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Where I'm At        
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Four Day Weekend July 3, 2008 I took a four day weekend for the heck of it. I really needed some rest and relaxation, some fun and excitement, and some times to wind down a little bit. Chris' dad is here for the long weekend so we have some plans around the area. Today we didn't do a whole heck of a lot. I cleaned the house this morning and we went to lunch at the Char-Hut. They have Birch Beer there, which is like rootbeer, but purple and a little bit different. It's very tasty! We went to see the burrowing owls at a nearby park and Chris and his dad took a lot of photos. I stayed in the car and crocheted. I was losing steam fast, headed downhill for a nap, which I took when we got home. It rained, thundered all afternoon. Dinner was at the little Italian place next door and we settled in for the evening. I'm making potato salad tomorrow to go with our ribs for the 4th. So, Chef poster person, I will do a little potato salad post tomorrow! Now, I don't know if I should give my trade secrets away, but maybe I'll share a little. ;)  I sat down at the computer and the picture window was up and I saw this photo. Chris took these prior to going hiking awhile ago, but I hadn't seen them yet. They are so adorable! This is little Pink Nose, Leo. I always like the way the hairs on his nose crawl up his face.  See, they love each other! Even if Sam gets the "Mrrrrrr" action going sometimes when Leo starts annoying him. They are such good little buddies!  The gladilous I planted sometime in late April, early May have begun flowering. One plant has already finished but two have bloom stalks and another is going to bloom in a few days. I am glad I put them in the ground this year instead of leaving them in a pot. They tend to rot in the pots and the soil here is so sandy that it will be well drained for the bulbs. I'm actually surprised they are blooming this late. I was just taking a chance by putting them in during late spring.  This is a variegated daylily that we found today at a plant nursery on the way back from the park. This is probably more than I should have spent for a daylily, but, hey, it was variegated!  We also harvested two citrus, a key lime and a variegated pink lemon. The key lime I grew from seed several years ago and it produced a fruit. It smells so good that I can't wait to eat it! I forgot, I finished Atonement and started and finished A Walk in the Woods. Atonement was ok. Personally, I liked the movie better. I thought the movie actually portrayed everything splendidly, the characters, the war, the dress. The book, though written well, was lacking something. I thought the young sister was more annoying, less naive than in the movie. The second book was pretty funny and awesome, though I was annoyed with the writer a few times, because it is told from his own perspective while hiking parts of the Appalachian Trail, he was quite rude to some people. Sure, I would have shaken off a few of those who had latched on, but there were some times he was downright rude. And, though he considers he hiked the trail, I don't consider it. He hiked parts of it, not the whole way. Sorry, in my eyes, it is like finding parts of a geocache and then saying you found the whole cache. No. You didn't. Oh, right, I forgot, I read another book this week too, The Measure of a Lady by Deanne Gist. She wrote A Bride Most Begrudging, which i loved, but this book had some farfetched parts in it, or at least to me. One of the characters, at 15, and new to San Francisco during the 1840's, within a few months of arrival becomes a 'kept woman'. That and a few of the conversations were forced, but overall it was a light, fluffy read. Now I started A Portion of the Sea, which is a Sanibel book. I saw it when I was there last November because it was a local author who wrote it and I decided I didn't need to get it. I found it on BookMooch and it was a signed copy too! So far, so good! I'll keep you posted. With all this reading, I need to get back to art work. I'm catching up on my paper adventure scrapbook and trying to wrap up some crochet. I'm already thinking abour Christmas presents because it is six months away, far away, but still close enough to sneak up on me and become November and I'll start scrambling to finish things! LOL Cats July 2, 2008  If you've seen the ICanHasCheezburger website and the IHasAHotDog websites, you can appreciate this. Ah, I love that you can turn your Flickr photos into an LOLCat! hehehe! BooBear June 30, 2008 On Saturday afternoon we took Baloo over to a dog park a few miles from our house. I had only been taking him around the neighborhood, but he really needed to go and stretch his legs a little. Despite the heat, he found a lot of fun in the park. First, he is a water addict, and loves the water so much that he tries to eat it when it comes out of a hose. Lucky for him, they had several kiddie pools! There were also cool little places to do tricks and he found himself a girlfriend that he continually followed around the whole park, marking the spots she had been. Goof! Anyway, we took two videos and I can't get one of them to upload, but I was able to get one of them. He was so tired at this point that I know that was one of the reasons for his reluctance. We wrapped things up and left soon after and I had to push his butt to get him into the backseat of the truck! Oh, did he snooze when he got home! Eliana and Marc are in Wyoming now, headed to Yellowstone. Only a week late, or else we could have met up. I'm jealous because I want to go back and see the rest of the park! Christine tagged me for a little meme a week ago and I told her I would do it, so here it goes: So this is the deal: 1. Pick up the nearst book. 2. Open to page 123 3. Find the 5th sentence 4. Post the next three sentences 5. Tag five people, and acknowledge who tagged you. Lucky for me there's a bookshelf next to me.... The Locket by Richard Paul Evans (good book, BTW). " 'You're a smart boy, Michael. You might make someone very happy, if you can hold it all together. But how far does the apple fall from the tree?' " I think I'll tag Robin, Kimberly and Jessica. ;) You three need to post more often, or rather the two latter ones! In Montana my soundtrack was Coldplay's latest album Viva La Vida, or Death and All His Friends. I bought it on whim two weeks ago at Target. I was going in for the Tori Amos album and saw that the Coldplay was just out and having heard Violet Hill on the internet radio for about a month I thought I'd give it a try. It is not the usual Coldplay, but it grew on me and I think it is my favorite album of theirs, though I can't say so desicively because I don't have Parachutes. Anyway, this is an excellent album and made the no radio part of my drive across Beartooth's interesting! I think my favorites are the first three and last three, though the title track is great as well as the other middle songs. Two thumbs up from me! Happy Birthday to my brother in-law Neil! Big Sky June 28, 2008 Montana. Wow, it was amazing. I think it just surpassed Colorado as my favorite state. I know for certain that the drive I took to get to Yellowstone surpassed my favorite drive ever, through the Rocky Mountain National Park. The Beartooth Highway, through the Beartooth Mountains, is absolutely beautiful.  