Moving the blog

I have moved this blog over to http://plantecologist2.blogspot.com/

so that it is on the same account as my facebook account.
Hope to see you there!

Well the summer has passed

and fall is upon us. Things have been changing. And while change is hard, in the end it will be good.
More later.
Jennifer

Happy Summer Solstice

This time of years seems more appropriate for new beginnings than Jan 1., at least to me. So - I am beginning again.

Don't know where this will lead this time. No big plans - just want to document the adventures, big and small, and my thoughts at this time in my life.

I expect there will be pictures of plants. Of knitting. Of spinning.
I expect that there will posts without photos.
Beyond that, I have no expectations.

Today's small adventure: wading along the creek that runs near our house. I am collecting stones from it to place along the edge of my rain garden. The rain garden doesn't look like much right now, it is filled with native perennial plants (except one non-native, but how could I say no to a corkscrew rush, pictures to come soon). They are just getting started so there is more mud than plant right now. The water has cleared up a bit, we have had a ton of rain the last few weeks. Saw a snapping turtle in the creek. Very cool. It was small as snapping turtles go, but the largest non-human animal I have seen in the creek. Well non-human and non-canine. Walking along the trail today I did see a family's dog who was wading in the creek.

Ok - well off to adventures at work in a few minutes. The main goal today is to work on getting my tiny little lab space cleaned up. I am going to have two students working in there tomorrow to do some plant identification.

Cheers
Jennifer

Botany Joke of the Day

I offered my Plant Biology students a rare opportunity - extra-credit for botany related jokes. Some of the students pursued this with gusto, and so I have a nice list of botany jokes. Not all good, but still fun.


Why are plant capable of consuming cars?
Because they are auto-trophic.



And just for fun, a cactus from Puerto Rico (Melocactus intortus) from Guanica dry forest on the south part of the island, which was my favorite part of the trip.

Relaxing Saturday

Steve and I had a great day yesterday.

We went for an early morning walk . . . really early, like 5 am.

Did some shopping for the upcoming birthday/holiday season. Got my nephew a book about
Knights and Castles for his Birthday.

I knit while watching "Arsenic and Old Lace" - if you haven't seen it, you should.

I knit some more later while watching football. The football was on more for the background noise.

We went on a short bike-ride.

Also went to the Habitat for Humanity Restore, just to check it out. We found a beautiful piece of granite, but since we have no clue what we would do with it, we left it there.

Cooked dinner together, which was a lot of fun.

Went out to the Plaza, where he bought me a new knitting book as an early birthday present.
"Knitting New Mittens and Gloves" by Robin Melanson.

He has some big plans for my birthday on Tuesday - I am really excited to see what he has come up with.

Snapshot of Puerto Rico Part 2: Unknown Red Flowers

One of my goals while in Puerto Rico was to learn some of the flora.

I have never felt so over my head. I have never been botanizing in the tropics. I did mess up by forgetting important field equipment . . . oh how I longed for my hand lens. The books available to me left a lot to be desired. Sure I had the 5 volume Flora of Puerto Rico to key out plants. This book, however, did not have a family key. No family key????? I was completely lost, and felt completely spoiled by "Flora of Missouri". The families you find in the tropics are completely different than what you commonly find in Missouri. Very few mints, roses, scrophs, milkweeds, asters, or buttercups. Lots of Melastomaceae and Lauraceae (which we do have here, but not a family I am overly familiar with). I have been able to work through some of the plants that I found, but there are still a lot that I have no clue.

So here are some of those plants that I took photo of, but still don't know what they are.

Snapshots of Puerto Rico: Part 1 The Canopy Walk

This August I spent two weeks traveling around Puerto Rico with my friend and colleague, P., who has conducted research at El Yunque National Forest for about 10 years. My hope is to get involved with research on Puerto Rico and take students down. P. was a great tour guide through the different habitats found in Puerto Rico.

It was an amazing trip and between us, we took over 300 photos a day. I have decided to share this trip as a series of snapshots of some of my favorite photos and experiences. Not the detailed travelogue I had originally envisioned, but hopefully you will enjoy it nonetheless.

On the first full day wandering around the jungle, we visited the canopy walk at El Yunque National Forest. It part of the El Verde Field Station, which is not open to the public. I don't remember how high up we were. Hope you aren't afraid of heights!


The view from the canopy walk.



Looking down on top of a palm tree.
Another view looking down showing the rigging we climbed up.


P. at the other end of the walk.


The little Anolis who is eating the termites that hitched a ride on P's backpack.

Long Time No See

Been looking back over my blog, and I love being reminded of things I had forgotten about. For example, this post on snowman diversity. Or this one.

As such, I have decided I need to put time back into my blog, for myself, though I hope my friends and family will return to reading this blog and hopefully enjoy it.

So, what do I have to say for myself today. Not much it turns out, or perhaps to much to recap. I am viewing this post as starting new. There is no way I can recap everything that has happened since, what, June. So, I am not even going to try.

One fun thing this week - we completed the natural dye lab for my plant biology class. We used three dyestuffs: madder root, brazilwood, and logwood.


Here are all the yarns together - the brazilwood gave the pinkish colors, logwood the dark purples, and madder the orangish tones. I am looking forward to knitting this all up.

Really cool lace knitting website

Look what I found: a really cool blog about historical lace knitting.

House Photos

As some of my friends and family are aware, we are in the process of purchasing a house in the town where I work. I am incredibly excited about not having a 20+ minute drive each way to and from work. Despite the worries about being an owner instead of a renter (i.e. having to deal with the tree in you living room at 3 am yourself), I am also looking forward to having a house that is mine. To paint, to plant, to whatever however I want. Well, I will have to take Steve's tastes into account.

We have passed all the major foreseeable roadblocks (pre-approval, inspection, appraisal), and so I feel secure in posting pictures of the house here. We close on June 19th. By the way, where did May go to?

Anyway, here are the pictures.


The front door - Steve loves the "atomic" style of the 1950's and 60's, so he was really excited about this detail of the front screen door.

There is also a great shed in the back, built by the previous owner. It has electricity. In my dreamworld it becomes a dye-studio with electricity provided by wind or solar. I want to put a window or two in the side (Steve is unaware of this). It is painted to match the house and the inspector was really impressed with its quality.


In fact, overall the house is in really good shape.
The kitchen - love the wood cabinets, all appliances are staying. Hooray!

Most of the other rooms are pretty unremarkable - nice wood floors, white walls. All decent size. There are three bedrooms and 1.5 bathrooms. The dining area is small. Also, all the windows are new energy-effecient, easy-to-clean windows. After living in the draftiest house in Independence, this will be wonderful. Seriously, in the winter their is a breeze from our bedroom window strong enough to ruffle your hair. We kept our heat 0n around 62-65 all winter to prevent wasting too much energy. So not only should we see a major savings on gasoline, but on energy costs as well.

Another aspect of the house we love is the basement - I see great potential here.
The basement

Love the fireplace, the finished portion is about 2/3 the width of the house and runs its entire length. Oh - and that is not paint on the walls but some kind of ??? acoustical fabric, carpet? It sounds weird, but it looks pretty cool. I really want to turn this into a multi-use party spot. One area for dining, another for sitting.

The other really nice thing about this house is the neighborhood. We actually saw some houses I personally liked better, but the neighborhoods were not as nice. We will be in walking distance of grocery, post-office, library, and community center. There is also a greenways trail down the road. I think it will be too far to walk to school, but I will try it just once to see. Biking may be an option. But driving will only take me about 7 minutes, shorter if I find a way that does not involve so many stoplights.

So - hopefully this time next month we will be moved in!