Won't be too long before Big Sister teaches the little guy to be her entomological assistant. At this age, though, he's as likely to eat them as anything.

We cooked portobellos on the grill, which isn't that unusual, but among the portobellos was the one on the left. Normally by this stage the mushroom gills would be chocolate brown with spores, like the one on the right. Even when the caps first open, the gills should be pink. This one must have developed with no spores at all. I considered keeping a tissue sample of the thing, but having nowhere handy to store it and no one in KC who might be interested, we decided to just eat it. As I guessed, it tasted better than average, as aging spores are one of the things that puts off the flavor of store-bought portobellos.

Not too far from my parents' house, there's an enclosure for elk and bison. It was a hot day and the elk were more interested in relaxing in the sun than in being social.

The bison, though, were a bit more agreeable.

He considers the value of a bag of carrots versus staying in his dust bath.

After a bit of consideration, he opted for carrots. Even the Englishman took a turn feeding him... through the fence.

Everyone takes a turn at bison-feeding.

Mmmm... carrots.

Our last day in town was the 4th of July, the big fireworks holiday in the US. It's been a while since I got to celebrate a fireworks holiday by blowing up stuff of my own, so we all got a few things... which added up to quite a pile of explosives. We did not end up staying at the lake to do fireworks. After considerable effort we figured out that fireworks were not allowed at the lake, so we took them to Fluf's mom's house instead.