Memorial day weekend

We had an unusually busy weekend this past Memorial day weekend. Jer always has to go in for a power-up (they shut down on Fri and turn on on Mon) Monday morning, but we did way more than that this time.

We often crash Lance and Kim's place on "grilling weekends" because they usually have a big old cookout. Jer called Lance on Thurs to see what they were up to. Nothing. Well, we said we'd come on over, anyway, and bring some brats. Lance said that'd be fine, and, since we'd be there, we could help him with some yard work. Ah, friends.

We went over on Sat. We took the dogs, too, so we didn't have to worry about how long we stayed. They also have two dogs, so they all got to run around a lot. Jasper whined. Togo escaped. Is there any other way? All was well, though.

It turned out Lance got some new plants to put in, but needed to clear out some daisies to make room. I said I'd happily take some off his hands. We hung out most of the day, dug up a bunch of plants, wore the dogs out, and just generally had a good time. We returned home with exhausted dogs and a couple clumps of daisies.

Sunday! So, Bonnie had been here a couple weeks before because she was on the way up to NH for a wedding. The wedding was my cousin's and, obviously, his dad, my uncle, was there. Uncle Togi was going to visit with some friends in VA after the wedding and wanted to come up to visit us. We arranged for Sunday.

Sunday started out with Jer deciding to excavate his side of the garage and I finally found my lopping shears and decided to have at some of the trees in the yard, as they regularly run in to me and I was sick of it. The willow got quite a haircut and the pine trees and dogwood lost some of their lower branches. It was hot and we were sweaty and so we had to get cleaned up before Uncle Togi and Nancy showed up around 2.

They had some issues convincing the GPS our address exists, but it all worked out and they got to our place fine. We gave them a tour and we sat and chatted a bit. Uncle Togi has been working in tumor research labs for the last, uh, many years. So he has a keen understanding of the academic process and was excited to hear of my progress. I told him I still had an opportunity to fail, but that I was hoping things would continue to go my way.

Anyway, they took us to dinner and we had a great time catching up. I told him he should come to my walking thing in December (assuming all goes well), so I might see him again soon. That'd be nice.

Monday we got up (early compared to the other days, because Jer had to go to work) and Jer did his work and I did a few more finishing (presumably) touches on the thesis of doom. I then went out to figure out where I wanted to put the daisies. They were not happy in their garbage bag on the deck (go figure).

I've mentioned before the overabundance of daffodils we have. Well, outside the fence, one whole side is just daffodils. No other plants (uh, not counting weeds, of course). I decided I'd put the daisies in there. They'll like the sun and bring some flowers to an otherwise boring spot. When I got out there, however, I decided I really needed to trim back the daffies (even though all the online stuff says not to do so until they're no longer green). I mean, the ground was solid daffodil leaves.

So I weed and trim daffies and then Jer gets home. We decide to go grab some lunch, but I'm a sweaty, dirty mess, so I have to have a quick shower, first. Jer washed his car while I was finishing up, so he needed a rinse, too. We get cleaned up and go grab some food.

After getting back, I reluctantly go back to the yard work. I've convinced myself that, really, the appropriate solution is to dig up all the daffodils because there are just so many. I wouldn't have been able to plant the daisies without hitting bulbs, otherwise. But it's a lot of daffies. A lot. Looking at the area, there's kind of a row of daffies right near the fence, and then some farther out, closer to the edge of the bed. I decided I'd dig up the front ones and leave the rear ones. This took me pretty much all afternoon. And then I planted the daisies. They still looked pretty miserable, even though I watered them a lot. I hope they perk up. I now have a mountain of daffodil bulbs that I don't know what to do with. This is a mere fraction of all the daffies I have, so I do not need to keep them or plant them around. I need to give them to willing victims. Speak up if you want some. Or all.

Anyway, I didn't get a before picture, but at the back is maybe a third of what was there when I started, so use your imagination. I hope the daisies make it and proliferate, but they can take their time. I don't need a daisy infestation like I have a daffodil infestation.

We then got cleaned up and grilled up some chicken on the grill. Yum. It was a dirty, sweaty weekend and I think I took 6 showers. :)

My mother died 5 years ago this weekend and digging up the daffodils made me think of her and how she would totally have replanted every. single. one. of the bulbs around the property. Because she was even crazier than I, believe it or not. Well, with regards to some things, anyway.

I hope everyone had a good memorial day weekend.

Snake skin redux

I saw a new bird on Sunday. I was looking at the pine trees at the back of the yard to selectively lop off a few branches. I guess I was still enough, because a bird flew into the branches. I watched it for a bit and it watched me. I suspected it was nesting in the nest boxes nearby. I got a nice good look at it, so I hoped I'd be able to identify it in my bird book later. It was fairly distinctive: not small (maybe cardinal-sized), kind of gray body, a slight crest, a yellow belly, and reddish in the wings and tail, which I noticed when it was in flight.

Quite a while later that day, I finally got around to looking up the bird. Easy to find from the pictures: a great crested flycatcher. Cool! I, of course, couldn't get a pic of it, but here's one I snagged off the internet (from some random Alabama website):

It's a very nice looking bird. I saw two more, later that day.

