyable once more. :-)

Noble Sun Scorpion

This is an arachnid from the Order Solifugae. They are found in most of the really dry, hot climates on earth. You don't come across them very often unless you poke around at night with a headlamp, like we do. :-) They are commonly called sun scorpion, wind scorpion, camel spider or false spider.

This one has been living with us for about a week. Why? because they are really fun to watch. They are incredibly active and voracious like you wouldn't believe. This one has been dining on cockroaches and even when she was full to bursting, like a grape, she couldn't resist tearing into yet another roach.

Note the cute little close-together beady eyes on top of her head. The front of her head is two massive chelicerae. The pair of long legs on the front are modified mouthparts called pedipalps. Before she gained all that roach weight she could pull herself up the side of her container using them, and they also are sensory in function, kind of like antennae.

As she fattened up, you could see her fill up with lumpy white tissue. We thought maybe it was eggs, but maybe just fat. The consistency of the white stuff is now much grainier, but we think it is too tiny for them to be eggs, since that would be a thousand eggs, where as they only lay about 100. In any case, she was released today so that she can go do what she needs to do. Good luck, Mabel!

Misc.

Misc. blog subjects continue. With the kids out of school and husband off from his teaching job my time is not being used at the torch, and i can't seem to get a new routine going. Too many distractions.

My family is dealing with flooding up north, and we've been dealing with drought in the south. But for the third evening in a row it is raining tonight, and you can almost hear the land sighing with relief. And best of all, my roof repair seems to have worked! The other night it started out with a little light hail, and while me and the kid were standing at the back door in awe of precipitation, this single big hail ball came flying across the yard and stopped at his feet.

The guys drove out to Lake Meridith last week to collect a particular kind of beetles that can be found on the shores of certain lakes. The top photo is a picture looking down the boat ramp. Lake Meridith is a large reservoir north of Amarillo, and is the source of that city's water. The water level has been dropping for the past several years. But it looks like a nice spot for a picnic. There was water in other areas of the lake, and specimens of the desired beetles were taken.

The goats are in the back yard of a house here in town. I love those thick, knobby legs. Lots of homes also have flocks of chickens that free range down the alleys or into the playgrounds. One home has what sounds like many roosters behind a high fence. I'm pretty sure it is a cock fighting production.

Safe Harbor Lab Rescue in Wellington, CO.

The dog loving folks of northern Colorado are in for a fun day on June 18th when Wellington holds their annual fundraiser Dog Show. Visit Safe Harbor Lab Rescue booth with photos of adoptable Labs, and Safe Harbor merchandise at this free, fun filled community event! Everyone who has a pet is welcome to just mingle and visit rescue and vendor booths or enter a one of the contests open to kids and adults alike.

One of my best bead buyers will be a vendor there: Brenda Leap is a long time supporter of Safe Harbor Lab Rescue, ever since she got her wonderful dog from them. She has turned my glass bone beads into fantastic dog bone themed earrings and beaded suncatchers, etc. and will be donating all of the proceeds of her sales to the rescue group. Good Luck, Brenda!

Filler Video Today

Much like my kids' teachers, i am offering videos. Seems like they quite teaching sometime last week, but school isn't officially over until some time Thursday, so they show movies in every class. I've been thrown off my beadmaking routine by having house guests all last week, and have nothing new to show, so i'm going to try to keep you entertained with a video, too.

Here is a short video (click on the picture to go right to it) that my husband took. A tick crawled off our dog. It was full of blood so my husband took it to his school to show his Entomology (insects) students. While it sat it a vial in his office, the tick errupted into hundreds of tiny baby ticks. Thinking this was something that other biology people might find interesting, he recorded the mass of young ticks. It is on YouTube, and it has lots of views, and lots of strange comments (which you should definitely read--it seems that seriously disturbed individuals have been attracted to this video.)

Ned Houk Burn Pt. II

These are new photos from Ned Houk Park burn area, just north of Clovis, NM. Not much has changed since my blog entry of 23 April, but that is hardly surprising since it still hasn't rained. I recall a late April hike in the same area a couple of years ago, when we were just stunned by the waving fields of purple and pink grasses and different wild flowers. This year? not so much...

These elms haven't sprouted leaves yet, but elsewhere elms are pretty leafed out already, so these trees may be done for. This particular piece of land was used as a motorcross track a few decades ago, and old tires had been used to mark the course. Most of the rubber burned away, but their steel belts remain. A big piece of pvc pipe got a giraffe's spot pattern. A few of the southwest incredibly drought-resistant plants are starting to come back, defying logic. It seems far-fetched that anything could live and grow out of bare sand and zero water, but a few representatives of three hardy plants dot the otherwise barren wasteland.