9/16/2021: Reconstructing Science- Roach Crossing is back! (Big Post!)

I never really know where to start this big “return to business” blog posts, but I think I have a few main points to bring up.

First of all, it’s good to be back after an unintentionally long hiatus. Before getting into detail, here’s a list of what I’ve been up to in no particular order:

-Spent a few months working at Creating Sustainable Landscapes, LLC.

-Hosted a garden tour for the Master Gardener Association of Wayne County.

-Finished creating some new native plant garden beds as well as permaculture set-ups such as a Hugel mound (recommended by my great friend and neighbor Joe Constantankis)

-Completely refreshed many of my roach cultures in preparation for a busy fall/winter.

-Welcomed the dog of my people into my life (read more at www.Gampr.org ) to be a guardian to my livestock and gardens by keeping coyotes and deer out of my yard.

-Did a 9-ish day blitz collecting trip to Colorado, New Mexico, Arizona, and Texas.

So things have been very busy around these parts. Due to bug work piling up as one of my assistants recently got a full-time job (congratulations Brandon!), with a heavy heart I had to quit my work at CSL to return to the bug mines once more. My time working with Drew forms a special chapter in my life, and I’m thankful for the diverse knowledge about not just native plantings but also business management that he was able to teach me. The call (scream, really) back to bug work was too strong, though.

The collecting trip was a unique experience the likes of which I’m unsure I’ll ever be able to physically manage again. William Samojeden (you may remember him from the livestream on pseudoscorpions we did with Rus at Aquarimax) and I took on thousands of miles of driving to hit several key spots in the southwest, and although we went in September when many of our past trip species are out of season, we found plenty of what we wanted and more. Will has some big surprises coming up in the pseudoscorpion department, but I’ll be a little more upfront: I was able to collect fair to excellent numbers of 12 Arenivaga species/locales, with a few being completely new to culture (others being locales/species previously lost from other trips… oops). My sleep schedule is still reeling from all the timezone changes, the four hours of sleep nights, and a diet of mostly jerkied meat, mango, and gas stop pickles. I’ll put up some blog posts on some of the more notable finds soon.

So where are things headed from here? Well, I have officially decided to devote my life to raising bugs. Over the last few years I’ve been asked about my full time work and many have been surprised to hear I’ve been doing bugs full time on and off. Well, the back and forth has come to an end and things will be looking much like they did last winter when all the machine gears were turning.

Currently in the way of this is the small tragedy of my laptop breaking right before the trip; I’m currently using an old one my parents maintain but will be ordering some new form of computational machine in the next few days. In the meantime, thanks for another long 1-2 weeks of patience after the many prior as I get my tech in order.

I’m expecting Roach Crossing to be back up and running full force by October 1st. I’ll be answering the last 2-3 months of e-mails when I have the computational power to do more than blog (this laptop is about 11 years old and I’ve noticed flames coming out the back when more than 5 tabs are open…) and from there the fun really starts.

While doing plant work I made the bold and very wrong assumption I’d have the gusto and physical strength left after long days to make new species pages, blogs, fiddle with impatient bugs while taking pictures… I was very wrong and I’d like to apologize for getting folks’ hopes up for possible window shopping while I was on hiatus. Once the new computer gets here, I’ll actually get some more pages up and going. The trip Arenivaga won’t be listed until I have sizable colonies of each, but some long-awaited species will be coming available very soon.

Some times I need to take a step back from things for perspective. A year ago I lived a very different life in a very different headspace, and I’m sure if past Kyle was able to look forward he’d be excited and happy about what he sees. Sure, the context for things is important too, but even on paper many things, like my roach colonies, are doing better than they have in over half a decade. I can only thank the perseverance and encouragement of those who have stuck by and lent a hand during the rough times for the progress that’s been made. This includes the customers who have been ever-patient with my crazy schedule and prioritizing, but I hope the cool and healthy bugs I make available are good enough compensation.

Thanks for reading, be in touch soon!

-Kyle