Bruce Does Not Have to Serve on the Jury

September 7, 2026

On August 28, 2026, in the morning Bruce headed back to the courthouse for the jury selection process. The jury pool was told the jury selection was almost finished. Bruce was a little bit jaded since he had heard this a few times. Bruce did appreciate the judge apologizing for the process taking so long.

Bruce called me at noon sounding excited. The jury was selected and he wasn’t included. He was waiting for the majority of the traffic rush to clear out. There were still a lot of people in the jury pool and with most of them leaving at the same time, it caused a small town traffic jam.

Bruce asked me if I wanted to go out for lunch. The answer was no, we’ve got plenty of food in the house.

While Bruce was off being considered for jury duty, I was catching leaf-legged bugs. Unexpectedly, a butterfly landed next to one of the evil leaf-legged bugs. The leaf-legged bug is to the right of the butterfly.

I also picked cucumbers and peppers.

I saw this skipper butterfly on a weed.

Once Bruce was home, he started telling me about what the jury selection was for. It was for a capital murder case. A police officer was killed and another was injured.

Bruce said he had mixed feelings about not serving on the jury. He thought it would be an interesting case, but very hard. The defendant had a history of mental illness and had been institutionalized before.

This is the news story about the jury selection. https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/news/content/ar-AA2aQLoV?ocid=sapphireappshare Bruce had originally said 200 people were in the pool, but decided it was 400 based on the numbering the potential jurors had. He was 301 and he saw higher numbers.

After lunch, I saw a butterfly through the front picture window. I thought it was a monarch butterfly, but couldn’t get a good enough look at first. It stopped long enough for me to get a good picture to use for identification. I thought more monarchs might be on the way, but I haven’t seen any.

Eastern monarchs have a different migratory route than western monarchs, which is why I thought I might see more of them passing by.

“Monarchs are not cold tolerant but eastern populations solve that problem by migrating to a warmer climate—a feat that involves flying thousands of miles and circumnavigating a continent.  Monarchs that originate as far north as Canada and New England follow the Appalachian Mountain range south, and some eventually stream through Alabama.  Many make it to south Alabama where they roost communally in trees and shrubs in places like Fort Morgan and the grounds of the Grand Hotel in Fairhope. Most travel on to Mexico, but new research indicates that there may be an additional migration route that moves some east through coastal Alabama and then south to south Florida and the Caribbean.  In 2008/2009, Duane Miller discovered that hundreds stay in Alabama, clustered in pine trees at Fort Morgan, flying only when days are warm.” From the Alabama Butterfly Atlas. https://alabama.butterflyatlas.usf.edu/species/details/47/

We had a lovely sunset while hunting tomato hornworms. There are a lot of other pests that show up in UV light, some types of stink bugs and other types of caterpillars. We discovered this during our hornworms hunt. I walked a little ways back from the tomatoes to get a few a good pictures of the sunset.