I got to Montana around noon on Monday. I tried to check into my hotel but the room wasn't cleaned yet and so I changed in their bathroom and headed off to Yellowstone. I was miffed that I had a 200/day mileage limit, though you could use the total, 800 for the week, as long as you didn't go over it. It is approximately 126 miles one way to Yellowstone from Billings, and so I knew my driving would be long that day. I figured it would take me two hours to get there, but it really took me three. I had to stop at all the beautiful scenic overlooks, oogle at the 10-15' snow/ice drifts that line the sides of the road, and slow down for switchbacks and fat, rollypoly little marmots that would just walk across the road at 11,000'.  Down in Billings it was in the low 80's, dry and very comfortable. Up there it was freezing, probably in the high 30's or low 40's and I was wearing some thin capri's, a t-shirt and a very light sweatshirt jacket.  See, SNOW! I love how they have the tall poles so the road clearning equipment can see where the road is when they clear it in May.   It was cool to knock out two states in a day. I'd love to see more of Wyoming and especially Montana. Idaho looks interesting as well, at least from the airplane.  Anyone up for ice skating?  It rained a little bit on me, but I was a bit worried about snow. I was driving a dinky Ford Focus and I don't exactly drive on snow in South Florida. When I reached the West Summit of Beartooth Pass, I got out and shivered a bit and noticed someone had tossed and unopened yogurt container into the snow. It was probably still good, but I thought that was a little stupid to see in such a pristine place.  As I came down the mountains into Wyoming I stopped at Beartooth Lake and rested a bit. It was much nicer out and not as shivering cold!  I stopped a neat waterfall and thought I was getting closer and realized, after looking at the map, I still hadn't reentered Montana in order to get to the two little towns that border the park. Ack!  And then, finally, I was there!!! I paid my $25 to get into the park, good for seven days, and saw a mule deer that some bikers were watching right off the road near the entrance station. I had wanted to make it to Slough Creek, about thirty miles into the park, but I stopped at the first picnic area to stretch my legs, take some photos, and use the composting toilet.  I was prepared for hiking, with my camelbak, water and the camera. I didn't meander far at this stop, just down along the river.  There were a lot of beautiful wildflowers and I think I took a photo of every different type I saw! Except the alpine strawberries I saw...I should've gotten those!  At my next stop I saw it was a decent hiking trail and really strapped on everything for this.   The trail was nice, unfortunately I ended up at the creek again. The trail started again on the other side and I wasn't about to cross cold, rushing water with no one else with me. So, I went back up the hill after taking some photos of the flowers and wandered on down the road, probably half a mile or so until I came across a barage of cars parked on the side of the road. This must mean wildlife.  And by wildlife, it was a super awesomely cool black bear!!!! *check* My first bear in the wild! SWEET! I immediately parked the car, jumped out to get the 300mm lens out of the trunk and promptly started shooting photos. It was at least a football field away, munching on the berries and flowers, and being very docile. I really hadn't expected it to be this easy! I did hear later at my conference that someone I knew saw four during their time in the park, including a grizzly and her cub. Apparently the recent snowfall two weeks ago has forced some of the from the mountains looking for food.  Here you can see the distance it was from us. Also, I found out from talking to some other folks that there was another one on the opposite side, behind me, way up in a little cove. I drove on down the road, still thinking I'd try for Slough Creek and ended up stopping again at Trout Lake. There were a lot of cars parked there so I figured it would be a nice hike. Whew, and was it a hike! Going from flat, sea level Florida, to steep, elevated Montana is not easy!  This was a very nice trail and I was surpassed by a family of trout fisherman, headed up to the lake.  More rest just meant more time for taking photos.   The lake was peaceful, dotted with fishermen/ladies/kids and I could have pulled up a chair or blanket and spent the rest of the evening reading. Instead I stayed for about 15 minutes before heading back down so I could start driving back. A three hour drive meant it would take just as long to get back to Billings. As I was leaving I stopped to see the bear again, and then stopped right before the Thunderer trail and asked what everyone was looking at...a moose and her baby. There wasn't enough room to pull over so I kept on driving only to see another group of people looking at something. I turned around to take a look.  It was a moose! Without antlers, and it really looks like a big, wild horse! Still cool, though! It stayed sunny through my entire trip through the mountains, even when I came down from them and into Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday was work all day. Well, conference work, listening to speakers. I'll talk a bit about some of the topics, in particular climate change, in a few days. Tuesday I couldn't find anyone really to do anything with so I drove the hour back down to Red Lodge to do some tourist shopping and eat dinner. First, I stopped at Cooney State Park to see if there was anything worthwhile there. It was mostly just lake and no real hiking, but on the way I did see two turkeys and deer.  In Red Lodge I found some very cute shops and then ate at the Bridge Creek Backcountry Kitchen and Wine Bar. This was by far where the locals go, a quiet hometown restaurant that caters to local food and a chef that cooks up an ever changing menu. I decided to devour some fried artichokes and then had elk! I should have asked for medium-well instead of well, because it was a bit tough. Not bad tasting, though!  There was a great sunset on the way home. A deer and then almost a racoon ran in front of the car on the way back! On Wednesday I found someone to go sightseeing with, a lady from Connecticut, and so we set off in the late afternoon for Pictograph Caves State Park just on the east side of Billings, and then to Pompey's Pillar, about thirty miles east of Billings.  The park was beautiful and there were three caves with pictographs and petroglyphs. We didn't see anything until we got to the last cave.  Yep, those red drawings are it! There isn't a lot left because sometime in the 40's, someone got the bright ideas to sand blast the area to 'clean' the dirt off so you could see it. Well, that just sand blasted some of the pigment off! There is a display showing what they are all supposed to represent, and these are obviously guns. So, sometime when settlers came, the Indians saw the guns and maybe there was battle, or they were scared? Perhaps it was with the Lewis and Clark crew??? Who knows. Speakng of Lewis and Clark, we drove to Pompey's Pillar afterwards in order to see the famous carving of W. Clark in the side of the sandstone.  