I could probably claim this as professional outreach :P
What I did at work today:
First, I washed a bunch of vials and set them precariously up to dry.
Next I checked on my fly cages. No adults yet!
So I fiddled with the ancient environmental controls for the walk-in growth chamber.
Then I checked my boxes of larvae.
Yay! Pupae!
I sifted them out of the sand. A lot of the live maggots got stuck in the mesh trying to escape.
That's enough pupae to set up more cages!
I went up to the attic to get more gloves. I was approximately 115° up there. Also, it is a mess.
Then I went to lunch with mothoc and had delicious chicken tenders.
I came back to the lab and set up my sewing machine to make some maggot bags. Blue was on sale in the remnant pile for $2/yd, so they're blue instead of white. And distinctively *mine*.
These should keep the phorids out of the development boxes better than cheesecloth.
I defrosted some liver chunks to make Fly Chow.
The ingredients for Fly Chow: Liver, honey, and a multivitamin. We don't actually know if the multivitamin is necessary, but it doesn't seem to hurt them any.
It's fun to pulverize stuff FOR SCIENCE.
This is the most appetizing Fly Chow ever looks. The smell is a different story.
The strainer gets rid of all the nasty connective tissue and makes it easier to distribute equal portions. It's still thick, so I have to push it through the strainer with my fingers.
Also, I made curtains for my dungeon out of the leftover material, wrote up a gigantic LJ post, and spent a lot of time on the internet.
First, I washed a bunch of vials and set them precariously up to dry.
Next I checked on my fly cages. No adults yet!
So I fiddled with the ancient environmental controls for the walk-in growth chamber.
Then I checked my boxes of larvae.
Yay! Pupae!
I sifted them out of the sand. A lot of the live maggots got stuck in the mesh trying to escape.
That's enough pupae to set up more cages!
I went up to the attic to get more gloves. I was approximately 115° up there. Also, it is a mess.
Then I went to lunch with mothoc and had delicious chicken tenders.
I came back to the lab and set up my sewing machine to make some maggot bags. Blue was on sale in the remnant pile for $2/yd, so they're blue instead of white. And distinctively *mine*.
These should keep the phorids out of the development boxes better than cheesecloth.
I defrosted some liver chunks to make Fly Chow.
The ingredients for Fly Chow: Liver, honey, and a multivitamin. We don't actually know if the multivitamin is necessary, but it doesn't seem to hurt them any.
It's fun to pulverize stuff FOR SCIENCE.
This is the most appetizing Fly Chow ever looks. The smell is a different story.
The strainer gets rid of all the nasty connective tissue and makes it easier to distribute equal portions. It's still thick, so I have to push it through the strainer with my fingers.
Also, I made curtains for my dungeon out of the leftover material, wrote up a gigantic LJ post, and spent a lot of time on the internet.