Six Random Things

I was tagged by "Anna's Bee World." In her honor, I'm posting this photo I took of a honey bee at a nearby nursery in October.

 Anna’s Bee World tagged me.   Anna says it’s time to play the “six random things” meme.
1. Link to the person who tagged you. (Click on Anna’s Bee World above.)
2. Post the rules on your blog.
3. Write six random things about yourself.  (I’ve written about some of these on my blog.)
4. Tag six people at the end of your post and link to them. (You can use the same ones as other blogging friends.)
5. Let each person know they’ve been tagged and leave a comment on their blog.
6. Let the tagger know when your entry is published.

So here we go…six random things about me:

1.) I take my camera almost everywhere with me. I’m considered a menace. Symphony in the Flint Hills.

2.) I save news clippings, some of which I try to force on people who might be vaguely interested in the topic.  I also do the same thing with plants I’ve started from seed.  Confessions of a Savoholic.

3.) I love Star Trek, especially the original series. From any thirty in the original series, I probably can tell you which episode it is.

4.) I love road trips, especially if I don’t have to drive and am just in charge of the map. I love maps. I collect maps. I love google maps, too. Awesome Utah.

5.) I love my cat, Malcolm, who’s 16.  Malcolm, Old Friend. 

Malcolm.

6.) I’m the happiest when both of my adult children are asleep under my roof.  It doesn’t happen very often.

Here are the links to the blogs. They touch on a wide range of interests:  humor, teaching, organic farming in England, sports, photography, book and movie reviews, poetry and daily life — and much more. 

• DR Corner
• Elisse Stuart
• Locks Park Farm
• Planetjan
• Poet Verse
• Ripple Effects
• Thinking Outloud

Check them out.  Yes, I know there are seven, not six.   I’ll focus on some other notable blogs later.  Anna introduced me to some great new blogs, including Photographic Haiku.

Cloudless Sulphur Butterfly Metamorphosis

Time Lapse – Phoebis sennae Butterfly Pupates-Emerges

In this video, a Cloudless Sulphur caterpillar pupates and emerges as a butterfly.

Monarch Watch at the University of Kansas held its annual open house Sept. 6, 2008, in its home at Foley Hall. Hundreds of visitors toured the building, greenhouse and Pollination Garden where hundreds of thousands of flowers were in bloom. Visitors could see the Cloudless Sulphur butterfly and its caterpillars in all stages of metamorphosis. It was a little rainy, which didn’t bother the caterpillars, but made the butterflies find cover.

Children threw around words like metamorphosis and proboscis, and hundreds of them took home monarch butterflies in chrysalis form. I’ll be posting photographs of the open house, including many of its star caterpillars and a few of the brave butterflies that came out in the rain.

Entomologist Chip Taylor is the founder of Monarch Watch, which is dedicated to the education about and conservation of monarch butterflies. Hundreds of other kinds of pollinators benefit, too.

Almost 80 percent of the food we eat depends on the work of pollinating insects and animals. Monarch Watch and Pollinator Partnership are on my blogroll, so visit them!