The signature is under a glass case and there are others who followed suit in the late 1800's when the settlers had arrived. I learned in the museum that Lewis and Clark had split up on their way back towards St. Louis in 1806. Clark had stopped here and supposedly named this pillar after Sacajawea's child. To think that he'd climbed up there 202 years ago and done this was thought provoking. When you view from the top you see the Yellowstone River, roads, farms, a railroad track and none of that would have been there.  We drove back to Billings and had dinner down town at the Brew Pub where we chowed on buffalo burgers and tried a beer sampler. The only beer I liked was a strawberry blonde, of course. Honestly, other than that, beer brings back gross memories of Aggie ring dunk.  Thursday we drove down an hour to the Crow Reservation to see the Little BigHorn battlefield and monument. If you don't know your history, this is where Custer got his ass kicked by the Sioux, Cheyenne and Arapaho. We arrived to hear a curator giving a speech about the entire event, which we were one day late for the 132nd anniversary, and it was haunting. Not many US soldiers escaped. Most died on the battlefield. Custer was buried there for, I think a year, and then his body was taken back east to West Point. Many of the other scattered bodies were moved from their place of death to a mass grave where the monument stands today.  The museum has a lot of artifacts and interviews from those who witnessed the events.  Friday morning I really wanted to sleep in. My flight was at 2:45pm and I'd been a dummy and said I'd return my car at noon. So, I was up before 8am and then off to Phipps Park on the northwest side of town. I stopped at City Brew coffee to get a cuppa and a bagel for some energy to hike. The coffee place is really cool, like a Starbucks, but cheaper. I drove several miles passed the park because I didn't see it. I expected a big sign, or at least a little sign, to point toward the parking lot. Instead, I was driving along and thought I really had gone too far. I back I went and then sure enough I had found the park near the railroad track I had passed 10 minutes earlier.  The trail looked easy enough, but it was rather difficult. I'd stop every 100 feet for breathers, but I was very glad I had gone out to explore instead of sleeping in.  At the top, there were amazing views. I was walking along the path when I noticed a twig in the way, and then realized it was a black and white snake slitthering away. I tried to get a photo but it blended in with the grass too well. (I think it was a gopher snake)  The Beartooths could be seen in the distance.    I followed the trail around the top of the bluff and then I couldn't find a decent trail to get down, but the frisbee golf course had a hole in the middle of the side of the hill so I figured they got down there somehow. I scurried down carefully, watching my footing, and made it down to the trail. I was sad to have to leave so soon, but it I wanted time to shower, pack up and get a bite to eat before having to go to the airport. Montana is really, really amazing! You can see more photos here. Sorry it was so long! I didn't want to spread it over a few days. Lazy Sunday June 22, 2008  So, I was eating breakfast this morning and I went in to the bedroom to check on the boys. I found Baloo curled up on my pillow, asleep. He knew he'd been caught, but continued to be cute, so I went for the camera.  He was so sleepy and adorable! I couldn't help but play with him a little bit before booting him off the bed. Most of the day I did chores and then I got a bit listless. Chris was out hiking with some people and I was lonely. I had planned on getting my hair cut for the past month and finally called and made an appointment with the lady at JC Penney's that I like. It's really hard to find a good hairstylist and I finally found one that does what I want.  Wa-la! A cute bob that I really like! It feels so nice to have it off my neck, too.  This is Zoe's blanket! I finished it yesterday, though I have a few small details to wrap up, but in essence, it is finished! I am mostly happy with it, though, I'm not quite sure I like the flowers/pinwheels. I was stash busting and had started something last Fall for another project that I lost interest in and so I took it and ran with it now. It's always fun to pick things up and find renewed passion in it. I hope Zoe will like her blanket!  After the rain this afternoon I went for a ramble in the backyard. I found a gladilous about to bloom...  A candy daylily in bloom, a plant I got a start of from my mom...  and one of our vanda orchids in bloom. This one is a really pretty one. Well, it's off to Montana! :) See y'all next weekend! I hope I see some moose, a bear and I'm sure a zillion mule deer! Sunshine, At Last! June 21, 2008 Oh, today was good. The sun was shining for most of the day and I got to hang out with my boys, aka: Leo, Samson, Baloo and Chris. Sam was his fluffy self, Leo was running around the house this morning, Baloo thought every time I walked in the living room it meant treat time, and Chris was just cute. We slept in this morning and I did some chores before we set off for the bank and Quizno's and then off to Deep Lake. We arrived and parked, put bug spray on and walked no more than 500 feet and the mosquitos found my face, where I hadn't put enough spray on. I stopped, doused myself again, and we were on our way. The trail was mostly clear, mowed it appeared, but the skeeters were bouncing off us. Not biting, just bouncing off our bodies and annoying us enough. Unfortunately, I had to pee right after we got there, so I popped behind a tree, and well, that area wasn't sprayed and I think I peed as fast as I could! Women have it so unfair. Gah! The trail wasn't long at all, half a mile at most, and it lead us straight to the lake.  The area was beautiful, however you could hear the cars passing on SR 29. Alligators were swimming around, and we figured tarpon were displaying their fins at the top of the water in the middle, and we saw a snook swim by. We started to walk the trail around the lake, but the mosquitos were fairly bad, we knew there would be gators since the water was flowing into the slough area now from all of the rain, and we just didn't feel like getting all that wet. I thought that was a bit weird because normally Chris is all about getting in the water.      We didn't stay long at Deep Lake since we decided not to walk around and the mosquitos were so bad. We decided to drive down Loop Road instead. As we headed east on Tamiami Trail, the thunderheads were growing over Miami. Thunder was rolling and we knew we'd eventually run into the rain.  We stopped at Sweetwater Strand for a few minutes.  