Anyway, the book said that it has a "curious habit" of lining its nests with shed snake skins. Who'd have thought? Sunday night we had a crazy big storm that knocked down a bunch of branches from the trees. I was looking up at the nest boxes to see if I could see any activity and what to my wondering eyes did appear?

Yup, that's snake skin (middle bottom, if you're having difficulty). How cool is that? And how cool that my book totally told me to expect this. I think this confirms that these guys are using the nests, as the snake skin was not there before. But, really, it calls into question whether there was a snake in my yard that shed or if the birds brought it over and dropped it. It could be either way, really.

What's up, buttercup?

So everything took off and sprouted this spring. As it should. Among the various weeds in the grass I saw some tallish, very yellow flowers. From a distance, I assumed they'd be dandelions, except they seemed exceptionally yellow. I sauntered on over and saw this:

Lovely! For some reason "buttercup" popped into my head, so I googled up images of buttercup and decided that these were indeed buttercups. A little bit of research told me buttercups are Ranunculus sp. (with these particular ones possibly being R. acris). Well, buried in my brain was the tidbit that ranunculus are bulbs, so I decided to dig them up and plant them along the fronts of some of my beds.

I was feeling quite pleased with myself for not only noticing them, but figuring out what they are and doing something useful with them. Then I found another patch of them and felt extra-special. I transplanted them, too. 

In a couple days, I'd found a couple more patches in the back yard and figured I could hold off on transplanting them. What can I say? The novelty had somewhat worn off.

Then, being more observant than normal, apparently, while driving out of the neighborhood, I noticed all along the sides of the road what I was pretty sure were more buttercup clumps. Huh.

Then, on the day we planted the trees, I found a bazillion clumps in our front yard. Hm.

I guess I'm not so special after all, as they seem to be everywhere. They're still pretty, though, so I'll likely transplant some more, but it's not like it's a pressing issue or that I have to worry about them disappearing on me.

If anyone wants any, let me know. I'll dig you up a clump. Well, if I can still find them; I don't know if they flower all summer or just in the spring. The foliage kinda blends in. But they're still up, right now. And they're super yellow. They almost seem to glow.

Look what Togo found!

I had been wandering around the yard with the dogs, but headed inside to mess with some stuff. Upon going back outside, Jasper was waiting at the door to come in and Togo was lying just off the deck in the grass. I told Togo to come on up on the deck so I could put her in the house, and she ran away. This is the bad dog. So, I put Jasper in and then went back out to corral Togo.

I walk-chased her around the yard. She wandered through the weedy spot at the back of the yard and picked something up. At first it looked like old plant parts, but then, as I got closer to her, it looked more like a big dead bug. Lovely. I didn't really care what she had, I just wanted her to get up on the deck. She thought I wanted to take her precious away.

Finally, we had a showdown at the maple tree, where she ultimately dropped the thing and I grabbed her and walked her onto the deck and into the house. Here it is:

For those of you not in the know, that's a shed snake skin. Cool! I mean, we're near a wooded area, so it stands to reason that there are snakes around, but I never see any and it hadn't really crossed my mind.
 

There aren't much of the shed body scales left (the kinda circle spots), but judging by the ventral scales (the long, flat ones), this was not a small snake.
 

I hope I see an actual snake in my yard some day (preferably not in Togo's mouth).

The Botanic Gardens

Bonnie, Jer, and I went to the Botanic Gardens on Monday. It was raining, but we figured we could, at the very least, check out the conservatory, as it's indoors. I first even heard of the Gardens from teaching BSCI 125, where the students can get extra credit in lecture if they go and do a write-up about it. Everyone assured me it is very beautiful and worth going to. We took the metro in and hoofed it the few blocks to the Gardens. We briefly got sidetracked by aliens.

But we finally found the place, and the Capitol was just behind it.

The place itself was interesting looking. 

Even the doors looked nice.

This poor fellow had a runny nose.

His friend looked like she'd been crying. 

There was a really cool, and really big, Nepenthes (I think) sculpture out front. 

And, once inside, it was so tranquil and serene. If I worked near here, I would totally come here on my lunch breaks. It was just so pleasant inside. Even with the shrieking swarms of children. 

They had the place divided into various sections, like "orchids" and "jungle" and "medicinal plants". I had handed photography duties over to Bonnie at the entrance, but here's a selection of what we saw. We were particularly taken with all the orchids.

I even took a moment to air guitar, because, really, what else does one do in the middle of a public location?

Actually, I have no idea what I was doing there.

Happy Mother's Day!

Happy mother's day to all the mothers I know. Keep on doing what you do!

Today, I had a mother in the house with me on mother's day for the first time in a long time. Bonnie, on her way up to my cousin's wedding in NH, arrived Friday afternoon. We didn't have any big plans for mother's day, as going out is generally too crazy to be considered a good idea. Jer had recently bought a Belgian waffle maker, so I wanted to try out a recipe I saw for "authentic" Belgian waffles. This required buying special sugar, naturally. The sugar happened to arrive on Friday, and a plan was born!

