It Was a Quick Slow Week!

Have you ever had one of those weeks that simultaneously went very fast, and at the same time seemed to have lasted a long, long time?

Last week was like that for me. I don't know if it was the heat or being cooped up trying to stay cool, but the week seemed to alternately stretch out and compress.

Whatever it was, I was surprised to realize at the end of the week that I hadn't picked up a pair of knitting needles for more than about five minutes over the whole week! Even stranger, I hadn't missed it.

But now I've downloaded pattern 6 from the Sampler M Knitalong group and I'm feeling ready to knit again.

Our power did come back on, and we made that pie. It was completely polished off at the family reunion, so I don't regret having given my son the first piece. (Hint: if you bring something to a potluck, usually you'll bring less home if you cut and remove one piece! People don't like to be the one to "start" a pie, a pan of brownies, a cake, or what have you. But they don't mind being next.)

One moderately exciting thing that happened last week, besides having to stop for deer that were just standing in the road (too hot to move, is my guess), seeing more wild turkeys, and having a great blue heron fly up and out of the drainage ditch and over my van was
[deep breath -- that was a long sentence!]
getting a giant horse fly of some kind, probably one of the Tabanus species, inside our van. We have lots of the normal-sized deer flies (Chrysops species) with stripes, but this thing was a huge fly, a good inch long, with wicked-looking biting mouthparts. Even with a magazine, my son was afraid to swat it, and handed me the magazine to do the job.

I've been known to behead deer flies to make sure they are dead. (I just hate it when I swat one, and in ten minutes it groggily starts walking and then flies away!) But even I was leery of touching this big thing, and stepped on it instead.

I was assisted in my search for genus names by the websites "What's That Bug" and "BugGuide.Net". The internet is a blessing for people like me, who want to know "What is that thing?"