The Elysian Fields

So, the bug that's bugging me lately - maybe even more so than the Japanese beetles - is the European hornet. Here's a picture of why, part one. Part two is that they like lights at night and have stopped us from coming in the door a few times.

And tonight, the damn hornet - a little bigger than my thumb - is in the CFL by the garage. Flew up into the coil. I replaced the light in front and back with CFL bug lights, and we were going to do that one when we noticed the hornet's business end. Hoped it was dead, but at a tap from a stick, it climbed further in. So we skipped that light.

In other, unrelated news, Justin is off with friends watching the football game at the high school.

Lost power last night for about four hours. Lightning strikes hit near the driveways of both adjacent houses, a few strikes in the backyard area as well; we survived all that with only a brief loss of power - right up until I finally went to set the stove clock. The power browned out 3 times then went out for good.

A generator is still on our list of things to get for the house - when we lose power we not only lose lights, fridge, and assorted appliances, we no longer have running water.

Discovered what happened to our phones. While Justin's school screwed up, sending one set of packages to a non-existent house 8 numbers away from ours (and the other package that had the right street address had a phone number that was shut off two years ago in May), the phone company sent our phones to the address belonging to that former residence of two years ago. Naturally, we weren't there to accept the packages, so they're sitting at the Fed Ex building - a different Fed Ex building than the one I picked Justin's books up at.

In other completely unrelated news, a giant assassin bug was sitting on the screen door to the deck this morning. I tried giving it the names of some local Japanese beetles, and mentioned just how delicious and nutritious they were, so hopefully that will bring about a reduction in the ones that go to ground and make more beetles for next year.

Some mostly unrelated little things:

1) Saw another toad or frog - I saw it leap, Deb saw it, but wasn't sure which. I expect it was a toad, as we don't have enough water nearby to support frogs.

2) Neighbors reported that Tanis chases bears (add to the list: golden retrievers, German shepherds, white tailed deer, black bears.)

3) Mowed the lawn and got string trimming done Tuesday night. Expect the resulting clover explosion is why I was out sick Wednesday and Thursday.

4) Deb finally saw the ovenbirds, in the middle woods, just past where Tanis was buried. They have an interesting song: chertle-cherTLE-CHERTLE! that grows louder as they sing along, and she's been trying to get a positive id, but they proved elusive for a while. A week or so ago, I thought I spotted them walking around the edge of the deck and all around the backyard, but I'm still not sure.

5) Noticed that the deer hit the weeping willow and pussy willow prior to Tuesday, noticed last night that they also trimmed most of one of the new flowering crabs and took bits and pieces off of both elderberries.

6) Took a picture of a deer - came right down the path while kids were sitting at the table; opened the sliding doors and snapped a few of shots (flash going off, so he/she posed for some of them), and then we all went out on the front porch to watch the rodent slink off into the woods. Hadn't discovered the elderberry damage at that time, or I would have encouraged Tanis to take chase and bring it down. As it was, he stood on alert, but once the deer was walking away, and we were all standing around ignoring him, he decided to rub up against our legs instead.

7) Fixed the last remaining bug on the primary piece of coding for the project I'm working on - no worries, I'm sure there'll be more when testing resumes. Making progress on the worksheet print - going to hard-code it for three possibilities; a future release (when there is time and/or money) will make it dynamic. A mass-manipulation program and a navigational center were added to the task list - about one week before the betas get the software. Almost want to knock them out first because they won't take long (find-and-replace on some names, and a tweak on the recordset involved), but this worksheet has to work in mode 2 at the least...