So every day, I make “lunch letters” for my 11yo kiddo in the style of her favorite stuffy (Monkey Brr; my old stuffy–he’s seen some things!). I often work in bad photoshops, and because I’m an inveterate iNatter (and moth-er), I occasionally have insect/arthropod themed “stories.” This was from a few days ago, and it’s niche enough that I thought y’all might get a kick out it.
There’s one inside joke: The “Ted” mentioned is our rather chonky dog. (I also hate onions, lol.)
Brett,
I love your contributions on the forum! Like your wonderful Valentine’s Day cards that you created: https://forum.inaturalist.org/t/inat-inspired-valentines/
You seem like an amazing dad, and it probably takes up most of your time. At the same time, when I see you write
And you have 9k observations, but less than 200 IDs, and almost no annotations, I hear Diana saying
There is no “right way” to use iNat. Enjoy the platform, and try not to burn out!
I’m just planting a seed about one perspective, which, as Diana said, seems to draw a mostly positive response, at least from the Ten Thousand Club that frequents the forum.
Focusing on the next generation is a different goal - which is more important going into the future.
Oh yes cilantro DOES taste like soap!!
These are so funny! I love the “quotes”! They really make me think…the Thomas Edison’s lightbulb joke was definitely the best!
Apparently there’s actually a gene some people have that makes cilantro taste like soap to them.
In other news, so it was butterflies behind the NFT craze after all? Should have known they were out to scam us. They can’t keep getting away with this!
I can understand the observation vs. identification critique, and it’s occurred to me too. My problem is that I’m a generalist, so I am a jack-of-all-trades, master of none, so I get serious imposter syndrome. I sort of view myself as a nature spotter; I photograph everything (almost without exaggeration) that I see in the warm months, and I log it all onto iNat.
That process takes a lot of time; in the summer, especially when I’m lamping for moths or hiking a lot, logging finds can take up to an hour a day (in addition to the actual tramping about/photographing). And with two kiddos in pretty busy ages (a tween and a teen), hiking time is hard to come by, so then it becomes a question of what do I prioritize? I could hike and observe less, and ID on iNat more, but I feel like I have more to offer as an observer, as I’m tending to observe things (inverts) that don’t get as much love, and I really do hunt for them.
I’m also working on a project/paper about tardigrades (it’s my winter invert of choice to observe) and I hope to eventually post those to iNat too, some of which will be fun additions to a category where there are exactly 7 observations in Minnesota.
