Our friendly outdoor kitty Maxine (Jay named her) showed up at the house with 2 kittens last weekend. So what was Jay to do but get a box and settle the new family into the sunroom! The little black kitty has longer fur and is a bit bigger than his striped brother. They already had their eyes open when Jay found them, but they can't be any more than a few weeks old. They are very clumsy, their ears are super tiny, and their mewing is absolutely precious. I think we're falling in love with them already!
Here is Maxine with her adorable babies in their box. The striped boy likes to play with his mama!
That evening, we attempted our first night-sampling event during a break in the storms. The clouds looked pretty amazing hanging low in the Huachuca Mountains. 
We didn't see any bats (nectarivorous or otherwise) that night, but we did see a couple sphinx moths (pictured below is the one we were able to capture - they are really fast and don't actually land on the blooms, and they respond to the sound of the bug vac, so they are difficult targets) and an owlet moth. We are unlikely to see any differences in pollinators between our plots (which are set up as paired plots at each site, where one plot is dominated by an invasive lovegrass and the other by native grasses) because the bats and moths travel long distances each night to forage specifically on the agaves, so the underlying vegetation is not that important, unlike the pollinators we capture during our day-sampling. 
Day two was extremely successful though! We started at 5:15am and were able to get 4 sites sampled by our 1:00pm cutoff time (pollinator activity dramatically decreases in the afternoon heat) and just before the rains started again! We had some plots with blooming agaves, so we broke out the orchard ladder and bug vac extension tubes. Just ahead of the storms, Robert samples one of the tallest agaves we've seen (it must be over 30ft) while Pam holds the ladder for safety: 
After lunch that day, Pam and I were lucky enough to spot a bobcat on our way back to the lab (where we enjoyed the new daily task of sorting soapy, stinky, slimy dead insects from the pollinator traps, which we're using to create a reference collection). 
The monsoon has opened up a whole new array of flowers in our plots. Here are some of my favorites: 
The monsoon and heat of the summer have also brought out the spiders... the large spiders that is! So far, we've seen this sun spider and female tarantula (a very little tarantula). And no, I did not hold either spider. Those bare hands are Robert's, because he is crazy... 
So as not to leave you with the spiders, here is a pretty sunset photo to end this blog. The best part about the monsoon is the amazing sunsets we have had every single night so far this trip (not that they were bad before, with the gorgeous Huachuca Mountains as a backdrop, but they're even more dramatic now).
And if you think Cole has grown, just check out his little brother! Jamie is just over a year old now and looking very much like his brother. Last time we saw him he was only a month old! 
Later that day, we figured we should get a photo of ourselves in our patriotic colors. Directly after this photo was taken, Jay grabbed some fireworks and set them off under Jamie's bedroom window so he'd wake up and come out to play with us at the beach! It worked... 
Then finished off the night with the Weeks family. Here are Ryan and Amber with some sparklers: 
My Dad enlisted in the Army in 1969, trained at Ft. Campbell and Ft. Sill, then served one year on a missle base in Turkey. He returned state-side to Ft. Hood, then was released from the Army on an early out because the Vietnam War ended and a large military force was no longer needed, so he served another year in the Wisconsin Army Reserve. He had 3 honorable discharges (Army Reserves to active duty, Regular Army, and National Guard) and his service ended right before he married my Mom in 1973.
My Grandpa Jackson's military career started off when he faked his own death (he left his bike on the shore of Lake Superior to fake his drowning) and joined the Army at age 16 (using his deceased brother's birth certificate). When he was eventually caught, his parents gave permission for him to stay in service. He fought in the Korean War and was wounded in the leg, a time of his life he rarely talks about. He spent some time in Japan, and was on active duty when he married my Grandma, in his uniform, and later when both my Mom and Aunt were born. 
Jay's Dad graduated from the US Naval Academy in l962 as a Line Officer and Weapons Specialist. He earned his Master's in Electrical Engineering from Naval Postgraduate School in 1969. He then served as Weapons Officer aboard the USS Little Rock, flag ship of the Mediterranean, and took part in the reopening of the Suez Canal. His last tour was as Weapons Officer in charge of bringing back 4 battleships. After serving 21 years in the US Navy (plus 4 at the Academy), he retired as a Commander in 1983.