We met a muscovy duck that was very out of place. I'm not sure if he/she flew there or was dropped off by someone, but they are an exotic and usually hang out in ponds in town. It waddled around for awhile, sipping puddles of water in the road, and didn't answer when I asked if it wanted me to take it back to town. Hrumph! We drove on down Loop Road and I fell asleep for awhile, taking a short nap. We ran into the rain once we got into town and it has been raining ever since. The Longest Day June 20, 2008 Happy Summer Solstice! Today is the longest day of the year and it is all downhill towards Fall today. I'm already thinking of Fall a little bit. I know, I know, summer is just starting, but it seems to be flying by. I told Chris that June seemed to not exist. I would have enjoyed more of this past week if it hadn't been raining after work, daily. More walks, bike rides, sitting in the backyard. I want July to go slower and I plan on taking a few days off just for the heck of it. I need to be able to bask in summer a little bit. Sip some coffee over a book in the morning, piddle around outside in the yard, cook a nice dinner and desert. Martha Stewart has a nice recipe for strawberry cupcakes that I might just make for myself for my birthday. To hell with no dairy! (oh, I have decided it really is the dairy. I let up on it a week or so ago and it was just lots of throat clearing for a week. Grr! Summer is also about Dairy Queen and ice cream!) This weekend we're headed out to Deep Lake in Big Cypress. It is the deepest lake in south Florida and formed from a sink hole. It's fairly accesible from SR 29, apparently from the fire station there. Who knew??? So, we're going there tomorrow and Sunday I am going to wrap things up around the house for the week so I can prepare for my trip to Montana. I am absolutley looking forward to that! When Chris and I were deciding if we wanted to go to Bolivia or not, we thought about Montana. Honestly, it costs the same to get to Montana as it does to Bolivia, and it's cheaper to get around in Bolivia than it would be to rent a cabin in Montana. But, Montana is all about A River Runs Through It and Legends of the Fall and that means awesome mountains, small towns and Old West history. My cup o' tea! I hope I love Montana as much as I love Colorado. I'm trying to figure out why I just cannot grow beans. They are growing, there are beans, but two beans does not equal a meal. There are even poles for them to climb and they aren't climbing. They are pole beans afterall! The corn is flowering so I hope that means corn will form soon! I am stoked about that and the herbs are HUGE! I even spotted a few strawberries but I think I missed my chance to pick them because I forgot about them after I saw them. I had gloves on and was in the midst of other yard activities, but I should have more soon. I plan on adding some plants to my Etsy shop on Sunday, so I will update with that here. No photos tonight. Zoe's blanket is almost done, just some finishing touches. I have laundry to do (ugh!!!), and some Alias watching to get done! WOO! That show shouldn't have gone off the air. I wish they hadn't killed off Francie and made Will dissapear. Leo woke me up this morning by doing something he hadn't done in awhile, walking on me, pawing at my face and meowing a lot. He used to do that a lot but hasn't for awhile now. We're still working on getting Baloo not to whine, knock the bed and peer up at us to beg for food. I woke up at 5:30 this morning to hearing him already whining. And it isn't like he wants to go out, because I will head that way, towards the door, and instead he heads straight to his bowl. You'd think those zillions of treats he gets aren't filling his belly up! We tried to show him your photo, Eliana, of you in St. Louis, and he just couldn't focus. Something about that little green ball of his. ;) Oh, check out Marc and Eliana's photos of the Mississippi River in its flood stage. My hat June 18, 2008  Hey there! I made myself a hat!  Whatcha think? I just need to find the right top to wear with it! I might make another one in a more basic color so that I could wear it with other outfits. I worked it up in one day from a pattern from the spring '08 Interweave Crochet magazine. It calls for a thinner yarn and smaller hook, but I used a bulky yarn from my stash and a G hook. Ideally I should have used probably an H hook because my hands were killing me by the time I was finished. Now, Zoe and I will rock out in our hats! I will be the awesomest aunt ever!! ;) Yes, awesomest. ;) Zoe's blanket is almost done. I'm doing the border and working on some accents and maybe this weekend it will be done. I started a layette but I ran out of yarn and now I can't find the yarn anywhere but the internet so I will have to order it. Drat! More rain tonight. Well, more like rain from 11am until evening every day this past week. It is starting to drive me nuts! I did end up going for a run after the major part of it had ended. Our power was flickering for awhile during the heavier part of the storm and it stopped to a slight drizzle and that was refreshing to run in. I did a mile in probably 12.5 minutes or so. I counted up the time it took for the first three songs on Achtung Baby to play. I'm waddling slowly. I figure I should just work on my mile runs for the next couple of weeks and then add in longer runs.  Hey! What's that? A mouse?  Nah, just that drooly dog!! He can do high-fives now! I am planning on doing a video of his tricks for Eliana and will have to post it when I get around to charging the camera. He's so goofy!!! A finished project June 16, 2008  Here's the cute little Zoe hat in all of its finished glory! I plan on making many more of these as they were super easy and very gratifying to have a finished product in just a few short hours.  I couldn't find a cat to show off the hat so Tedddy is filling in for them. Teddy is 28 years old and almost met a tragic demise a few weeks ago in Texas. Two little Boston Terriers were having a tug-o-war contest when my dad luckily realized they were fighting over. Yes, I probably would have balled my eyes out. I had been protecting it from a certain grey and white doggie around here, and Teddy has been hiding out in the closet for the past few months. Now for a short tour on what is blooming.  Blackberry lily  I haven't id'd this one yet, but it is probably a sulphur caterpillar that was gnawing on my cassia.  I know the name of this but my brain is having a freeze. Dum, dum, dum, it's all over the south. Dum...hello, brain, register this plant, please.  This fly was sipping the nectar from the parsley flowers. Do you want to hear something startling? I just learned today that the snail kite population more than likely dropped in half in the past year. From ~1000 to ~500. 10 years ago the population was ~3,500. The best guess is extinction in less than 20 years at this rate, if not sooner. Yes, this is slightly random, but I am at a fish and wildlife conference for a few days this week and the discussion today was mostly about Everglades restoration and then two topics on snail kites and apple snails. Let me just say that the 'glades is most likely f'ed. Between mismanagement, single species management (ie: the Cape Sable seaside sparrow), insanely low water and high water levels, pollution, the state and federal govmt's fighting over what the next step should take, we're really screwed. On a more positive note, you should check out where Marc and Eliana are now. Chilling out in the beautiful Smokey Mountains! I meant to post, but.. June 15, 2008 I got a bit lazy. It is so easy not to post when you aren't on a roll. It's also one of the first things to go when I feel I don't have enough time to do everything, or if I am too tired when I get home from work. Especially if I am using photos and have to process those and upload and all of that can double the time of a blog post. The past few days I've also been very tired when I got home from work. It was rainy and dreary the entire week. I don't know how people in the northwest deal with that all the time. It felt more like fall, or rather it looked like fall outside because it felt like summer outside, and the rain and clouds just kept hanging around. We got a break yesterday afternoon and though we still need the rain, a few days of sun would be so good. Yesterday was our sixth anniversary. We spent the morning sleeping in and I made some canned cinnamon rolls for breakfast. We headed out the door for a few errands and then went to see artist Wyland and Guy Harvey painting Wyland's 99th Whaling Wall over in North Lauderdale. We seemed to get there just in time for the dedication ceremony and people were crowded around the stadium that was set up for Wyland. The wall was pretty nice, but not as good as the one in Marathon on the K-Mart.  