So, Sunday, I was awake at 0500, but lazed in bed for another half hour until the dog said, "Hey, I'm up, and since you're up, why don't we get up? That, or I'll pee on your floor. Your choice."

So we got up. The dog and I, that is. I knew the waffle recipe took some doing, so went ahead and got it started. This is not an ordinary waffle batter. It's actually a dough. It's rather like a brioche bread dough, really, quite heavy on the butter and eggs. So I knew it was going to need a nice long rise. While the yeast was proofing, I sliced up some strawberries. I got the dough all mixed up (except for the special sugar; it goes in right before cooking) and cozied it away in the cupboard to rise. Then I went back to bed, because, really, it was 0615 on Sunday morning. Even I'm not that crazy, generally.

Jer and I got up about an hour or so later and - yay! - the dough had risen. It was a glorious sight.

It still had to wait a bit, though, since we wanted to run some "junk" waffle batter through the iron since it's brand new. The dogs would thank us later.

It was now time to add the sugar. I went ahead and just mixed it in with my hands - what are hands for, after all?

We got blobs of the dough on the waffle iron and got them waffling up. They smelled pretty good. Bonnie and I got the first two, because Jer's so nice, and by the third one, Jer really got his technique down (see how that worked out, there?). They're supposed to be cooked long/hot enough to kind of melt/caramelize the sugar chunks. Yes, this made quite the mess on the waffle iron. Jer cleaned it up. But look at these beauties:

The dough made six waffles, but they were so rich we each only ate one. I've had a little pot of real Canadian maple syrup that I've kept on hand for a special occasion, so I busted it out for this. Jer and Bonnie had theirs with the syrup, but I had mine plain. They really were pretty good.

So, happy mother's day, everyone! We appreciate our mothers, yes we do.

We had a visitor!

If I have something to do that doesn't require the computer, I often sit on my couch that's right across from one of our sliding glass doors that lead on to our deck. The bird feeder is right at this corner of the deck, so I enjoy watching the birds come and go. I'd love to post some pics of the various birds we get - cardinals, tufted titmice, chickadees, house finches, sparrows, juncos, even a blue jay! - but they're too quick for me and my not-so-awesome camera. The zoom on my camera leaves a lot to be desired, as do my skills, but that's okay. I enjoy watching them nonetheless. Obviously, we also get a bunch of squirrels, but they are too heavy for the feeder, and it closes up on them (the jay has this problem, too, incidentally).

So, as I sat there reviewing My's proposal, I caught motion out of the corner of my eye. What to my wondering eyes should appear, but this little cutie:

It's what's colloquially known as a chipmunk, but is, of course, a type of squirrel. Completely adorable!

We've seen them scurrying about, but this is the first time I got a good long look at one. He was scoping out the deck and picking up all the spilled seed. I'm perfectly fine with this, because if he cleans up after the birds, that means fewer seeds to potentially sprout into weeds in my beds.

Happy birthday, Vera!

Vera is a postdoc in our lab. She was in the lab when I got there, left for a bit, and then came back. She is friendly and helpful and informed and very nice. I very much appreciate all the time and effort she has spent on helping me get through grad school (truly, it's been a group effort).

Her birthday is tomorrow, Tuesday, June 8. But I made cake Sunday to bring in on Monday. I decided to try one of the more cake-like Amish friendship bread recipes, though wanted one that didn't use pudding. I found one that looked like it worked up to being basically spice cake and decided I'd try it.

After feeding Pablo, I used 1 cup of starter to mix up the batter. Knowing how sweet the bread turned out without adding any extra sugar, I cut the amount of sugar in the cake recipe in half, since I know my lab people prefer not-too-sweet things.

The batter was still pretty sweet; we'll see how it turns out. I also maybe should have made a little more for two 9" cake pans (the recipe says it makes two loaves), but they'll just be small layers.

They baked up fine and turned out of the pans well.

They smelled really good as they sat there and cooled. I decided to "frost" the cake with lemon curd. I've been doing this a lot, lately, for cakes I take to my lab, as it's much preferred over the sweeter, more conventional frosting.

They're a little leany, but they'll eat just as well. Here's hoping it's good!

And, Pablo got a new home out of the deal.

Happy birthday, Vera! We love having you in the lab!

Insects and arachnids

While wandering around the back yard with the dogs, I noticed a weird spot in the ground.

I looked closer and realized it's a big old anthill. With big ants. These aren't the little ants I usually see; these guys are substantial.

We have ant-killer sprinkles, but the anthill's pretty far away from the house, and I don't really mind the ants anting around out in the yard. If they come in the house, however, all bets are off.

Then, on the way back in, I noticed weird specks stuck in a spiderweb between one of the deck chairs and the deck railing.

I thought some spider had gotten lucky and got a whole bunch of gnats to eat or something. Upon closer inspection, the specks turn out to be little spiderlings, doing the wind-dispersal parachute-web thing.

I don't have a spider issue, so I find them completely adorable.

On your way, little spiders! Go forth and eat lots of bugs! Preferably mosquitoes and stink bugs.