martinimade

It is finally summer. I know this because we had a busy, busy weekend of making stuff and romping about and because I am currently sitting on the couch watching Wimbledon. It isn't summer until the hours on the couch watching Wimbledon. If I was supposed to do something for you this week, it probably won't happen unless it can be done while on the couch watching Wimbledon. One must have priorities.

I can do quite a bit from here thanks to the modern age. I have a laptop and wireless internet access. I can listen to tennis and deal with email and research a couple of projects and write stuff that doesn't require too much of my brain. (Some would argue that I don't use that much of my brain while writing in the first place. They, of course, can bite me.)

My mind still boggles a bit at how easy some things have become, thanks to the vast amount of info floating out there and easily reached with the aforementioned wifi.

Since I had the camera in my hand while we were outside blowing bubbles yesterday, I took a picture of this bug (which I almost stepped on, much to the horror of everyone involved. (Maddy was horrified that I almost squashed it. I was horrified that there was a bug on the planet that is almost as long as my foot.)) with the sole intention of using the shot to ID the bug later. Yes, I am that kind of geek.

What surprised me is not the fact that I was able to get pretty close to figuring out the name of this bug.  What surprised me is how quickly I could do it.

All it took was googling  "big identification," which led to this helpful site. I then googled the two possibilities and found some photos, which led me to this site on Ephemeroptra. So the bug above is a mayfly of some sort. I've been looking at other pixs so that I can figure out what sort of mayfly it is but I now have a strong cases of the creeps after looking at so many pictures of so many insects that I can't quite go on. It's enough to know it's a mayfly. I can leave it at that.

In the "learn something new everyday" category -- mayflies are big for flyfishers. There are charts devoted to their hatch schedules, their markings, etc. There are guides on how to tie mayfly lures. And there are guides on which particular trout love which particular types of mayflies.

Our Trout, however, was remarkably uninterested.