GONE AGAIN

I left the house Tuesday on my way to teach what I thought was one class at a High School North of here. I arrived and the teacher informed me that he had me scheduled to teach Biodiversity to all five of his classes that day. It was kind of fun and I have to tell you those kids are pretty damn smart. They knew within five seconds that it wasn't going to be a day where they played around with the new person in class or the sub or whatever you want to call me. I thought it was funny because one kid started right off the get go and all I did was stop talking and look at him---in total silence in the room---for five full seconds---no one else wanted to go there so I had a pretty good day trying to show them how all of the biodiversity stuff enters into Forestry. After I finished that up I drove to a University North of here where I participated in a panel discussion on what you need to do to regenerate aspen. I had no idea I was considered to be one of the people that knew how to go about insuring that aspen came back and survived---all I have to offer is that if you treat aspen stands where there are likely critters (both domestic cows and elk) then you need to fence the project with an 8 foot fence for three or four years---spendy? YUP but compared to a failure of a treatment it is cheap---try sometime to get an aspen to grow and think about doing that same thing on 500 or more acres---

While I was there I took our daughters and one son in law and three grandkids out to dinner. It was fun and I really enjoyed seeing my new granddaughter for the first time---she is three months old. She is a doll and is one of---if not THE---happiest child I have ever seen---she doesn't cry---when she's hungry she fusses a little but I wouldn't call it crying. It would have been more fun if Inklings had been with me.