I have a lot of “Santas” to thank this year, folks who did nice things for me and made me feel special and loved. This amazing new Bug Lady logo was designed by my sweetie and rendered into coolness by our amazing friend The Dude! Many thanks to both.

I also have to give a shout out to Mrs. VerDuin’s students at Wood Middle School in Alameda. I spent eight weeks with them recently completing a student teaching assignment and these were some really polite and clever Jedi Knights of Science. We did lots of hands on experiments, and they even sat patiently and took good notes when I dared to lecture. The students and Mrs. VerDuin really helped me get my teaching mojo back, and for that I thank you!

I love the way that being on the playa can distort the scale of things. This praying mantis wandered in the proximity of my kids and sweetie who faithfully document any insect they see. But Burning Man is always fun for an entomologist because of all the art cars and camps with insect themes.

Check out this mantis art car – one of the best insect art cars I’ve seen. I’ll have to post some other insect-themed stuff from Burning Man.

I’m really into the beekeeping thing this spring. The late rains delayed the swarming season, so I’ve been able to place four more hives around Oakland over the last few weeks. People “sponsored a hive” by paying for me to build it, paint it and place it. I covered the cost of the swarms – I want to learn how to swarm for myself some day.

Then, I install the hive in my sponsor’s yard, tend to it every month or so, and we split the honey. I’ll have three hives in the blackberry brambles on the Oakland hills, often declared the best climate in the US.

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Originally uploaded by bugladyjr

Andrew wanted to do something special for me to celebrate my 50th birthday. He thought about a party, but that is for one night, expensive, and not really what he thought best. He decided that we should go to Kauai for a week alone. I told him there were at least 50 reasons why we absolutely shouldn’t, and he gave 50 reasons why we have already waited too long. Wisely, I let him win that argument, and I’m pleased. It was a totally transformational vacation for me in so many ways, not the least of which was my first snorkel adventure. I hope you like our photos!



We posted this after my first attempt at voiceover.  It will get better!  I’m just finding new ways to share cool stuff.  Hope you like it.

Okay, not really. But I am smokin’ in it, as you can see. We had a great weekend at our friend Jim’s ranch. Andrew had a painting to move (story to come on his blog) and Jim has encouraged me to pursue my passion for bees by working a hive that’s been unattended for the last few years. We gave “the girls” a spacious new box to fill with comb in exchange for the old box which was heavy with honey. I have now extracted my first few quarts! I’m so proud that I put together some mini taster jars for the teacher appreciation luncheon tomorrow. Comb to table in just over 48 hours – at that’s with Andrew driving to Sebastopol yesterday to fetch my new extractor – thanks, Honey!

This was really neat. I knew that scopions glow under UV light, but I never though to put them with rocks that do too!

Wow! What can I say. Sophie and I spent two weeks in England, Scotland and Orkney with Andrew and Ursula. I still haven’t digested all that I saw, heard and ATE! Here is the link to my Flickr album. Enjoy!!

What a rockin’ solar system. And the lyrics will be,

“My very exciting magic carpet just sailed under nine palace elephants, Yeah Yeah!”

Seriously, though, it’s good to see that inclusion has made it’s way to hallowed halls of the IAU.

Dwarf planets are stellar bodies, too!

Welcome back, Pluto and your pals Ceres and Eris.

We had an interesting occurrence recently, and an added life lesson. The rose hair tarantula was beginning to look a little “full”, and seemed sluggish. I thought it might be ready to molt. Sure enough, a few days later, it appeared as though there were two spiders in the cage, but one was the molted exoskeleton of the spider (as seen on the left of the top photo), and the new larger tarantula was poking around.

What a metaphor for our own life experience. Sometimes when things seem to have a tight grip on us, we just need to shed some constraints and stretch ourselves to accommodate. Suddenly we realize we’ve grown in the process. Ohm!