First Day of School

The girls were so excited this morning - they woke up without a fuss! - and couldn't wait to leave the house for school. It was only a half-day and they didn't get any homework, so I guess it was an exceptionally good day.

I have a long list of things I wanted to get done after the kids went back to school. Number one on the list is cleaning up the yard (mostly, a lot of weed removal). The problem is, our yard waste container isn't very large, so I knew I'd fill it up within a few hours. On the bright side, I had a couple of biological encounters and was able to get some good shots. Here's a tiny little frog that was living in the pool surrounding our leaking sprinkler box...

And here are some scarab beetles that were aggregating on an overripe fig. I harvested a few for myself (I have to get them before they get superripe, otherwise they are too sweet) and then snapped some shots of the beetles, who were completely undeterred by my shutter activity. They were hanging out there all morning and afternoon - Marika came home and counted eight of them! On the same fig!

These beetles are so cool - not only are they big and a gorgeous metallic green, but they fly around like bomber planes. Most people freak out when they fly by, thinking that they're a bee or something. When DaddyDude's baseball teammates started swatting at one last Sunday and I told him to stop panicking, it was just a beetle, one retorted, "No, it's a BEE-TLE!" I thought that was pretty funny... :)

Officially, it's called a metallic green fig beetle because... (drumroll)... it's often found on fig fruit! And now, I know where to find them...