Elm Creek

I went geocaching after vacation up by Kyle's house.  I needed to pick up Luna (she didn't eat one of his combs this time) and I had the day to myself, so I spent it hiking around in the woods.  Elm Creek wasn't nearly as rich a geocaching environment as the Woodville Trail.  But at least no dogs tried to eat my ankle.

It was chilly out.  Which was good.  Running away from this next full of wasps might have been more difficult during high summer.  Toward the end of the day, I looked for a cache at a place called "lake view" or something similar.  After stomping around a big tree for a long time I thought, "maybe it's a diversion, and the cache is really at that nearby bird blind."  I poked around the bird blind, and then went to reach behind the sign in the blind that listed the birds you might see.  At the last second, I hesitated, withdrew my fingers, and took a peek.  Behind the sign was another wasp nest and half a dozen groggy wasps.  I took it as a sign that caching was done for the day.

This nest was NOT a cache.


But this bird is a cache.  You have to fish a small rolled up log out of his cloaca.


Out at the moose cache, which I almost skipped because it was almost a mile from the previous cache, there was a particularly interesting choice of loot.  I'm glad I didn't take the Casey Scott album because a.) it's a little boring if you look it up on YouTube, and b.) the First 4th of July has to do with printing presses, so it gives me some insight into Kyle's worklife.  I'm much more in tune with the day-to-day struggles of a friend.


I know they're just child zombies, and it's not their fault, and I should feel bad for them.  But they're zombies in the end and they'd eat my brain given half a chance, so I had to call in the troops.  A lady on a horse asked me if I'd found a cache.  I bet seeing a guy playing with toy soldiers and zombies on top of a thermos top isn't something you see every day while riding your horse in the woods.  I think Lewis Black once made a joke to that effect.


It doesn't look nearly as sinister as it was.  I followed trails in a circle for what seemed like forever.


Back at Kyle's house.  I really enjoy this picture because it looks like some sort of official Ford advertisement for a Fiesta.  It's just his front yard.


Doesn't his yard look beautiful?  You can really appreciate it if you don't have to do any of the raking.

Bee Car!

I could talk about what little I saw of the President's address between working and reading to Eryn, but instead I'm just going to mention that in the parking lot today, on my way home, I realized as I was walking to my car that the vehicle next to mine was covered in bees (but was not actually a bee, like this picture on Flickr). Then I realized it was worse! They were wasps! My allergies to bees are questionable. I believe I was stung during Elroy Sparta a little over a week ago and survived. And many years ago I was stung by three at once and didn't exhibit even a bit of puffiness. But the last two times I was stung by a wasp involved softball sized swellings and giant baby-looking appendages where my wrist or ankle vanished under the swelling. A car covered in them, immediately next to mine, is problematic, particularly as my car was on the flight path and they kept bouncing off the windows and roof.

There's no great ending where I'm texting this to blogger as I lie swollen in the company lot. I managed to sneak in between wasps and then sat there, observing them feasting on what seemed to be sap all over the neighboring car. I'm going to have to watch for that when I park tomorrow morning.

In the spirit of yesterday's post, I offer the collective nouns for bees, because there are so many of them, at least according to Wiktionary. I find it interesting that the collective noun can vary based on whether the bees are wild or domesticated, around the queen, or a secondary group, or in flight vs. not-necessarily-in-flight.

• bees: A bike of (wild) bees. ?
• bees: A byke of (wild) bees. ?
• bees: A cast of bees (a secondary swarm)
• bees: A cluster of bees (workers around queen).
• bees: A colony of bees
• bees: A drift of bees - in flight ?
• bees: An erst of bees.
• bees: A game of bees.
• bees: A grist of bees.
• bees: A hive of bees. (standard)
• bees: A rabble of bees.
• bees: A stand of bees.
• bees: A swarm of bees - in flight. (standard)