Now its My Turn - Kelly's Crazy Week

While Ron was out tromping through cornfields, I spent a lot of time in the car heading to soybean fields to put out traps for a survey. We managed to travel 1300 miles during the first three days of the week and see both ends of the state.

Lucky for me, part of the survey is done in NW Illinois. I stayed at my parents house Monday night. Home cooking and time with the fam....lots of fun. In fact Stacy and Maddy were there Monday evening when I got to Morrison. Even though I had to share my ear of corn with Maddy, it was great to taste the first sweet corn of summer.


The rest of my week....spent driving and putting out these traps:


The rest of my time has spent dealing with this :

Hard to believe this insect will cause ash trees to look like this:

If anyone wants to help, next week we'll be screening purple sticky traps for them.

All about Me from A to Z.....

Hmm.... I saw this over at Never Wanted Nothin' More and thought I might share some stuff about me. Feel free to play along!

A is for age: 30

B is for burger of choice: Beef - with cheese, onion, and mayo

C is for car you drive: Ford Escape

D is for your dog’s name: Abbey

E is for essential item you use every day: water

F is for favorite TV show at the moment: not a lot of tv watching lately, but I like CSI, Trading Spaces, and baseball

G is for your favorite game: softball

H is for hometown: Morrison, IL

I is for instruments you play: none...no musical talent here

J is for favorite juice: Apple

K is for what you’d like to kick: the guy that built our house

L is for last restaurant you ate at: Steak and Shake

M is for your favorite muppet: kermit

N is for number of piercings: Five - all in my ears, but I'm currently only using 2

O is for overnight hospital stays: None, unless you count when I was born

P is for people you were with today: Jen, Mike, Sue, and Joe at work, the softball team after work, and Ron, of course

Q is for what you do with your quiet time: I love to read, quilt, and craft

R is for biggest regret: nothing really sticks out, but we're currently regretting buying the house we're living in

S is for status: Married

T is for time you woke up today: 6 am

U is for what you consider unique: most everything

V is for vegetable you love: corn

W is for worst habit: not being able to say no to people

X is for x-rays you’ve had : knees, ankles, and foot, all multiple times

Y is for yummy food you ate today: grape nuts for breakfast

Z is for zodiac sign: Pisces

Getting Ready for the Field Season

Since Ron and I both are in the ag industry and run our own research programs, spring is a pretty busy time of year (realistically, when isn't a busy time of year?). The weather is starting to warm up and that means we get to leave our offices and labs and get outside!

Ron coordinates the Insect Management Trials for the Department of Crop Sciences at the university of Illinois. He works with ag companies to conduct sponsored research on products that different companies sell as well as other entomology research products. Bottom line right now -- Ron's getting his different trials set up, protocols entered, and waiting for the last of the seed and chemicals to come in. All with the help of his trusty comrades Nick and Josh -- luckily though, both Hannah and Caitlin are there to keep all three of them in line. While it's still early in the season, but the end of the year, all their hard work ends up in the annual program report: on Target.



I, on the other hand, coordinate surveys for invasive pests. I work with the department of agriculture and USDA to conduct surveys for insects, weeds, and plant pathogens that are a threat to Illinois agriculture and natural resources. The tricky thing for me - we're surveying for pests that aren't here yet (most of the time) or determining the range of the pest that has been discovered. Right, now I'm contacting cooperators for our exotic bark beetle and wood borer survey. Then its on to working on an invasive plant survey and publication and a soybean survey. All lot of people still don't have a good idea of what I really do. Hopefully as I keep you updated this summer, that will change. My website for work is slowly taking shape, but it still has a long way to go, but go ahead and learn more about the Illinois Cooperative Agriculture Pest Survey.

We both end up traveling all over the state, but while Ron and crew are trekking through corn and soybean fields, I'll be making my way through parks, soybean fields, pallet recycling places, industrial areas, and all sorts of odd businesses. Want to come along?

Let them eat cake

When we got to Morrison, Madison and Stacy were at Grandma and Grandpa's which is great, because we haven't seen them since Christmas. Maddy has grown so much! Not only is she walking, but she has definite opinions about wanting to do things herself, and she's developing her own personality.

It was pretty relaxing Friday night - playing in the living room, watching some basketball, and we also had some cake for dessert. Maddy and I shared a piece, and Stacy was more than happy to catch the event on camera. As you'll be able to tell, the cake was pretty good, but the frosting was even better.