Of course I had my photo taken with a lot of the sea turtles.  We listened to the speech from Wyland for awhile and then meandered around some more.  I was getting flashbacks to middle school when I was really at the height of my ocean loving self.  I would have really kissed the wall, but I didn't know what the red tape was for. I found out that it was for the tape cutting ceremony.  Chris liked the Guy Harvey paintings better.  We nixed seeing Indiana Jones for taking a nap when we got home. For dinner Chris took me to a place I'd never heard of, but he'd had recommendations of the place and had seen it on tv. We went to a little restaurant that has been around since the 20's, Cap's Place. It is in Lighthouse Point, just north of the Hillsbourough Inlet.  The cool thing is that you have to take a little boat over to the island it is on. So, we watched the ritzy houses and large yachts as we rode over with a few other passengers.  We were thirty minutes early for our reservations so we went to the bar, which is in a separate building, and grabbed a glass of wine for me and a coke for Chris. Then we walked to the beach area and relaxed for a bit.  I had to crop and zoom on this because we had half of the picnic table in the photo, too. Dinner started off very quiet. The building is still the original building and it has a lot of old photos and memorabilia on the wall. Eliana, you'd of tried to take this super awesome pen and ink drawing of a kingfisher! Winston Churchill also ate at this little ol' place, once upon a time. I tried four new things for dinner. First, Chris ordered calamari for an appetizer. Now, calamari is bait to me. Just bags of icky bait. So, I wasn't that keen on trying it out, but Chris looked cute and so I caved. ;) It wasn't too bad. At first it was a bit rubbery but then the taste grew on me. Then, with our meals you had a choice of salads, fruit, regular or hearts of palm. Chris ordered the hearts of palm salad and so I tasted a bit of it. We were both expecting something more fibrous. I mean, just looking at a cabbage palm you wouldn't think it would be appetizing. It was sort of like coleslaw, but pretty good for a first time. Next, I couldn't decide on what to eat for dinner. I love crab and crab claws sounded good as well as the supposedly very lumpy crab cakes. Then, there was the option of pompano. That is a fish I'd never had before and I rarely, if ever, see it on the menu. So, that's what I tried. It had a very strong flavor at first that mellowed with each bite. Chris ordered a shellfish platter with scallops, shrimp and some fish. He decided to be cute and convincing again and so I tried scallops because, again, I'd never had them. Not too shabby at all! It had a shrimp taste, but with a tougher texture. Overall, I'd probably eat them again. We somehow managed to stuff in desert. Chris had a Reese's pie and I had to get Key Lime. Somehow we waddled out of the restaurant and back onto the dock.  There were a couple of cats running about the place, lounging wherever they found a comfy spot. At first I thought this kitty had gotten into a cat fight and a piece of its ear was missing from the fight. Then I remembered Eliana telling me that is how they identify cats they have spayed or neutered.  Oh, I forgot to tell you what I got for my present! Remember a few weeks ago (posts ago) at the orchid festival I mentioned the super cool jewelry artist Dawn Vertrees? Well, apparently Chris had found her site prior to the show and had ordered me the little ghost orchid pendant and necklace!!!! It is so pretty and I love it! I got him a Garmin Nuvi, the car GPS. It had worked pretty well, though it has told us some weird directions a few times. I am going to try and blog every day this week. *promise*! Hats on Cats June 10, 2008 Ah, one more baby this summer! That means I am already working hard on my niece's baby blanket and lots of cute little baby clothes! Today I started working on a little beanie for Zoe. Sam and Leo had to try it first.  Samson was mostly annoyed. He was a good sport, though!  Leo was eyeballing Baloo who was bouncing around too much to really pay attention. I tried to put it on him too but he wanted to play with it and I said no. Darn dog! ;) I was following the TAMUG sailboat accident this whole weekend and I found some good articles on the Galveston Daily News website; here, here, and the TAMUG website. I watched an interview they did with Matt Lauer on the Today show, on the internet. I do remember seeing Steve Conway in the halls when I was there, I think he worked for the computer information department, and maybe still does. Close to home. We've been getting some rain these past few days, in the afternoons. I think it will slowly raise the water levels, but it's amazing how much rain it takes for the water level to make any significant increase. I'm having issues that the middle of the month is this weekend. Please, July, go slower! I have next week and then I go to Montana for work. I am looking forward to going and am going to try to go to Yellowstone on the first day I get there. I've already mapped it out, but I will not be able to drive all the way to Old Faithful. It's on the western side of the park, in Wyoming, and a long, arduous, mountain drive. So, if I can make it to the entrance and to a few trails, I'll be mostly satisfied! June Sunday Morning June 8, 2008 Baloo isn't the best weekend sleeper. He demands to be fed anywhere between 6 and 7am, then promptly wants out right after. He hasn't figured out that weekends are for holding it in, waiting to eat, and enjoying the sleeping. Nope. He likes to whine, put his nose up on the bed, right under our arms, yawn, and bump into the bed and possibly provoke a cat fight. We tried to sleep in, and we did for a bit, amidst the scooping of the food, and listening to a restless whiny-pants. It's breakfast time now, a cup of coffee with soy milk, some peaches from last weekend, an English muffin, and trying out some chow chow that I bought in Centerville. A bit sweet and needs to go with eggs instead of the muffin. Samson is here attempting to test my breakfast out, but I keep pushing his sweet little nose out of the plate. Not a lot going on today. Groceries, chores, and Chris is cleaning the porch up now that we think our rat friend has left for good. We have a pool party to go later this afternoon. This needs to be a three day weekend because I'm not ready to let it go just yet. Last night we went out to Little Slough with high hopes we'd see the moth again and get it on the digi SLR. Around 9pm, when we said we'd call it quits, I said to Chris that we