Bermuda, Beans, Birds, and The Buffalo

August was a good month for Karen and I. It started of with a cruise to Bermuda in honor of my parents 40th wedding anniversary. Congratulations Mom and Dad, you're an inspiration to us all. We spent six days and five nights sailing the Atlantic Ocean, enjoying time with my family, and exploring Bermuda. Highlights included relaxing by the pool with Karen, gazing out into the deep blue ocean, intriguing conversations with my brothers and nephews, exploring Spittal Pond Nature Reserve and an empty coastline, swimming at Horseshoe Bay and the nap that followed, leaving the casino up, and eating a family dinner with my parents almost every night.

The California Scaboo's

The entire family at dinner

Downtown Bermuda

My brother and I entering Spittal Pond Nature Reserve.

This little lizard just stared at us while we admired him and his neighborhood.

My soybeans look great this year. We have had an extremely wet growing season this year in Arkansas. We usually have to irrigate our fields heavily during August and September because the plants are filling the pods (producing seeds) and use a tremendous amount of water (up to 0.5 cm per day), but not this year. We received enough rain from Gustav and Ike to last us through harvest.

I have three experiments this year at three different locations in Arkansas including Fayetteville, Stuttgart, and Keiser. Here are a few pictures of my fields during a mid summer irrigation in Stuttgart.

Searching for and counting stink bugs.

I added three new birds to my Arkansas year list in September including Snowy Egret, Black-throated Green Warbler, and Greater White-fronted Goose. That puts me at 169 for the year. I am becoming evermore doubtful that I will accomplish my goal of 200, but it certainly won't be from a lack of effort. I think, like anything else it just takes time and practice to become reliable at bird identification, but that is also what makes it fun.

We also visited the Buffalo National River a few times in the past weeks. A group of us canoed from Ponca bridge to Kyles Landing (14 miles) a few days after Gustav came through, which left an abundant amount of water in the river and allowed for a rare trip down the river during the late summer.

We also hiked to a great swimming hole about a week before we went canoeing.

As far as the near future looks - In two weeks I'll be traveling to Houston, TX and presenting a paper at the American Society of Agronomy International Annual Meetings. I'll also be on a serious hunt for positions opening up in the next year or so. I hope everything goes well. I'm taking one class entitled 'Scientific Writing' this semester. It's the last class of my collegiate career and I can't wait to finish. It has been a long run, as most of you know. I'm also writing another book chapter, finishing a chapter for my dissertation, and harvesting my experiments before Christmas, so I'll be busy.