In my haste to get to the beach on Saturday, I forgot to
mention a few very important things. First of all, last Friday was the summer
solstice!! I don’t know if I’ve ever paid attention to when the summer solstice
was, but this year it had a special place in my heart because its arrival means
that we won’t have to wake up any earlier than we have been. In fact, we get to
start sleeping in by an extra five minutes every week! :D (We start our work in
the field just after sunrise, so if the sun is sleeping in, so are we.)
The other thing I forgot to mention is how terrifying
putting on my boots has become. I’ve been shaking my boots out obsessively
every morning ever since I found that scorpion. The other day Chelsea proved
that a simple shaking-out might not always be effective – she shook her boots
out but decided there was still something in there, so she stuck her hand in, screamed, and a giant black beetle thing came
out. One morning we saw a mouse run down the stairs and I could’ve sworn he
jumped into one of my boots, so Chelsea took them outside and dumped them out,
but fortunately he was just hiding behind my backpack… :-| Today I found a
grasshopper in one of my boots. Did I mention that we keep our boots INSIDE the
house? It’s not like I’m leaving them outside for anything to just camp in…
these are all creatures that frequently roam around in the house. The scariest
part of my day is the moment when I’ve decided that I’ve done all the boot-shaking
I can do and it’s time to stick my foot in. Just give that a thought the next
time you’re putting your shoes on!
By the way, those black beetle things are ALL OVER our
house. They crawl around on the floors, in the kitchen sinks, in the bedrooms,
on the bathmats even after they are hanging on the curtain rod, they crawl out
of shoes, backpacks, and our binders of data sheets, and there is a growing
collection that I’ve trapped in an empty cereal box in my room. You can even
hear them trying (and failing) to crawl out of the bathroom trash can. I feel
like there were fewer bugs wandering around our lodge in the JUNGLE than there
are in our closed-off house in Texas. Explain that one…
Oh, starting yesterday I’m working two extra-long weeks so that I
can get a three-day weekend in July, so my next real post might be slightly
delayed until next Monday (my day off). But we’ll see.
Here is a video of steer wrestling from the Cedar Park Rodeo
last week:
And some bull riding:
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