should wait a few more minutes. I still had hopes, but then I told him I thought our chances were waning, and he thought I said it was raining. Or rather, I was being silly and saying it was 'waining', like we say 'Wamson' when he's being silly. But, no, the moon was moving away and we hadn't heard much of a low hum at all so we gave up. We put our headlamps on and Chris had taken down the video camera and the digital cam and then he exclaimed, "I hear it"! I had the large flashlight and turned it on and sure enough, hanging there in the darkness was this huge moth. It had clear-ish wings, beady red eyes, not the scary kind, and a large body that I didn't really get to see the details. It wasn't moving very fast, sort of trying to sift out where the orchids were, and then floated back into the trees. It came around again, and Chris was scurrying to get the camera set up again. We set up our chairs again and watched the video screen to see if the moth came back. Of course we probably blinded the hell out of it with the flashlight, but then again all of the other moths seemed to be attracted to my head when I put the headlamp on! We waited another 15 minutes when we noticed that we saw some bright flashes across the swamp. Chris had put up a game cam and we figured it was going off, hopefully on some raccoons or something small. Then Chris noticed it was going off more than it was supposed to so he figured it was broken and then we thought it might be lightning. We decided to get out if it was lightning and sure enough once we got back to the car we noticed a storm off in the distance. On the way home we noticed about eight motorcycles getting on the highway and zooming past everyone else, probably going 100+. Not two miles up we encountered an accident, the motorcycles, or one of them, had hit a white car and the bumper was off in pieces on the highway, a group of cyclers were huddled off on one side comforting a girl, some were walking on the other side, and I saw at least one motorcycle on the ground in the median. Chris called 911, but I was thinking just as they sped by us, on the slick road from the rain shower that had just passed, that they were going to wreck. I tried looking in the news this morning to see if there was anything about it, but I didn't see anything. Chris told me this morning that the A&M sailboat had capsized in a regatta. Story. 5 out of 6 have been rescued. I thought it was the TAMUG sail team, not the main campus, when he told me. Scary! I am reading Atonement right now. It is almost exactly like the movie, or rather the movie was faithful to the book. I'd say I'm probably a 1/3 of the way through it. Awhile back I found the website GoodReads and have liked it so far. If you want to be my friend you can click here. I also put it over on the left hand side of the page. This week: new crocheting to start, art work!!!!, yard work, reading, and trying to stay sane. Saturday is our 6th anniversary. ;) The Texas Roadtrip June 7, 2008 I know I said I would write about the trip to Texas a few days ago, but when you return from a few days away it always takes a few days to recuperate. Big blog posts weren't really in the plans after I realized how tired I was and what I needed to do around the house. And last night, I went to a girls night out with some coworkers and we saw Sex and the City! Good movie! If you liked the show, you'll like the movie.  Mom and I started off on our little trip on Friday morning around 7am. We first made a stop at a local bakery to pick up kolaches for breakfast and then a detour to a Starbucks to get some coffee! We started driving along and we always take Loop 820 to US 287 and to go through Midlothian, Waxahachie and then end up south of Dallas on I-45. When we got to Midlothian we were shocked at how fast it took us to get there. For some reason I was thinking it took longer than the mere 30 minutes it did. And then we bypassed downtown, which was a bit dissapointing because I like to look at the old homes that line the main road. It was a nice ride and some of the wildflowers were still blooming. I had to crochet along the way because I was nearly finished with the baby blanket that I was going to deliver to my friend Erika at her baby shower. I hadn't planned on being last minute, but I found out I was going to Texas only about a month or so before and I was already in the midst of working on another project. The blanket did turn out well. You'll have to wait a few paragraphs to see it!  The scenery was pretty as always. It's nice to see it transform from rolling prairie into the east Texas forest somewhere around Huntsville.  In Huntsville there is the Sam Houston monument and though I've driven by it many times I never had a photo of it! We made it to Galveston in about six hours; it normally takes five, but we'd stopped a few times along the way. We found great peaches, apricots and blackberries at a farm stand in Centerville, outside of the meat shop we usually go to to get preserves and jerky. Honestly, Texas peaches are far better than Georgia or California. Trust me! Once in Galveston we detoured over to TAMUG, my alma mater, to go to the bookstore and stock up on Aggie gear. The place was mostly deserted and I didn't see anyone I knew. It had changed alot, though I had seen some of the changes two years ago when Chris and I went down for a weekend.   This is the new ship that they bought a few years ago, I think it was renamed the Texas Clipper III. I sailed on the Clipper II, 10 years ago! After going to campus I drove through the back streets and then remembered how ghetto Galveston really is. Actually, it seems to have gotten worse. Then again, maybe I just didn't pay much attention then. We checked into our hotel and then drove down the west end of the beach, past the seawall, to one of the beach openings at Bermuda Beach.  The aroma of the sargassum rotting on the beach brought back memories. mmmmmmm!!! Don't complain about it, it is good for the beach!  Then mom and I went went for a swim. I forgot how far you could walk out before you even got waist deep and we found a nice spot between the crash zones and jumped the waves. We were jumping for awhile when Mom said she was getting bit by something. I thought maybe the little fish that were moving alongshore, that the seagulls were following en masse, might be nipping, but it was something little in her bathing suit. I eventually felt it and it dissipated for awhile and then came back full force. I felt one of the little bumps, pulled it out and it was clear, some sort of small crustacean and I thought it was either sea lice or maybe just a larval form of an adult crustacean. I don't know what it ended up being because we would have continued itching from the sea lice and we never did after we took a shower. It was fairly painful though. So, our wave jumping was ruined, but I wanted to check out a buoy that had washed up so I walked down to see it.  