I wonder how many dispatches that I’ve started with the letter/word I. Most likely most of them. I move forward in time, not backwards, so I will never know.

Another long day, the weather excellent, me doing my book project thing. I did it, if I did nothing else, I did it. I got Zoren Kaiser, son of our veterinarian, Zack Kaiser, to come to Bugge Park and talk about ants.

I had no idea when we met about a year ago and he showed me the ants that he had in test tubes – and his ant farm. No, I had no idea at all that I’d have him work with children. I didn’t know how he’d do, but he did amazingly well.

This morning, Christine, Mike, Kora and I sat in a circle and listened as Zoren talked about ants – he showed everyone his ant farm, which is state of the art – a cylinder filled with six queens and the worker ants – the cylinder surrounded with translucent red plastic– we can see in but it’s dark in the cylinder itself.

Zoren with his ants

Zoren also talked about he is now building a tank – just spontaneously mentioned this. I forgot until just now, last year he was into explosives and gave us a demonstration of how two chemicals ignited. And he had an interest also in cotton seed growth – he was down south and he and his mother Brianna stopped and picked up some seeds on the road, and when they arrived back home, they planted them.

We had about seven children total show up. A small number. And it was hard to get them interested in what was going on because the playground equipment was an even bigger draw.

I suppose that if I were to do this again, I’d recruit children and involve the parents more. I suppose.

I tell you next summer will be a horsey summer. This is what summers are for.

I thought that I’d ride tonight. That was the plan. Pete ended up getting three newspaper boxes ready to pass on to those who will paint them. And seeing as he was working on this project, I, instead of riding, worked on caning the raspberries. This involves cutting out the long dead branches.

I forced myself to get into this, meaning that I relied on single minded intensity of focus. I cut the long branches and set them in the center of the isle between the rows. And I visualized the raspberry branches as being my height. Last year they were a full two feet taller than I was.

It was a beautiful evening for this, so I didn’t mind it. And Pete put shelves in three of the boxes.

In the next few days we’ll find individuals who will paint the boxes.

Now tomorrow we have another day of ants, this time at Amoosement Park. Then in the following two days, bees. Then Friday Fling again.

Yikes. I cannot think too far ahead. I’m getting practiced at this.

Next: 164. 6/17/26: Me? Lucky?