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I think this is becoming my favorite match each year. I love the traditional bows, nothing fancy allowed. My new bow is sharp and so smooth to shoot with. I am very happy with it. Dad was my lane judge and helped the new kids learn the rules and scoring. In the woods I shot amazingly! I was super happy with my performance. I made a friend and we laughed the entire time. He was very nice. Award time and I am super happy! I came in3rd place. Not bad for a new bow 10 days ago and a bow malfunction 4 days earlier.  Two sunburned happy archers! The drive home was blah. I was reading some school work and got carsick. I got to try Mom’s new carsick goggles. They seemed to work. We stopped at Repticon on the way home. We saw so many odd and interesting reptiles. Oddly we left with a furry thing. Well, 4 of them. E and I each adopted 2 hamsters.

Meet Caligula! And NERO!

E and I, mainly me, have been working for about 8 weeks to make this project some to life. We were offered space to make a display on entomology. The space was HUGE. We were up for the task. I started with soliciting donations and received3 Cornell drawers from Bioquip (2 directly and one form an employee). The University of Florida Dept. Of Entomology reached out with insect donations!

This is what the giant wall looked like before we started.
Stripped down and an empty pallet! Day 1 install. Green paper, some posters and words. Several trips later we finally have a finished product! See the photos below for a more detailed look. 

This was a great opportunity to leave our mark and to teach others about entomology. We look forward to working with the preserve to do some outreach programs.

I put together a program for another 4-H club on water quality and insects. We showed off our insect collections and equipment. We brought in a few samples from  the pond outside. After the educational part we took the kids out to the pond and taught them how to dip net for inverts. We found quite a few rather quickly. The kids analized the water quality based on what insect larva they were able to find. They concluded it was a level 1 or 2 which means that it isn’t that polluted. We found damselyfly larva, dragonfly larva, mosquito larva, snails, crayfish, back swimmers, whirlygig beetles and a few worms. We hope to polish up the program more and offer it at Brooker Creek Preserve in the future. It was a lot of fun!

This weekend we went to the Florida State Fair on 4-H day as usual. We arrived early and got our fresh Amish donuts. My tummy was bugging me a little so I only had one. We had a personal tour of the engines area. We learned a lot from the gentleman. Me favorite part of the day is always the insect displays. Eventhough this was an arachnid display for insects, I thought it was hilarious. This was a new way to present the radish seed growing experiment. We picked up some insect drawers that came down from UF and called it a day. I was exhausted.

On Friday we had gone to the archery store to get E a new bow and I found one I liked too! It is an olympic style recurve. It is so much more smooth and easier to shoot than Mom’s bow I have been borrowing. We set up the short range in the yard for a little practice. 4-H has been a lot of fun this year. We kids are doing all sorts of fun topics. M and J taught us how to make sugar scrubs. I loved mixing and making mine. We accidentally left it int he car and it separated so we are waiting for a warm day to melt it and mix it back up.  I am trying to shoot daily with the new bow since we have a tournament coming up in a few weeks.

Trying something new this year. I signed up for Latin Regionals. I took two tests: phrases, mottoes, quotes and abbreviations and mythology.  The Pledge of Allegiance in Latin. I tried my hand at some of the games too. I enjoyed the discus toss. I made some new friends. I got 3rd in PMAQ.

I have opted to attend FJCL Latin States in a few months. I have to study more for that! I will take the same two exams.