"Open state land for haying, grazing"

Iowa is approximately 93% agricultural land, with only 4% of natural areas, privately protected or state-protected. Although I know the flooding has had a terrible impact on the state, it kind of breaks my heart to think of cattle grazing that little bit of land isn't already devoted to agriculture or to cities.
http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/chi-ap-ia-northeylandreques,0,3187433.story
Am I just overreacting? I know state parks aren't exactly pristine habitat, but COME ON, don't we have any limits?

Lying to 5-Year-Olds

I just gave an insect presentation to kick off the summer "Catch the reading bug" program at the public library. I took interesting insect specimens, we counted parts, we sang my original "dragon the fly" song: it was all good. Or mostly good. Or at least it satisfied the librarians.
Except that I made up insect names when kids asked. "Oh, that's an emerald beetle. That's a green beetle. That's a saw back beetle. It's a wooly caterpillar" I know that five year olds love to name things, so I'm not sure why I didn't look them up (except lots were beetles and I'm lazy). How bad is that?
It was a green colored beetle, anyway.

Summer Celebrations and Nerdiness

Happy Birthday to Jennifer's Mister (Tuesday?), Jenny's Mister (late in July) and 3 month to Annika (today).
We just passed Beth's Anniversary, mine is this week, and Tucson's is next week.
But no birthdays among GBKs.
So, I was washing dishes and thinking that between Bridgett and Cathy (late May) and Cheryl and Abby (October), we have no birthdays*. On the other hand, all of the Misters' birthdays I know fall in that gap. Nate is late May, Mario June, Stephen and Tim July and Jeff September. What's up with summer men and late autumn-winter-spring women?
And, while I am washing dishes, I was thinking about whether or not this is statistically significant. And, more to the point, would it be an interesting enough problem for my techniques of science classes to do. I think the answer is no to both (although I haven't worked it out yet) but I am intrigued by the different tests one could do depending on what the null hypothesis is.

*Sorry if I somehow missed someone.

Pipetting

The latest trend - EpMotion

Enjoy!

dehumidifier water safe for pets?

Does anyone know about giving dehumidifier water to pets to drink? I started putting it out in the bird bath, then because it rained last night and everything was watered or filled with water, I poured it in the water bowl inside. I suppose I should drink it too if I'm giving it to them!

J. K. Rowling at Harvard: The Fringe Benefits of Failure and the Importance of Imagination

I found this commencement speech interesting, funny, and inspiring, and I know several of you are JK Rowling fans so I thought I'd share.

http://harvardmagazine.com/go/jkrowling.html

Blog Roll

I just added a blog roll on the side. I figure that generally we want each other to read our blogs and that we don't necessarily want random on-line friends navigating here (thus no direct link from my blog to the GBKD). In any case, if you don't want your blog included, move it, and if you want a blog added, add it.
On a side note, my parents just returned from a wedding and their 45th high school reunion and returned to a cat-less house for the first time in 30+ years. They are pretty upset but were moved to tears by the kind notes on my blog. Thanks. (complete aside, Mom asked if I had any thoughts about going to me 10th. I had to laugh because well, it was 8 years ago and I broke my ankle in many places that day, so my parents had to wait outside my apartment for the friends who were taking me. I hadn't thought about 20 until she mentioned it. Anyway, at 18 years out of high school I have spent almost exactly half of my life as an "adult".)