We were cutting it close with time, we were supposed to meet Erika and her mom at Casey's for dinner, but we made a stop at a shell shop to browse and be a tourist for a bit. We met Erika for dinner, my first time seeing her pregnant. It was very cool and dinner was awesome. We both waitressed at Casey's for awhile in college, she a much longer time than I. It brought back a few memories, but it was just the same ol', good food. After dinner Mom and I still had to buy a baby shower gift so we ran to Target (another new luxury I didn't have in college) and we were the last ones to check out when the store closed! The next day we slept in later than we wanted and didn't have time to roam around the island at all. We got up and drove up to Erika's house on the mainland and hung out there for awhile, seeing the nursery and all the work she's done to the house and had some lunch. We had to drive again to get to the shower in Baytown.  Oh yeah, here's the blanket in all of its finished glory! The little white circle/squares in the middle were a miracle! I wasn't sure how I was going to work out filling in the gaps after I joined the octagons, but it turned out good!  Erika got a lot of cute, adorable clothes for the baby and I learned about all the new stuff that babies have. Like a Boppy. Reluctantly we had to leave by 5pm since Mom and I had to drive up to Longview that night. We left Baytown after stopping at a Sonic and getting something to drink for the road and then heading on out of town. I hadn't been on the northeast side of Houston, really, and it was very quiet and not built up yet.  We drove up US 59 and there were many spots that I would have liked to have stopped to take some photos. Old bridges, trees, just some neat scenery. We did see a dead deer, which I have to say is my first roadkill deer I've ever seen in my life.  Outside of Livingston I saw this Smoke Shop and at first I didn't really pay attention to it and then I realized what it was and had to turn around. I *think* this is the only federally recognized Tribe in Texas. We didn't see the reservation, I think we were too far west. I didn't even know there was a Tribe in Texas until a few years ago when I started my job.  Because I like old water towers! Yes, gas is still a little cheaper in Texas than elsewhere, I think.  The sun was setting when we pulled into Nacodoches, home of Stephen F. Austin State University. It was my first time there and I had briefly considered it for college, but it is considered a party school. We had a Whataburger and then made it on the road again. An hour later we finally pulled into Longview. We had a few misdirections because inappropriately labeled signs that showed up too late after we'd already passed them. The hotel was very nice, better than the Best Western in G-town, and we settled in again for the night. Around 3am we were rudely awakened by a noise. I realized what it was almost immediately, the fire alarm, but my mom was stuck in her sleeping stupor so she thought I had turned the alarm clock on. We fumbled downstairs with everyone else and waited a long 10 minutes before two fire trucks showed up. Luckily it was just a false alarm, but 10 mintues seemed outrageous for a real fire. The next morning we got up and made our way over to Michelle and JP's house. We showed up and our friend Stephanie was already there. Unfortunately little Kylen was still nursing when we got there so for the first thirty minutes I only saw her very cute, soft feet.  Alas, we finally saw the cutest, sweetest, more adorable little baby!  Lots of baby holding!  She was a tiny little thing, but look at her feet!  Momma Chelle and Kylen.  After it seemed that Kylen had had her fill of eating, we ventured out for lunch to Juicy's Burgers in Longview. I ordered a plate of chicken fried steak and couldn't believe the size of it! Needless to say, we stuffed ourselves. Kylen did pretty well being out, but she was already hungry by the time we got there so Michelle had to feed her and eat as well. After we hugged and said goodbye, Mom and I headed back to Ft. Worth. We got in around 5 o'clock and lounged around a bit before going to Curt and Steph's to pick them up for dinner. My brother has put together a pretty nice vegetable garden in the backyard and has done some landscaping in the front yard, including putting in a small pond.  This is the veggie plot.  Fresh tomatoes, making me miss my now long gone batch.  Large strawberry plants that were making me envious.  I think my biggest jealousy was that he has a cucumber growing. I had a teeny, tiny fruit a year or so ago but the bugs, the vine borers, ate the plant and my cucumber was lost. *sigh*.  We all went out to Mexican Inn where we gorged ourselves on the best corn chips and hot sauce, margaritas and yummy food. Somehow those four still ate a sno-cone afterwards. I just couldn't find the room!  I like those photo. Mostly because my brother is a big goof and Biff, the dog, is even goofier!! It was a good trip, even though it was so fast. I am ready for a week off, though. A Night in Little Slough June 4, 2008 Do you think Chris will win best documentary at the Academy Awards? ;) I was there for the pollination visit, but Chris went out to film the other part separately. That is a giant sphinx moth visiting the ghost orchid! We decided to go ahead and debut it and Chris has been putting things up on his site and will be continuing to put things up on it this week. My trip to Texas was good. It was fast and at the same time it went slow enough to enjoy. I almost took home a little baby named Kylen, but decided that she needed to eat too much and she had to stay with her momma. ;) I ate some Texican (for you Swedish Chef, sorry no recipes at the moment), and it was good. I'll post tomorrow about the trip! Marc and Eliana started their road trip this morning. Follow along as they meander up the Central Eastern US to the top of the country and on into Canada and Alaska. I saw Eliana for the last time yesterday for a few brief moments while getting some Baloo meds and I wanted to stay and chat longer. Have fun you two!! Happy Anniversary Mom and Dad! Fisheating Creek May 29, 2008 It was a great weekend. A weekend I desperately needed. Saturday we drove up to Fisheating Creek to go camping with our friends Randy and Cathy. They went with us to Kissimmee Prairie a year and a half ago and we had a good time with them. We arrived around lunchtime and I was so glad to see the campsite. It was right on the creek and was absolutely beautiful. Tall cypress and oaks dressed in resurrection fern covered the place. We set up our tent and relaxed for a bit. I had my nose in a book the entire weekend, which suited me fine. I haven't read much lately and I was devouring Mr. Darcy takes a Wife. Which, by the way is awesome! It isn't Austen purism, but it was goooood! I kept finding parallels between Outlander author Diana Gabaldon and this author. There were some parts of the story that I didn't agree with, but in all it was an excellent read. I also worked on my blanket for a bit, here and there, and hope to have it finished soon. Soon being, before this weekend when it needs to make its presentation at a baby shower. Argh! Saturday we walked up the creek a bit. Yes, walked. It was mostly dry with some puddles here and there. We found a great rope swing at a primitive campsite that, when the water is higher, kayaks and canoes will stop at.  Of course I took a swing. I never had the guts to let go though, nevermind I did get my butt completely wet when I switched ropes and it was longer, so my legs splashed the water. It was a beautiful place and we had an awesome day. On Sunday we went over to another part of the Fisheating Creek and hiked over there. We saw tons of wildlife: wild hogs with zillions of babies  and lots of deer that jumped through the hammock when we approached. There were a lot of birds as well and a hawk swooped through the trail in front of us and startled me because I initially thought it was an owl flying so low.  