If you've driven the freeways between Brainerd, Minn., and Spokane, Wash., you will recall seeing the “World's Biggest Turkey,” the “World's Biggest Cow,” “World's Biggest T-Rex Skull” and other "Biggest" this-and-that.

A lot of kids, when suddenly confronted by a snake, freak out. My oldest son, Dean, from the moment he could crawl wasn't that way—he'd go after it. His younger brother, Ross, is that way, and so are my other four, for that matter.

Dean, however, was always one jump ahead of everyone else. Not only did he have the ability to make instant decisions as a child, but his curiosity and reflexes have benefited him as an adult—today, he is an F-16 Viper pilot and is presently on a year-long tour of duty as a peace-keeper in Afghanistan.

Welcome to the world of insects! If you’re ever bored or think life is the pits, grab up an old sheet, place it under the nearest bush, tree or flower patch, take a stick and gently beat the plants and see what drops out. I'll give you two-dollars-to-a-donut there will be things flying and hopping around on the sheet you have never seen before, most of them a wonderful mystery.

If no one will give you an old sheet, buy a stout butterfly net and go "sweep-netting" in the grasses and tall plants in your backyard. When you stop, you'll find the net teeming with animals of wonderful variety, and like the creepy-crawlers on the sheet, you probably won't know many of them.

The photo above that Dick Tipton shot of the Osprey getting hammered by a Western Kingbird is the epitome of what lengths small birds go to in order to protect their home and family from larger birds, whether the threat is real or not.

There is no way anyone could convince the energetic kingbird that the osprey means no harm. To a small bird with an open nest—such as kingbirds use—larger birds mean trouble as they carry off nestlings and eat them.

Let’s face it. Man, in his continual struggle to make a living, stay healthy and put a little money in the bank has a hard time of it, and those who decide to make a living as farmers sometimes have it even tougher. They often have to put all their eggs into one basket (pun intended), or put another way, create a monoculture, like raising fields of alfalfa hay and nothing else but weeds, for example.

In mid summer, the efforts of all the water, fertilizer and changing pipes at the crack-of-dawn and general TLC to raise a crop of alfalfa are beautifully obvious. However, trouble is brewing because things farmers don’t like are attracted to his alfalfa. But not to fear, help is near.