Chris thought he was a deer there for a minute! You can see the rest of the photos here. I actually started writing this a few days ago but then I got busy and now I am leaving for Texas in a few hours. My mom and I are headed for a girls weekend. First, we're going down to Houston/Galveston for my friend Erika's baby shower and then we're going up to Longview to see Michelle and Kylen. It will be a lot of driving, but I am excited! Lots of reminiscing will be had. Eating at all the good spots in Galvatraz(aka: what SeaAggies call the island), possibly pop in the student center at TAMUG and stock up on some new t-shirts. Go to the beach. We'll spend a little time in DFW and I want to talk to my SIL's belly so I can tell my niece that I will be spoiling her in just a few months! So, until next week! Have a good one! And you can listen to some Pat Green, Texas on My Mind: Hip-Hip-Hooray for Rain! May 23, 2008 Whoever did the rain dance, thank you! It poured today all over South Florida and it was NICE! Thunder, lightning and cool breezes....ah, so nice! Curt and Stephanie have some cool photos of their garden up on their Flickr. Curt has inherited the Whitlock/Kincade green thumb in our family and turned a bit of his yard into a veggie garden. I am completely envious of his onions right now!! I hope mine turn out that good! And take a look at the cute pups, Biff the golden doodle and Gizmo the Boston Terrier. I am completely sad. Barack Obama was two minutes from my house today and I wasn't there! He was doing a rally at the Bank Atlantic Center and unfortunately it was at 2pm, in the middle of a workday. If I'd of known earlier then I would have taken off just to go hear him. I have liked him since I first saw him speak at the Democratic National Convention when John Kerry was nominated to run for President. His first speech teacher must be proud. Yes, I am one of those rare Texanus democraticus var. liberalianus. Must find a bumper sticker to put on my car! heh! It will go alongside the McCain one Chris will probably get. Heh! I'm done with the octagon pieces and will be putting them together this weekend. We're going camping so I will have plenty of time to stitch them together and finish it up. I have four pieces of art I want to work on during June. I'm ready, too. The ideas are just pooling in my head and are ready to escape onto the paper. I am also going to attempt are 30/30/30 challenge. 30 minutes of sketching, 30 sketches, 30 days. I just need to work on my drawing skills and the only way to do that is sitting and drawing directly from life. I will be doing some traveling in June but it will be something I can accomplish easily enough. I uploaded some of the orchid festival photos.  I saw this and said it had to be painted. Hrm, must not let it invade my head.    Taking a break from the heat with some lemonade.   This was a show winning native cigar orchid.  This artist, Dawn Vertrees, had a booth and she was awesome! Her jewlery was so unique and if I was rich I'd buy it all! This necklace was to die for! Skip the diamonds, gimme this! She was very nice and talked about how she was apprenticing at the moment and learning from another jeweler and had only been doing this about 8 months!!  This is the ghost orchid that the moth came to pollinate the other day. We were out on Tuesday night trying to get more video footage and possibly a photo and this was a test shot to make sure the camera was in a good position. This is the third flower so far this year with more, many more, on the way! Hope everyone has a good holiday weekend (if you are in the US)! Mid-May Gardening May 21, 2008  Even though I am extremely tired today I made it outside this evening to water the plants and do some repotting with a few plants. I'm trying to upgrade a few plants to bigger pots and it is easier to undertake a few a night, or throughout the week.  The bulbs are doing well and a few more are coming up. I think I will leave them in the ground over the summer because the ground is very well draining and I doubt it will rot.  This is the new rose I got a few months ago. It has put on a tremendous amount of growth and I will probably have to repot it soon.  The aloe threw out a spike of flowers and I am happy to see it. This definitely needs to be repotted, but I'm not sure how to accomplish that without getting completely scratched up by the spines.  The veggie garden is slowly filling in. The oregano is creeping along as is the mint. The beans are about to put flowers out and I made little stake tee-pees tonight so grow them on. I was too afraid the passionvine on the backfence would overtake the beans and I'd never see them. I had to restart okra as something add the seedlings. The onions are starting to look good, too. They are more sturdy than they had been. I hope they take!!  This is the vine container I started two weeks ago. I planted purple hyacainth bean, scarlet runner and apricot runner beans, that tiny little pink morninglory. Looking forward to the time when it is all vining. Ignore that I sound like a complete idiot in this. ;) Yes, I talk for my animals (and the one that we're borrowing... ;) Dogs are hardwork!!). Oh and please, please ignore the crunchy, brown grass. The only green part of the grass is what gets watered from the sprinklers that water the containers. I can't bring myself to water the grass. It's completely pointless. Plus, I'd rather reserve it all for the veggies. I couldn't get Baloo to do anything cute. I'll have to post one of him being goofy, soon. A May Monday May 19, 2008 If I thought April went quickly, May seems to be going quicker. I finally got to see photos of my friend's baby and she is so sweet. She is so tiny, only 6lbs 5 oz at birth, and such a doll. I was talking with Michelle on the phone on the way home from work and heard Kylen coo in the background. *swoon*. I wanted to pinch her cheeks through the phone! In two weeks I'll be in Texas and get to see her! It is so dry here. It rained on the beach today, certainly not where it was needed. There is a fire in the Everglades and the media is freaking out about it because the smoke is blowing into town. On the way home from work I counted at least six news vans just perched waiting to report how the fire was burning another patch of saw grass. Woop-de-doo. This weekend while in Little Slough I couldn't believe how low the water was. Just barely three weeks ago we were wading in water, and now, all but a puddle in the middle is dry. I like it that way, seeing what I am walking through. If you saw the photo of the moth that was posted below, count yourself lucky. I deleted it already, after we decided to wait until we figured out what to do. Plus, we wanted to get a better photo to properly identify the moth. As we were packing up to leave the other night, I had my headlamp on and it was shining down on the dry forest floor. Little dots were reflected back at me and so I stooped down to find out what they were. Itsy, bitsy spiders! No water spouts here, but they were tucked into little crevices and I felt bad knowing I'd likely squish a few. Do you know what is incredibly annoying? Wearing a headlamp and having fifty-thousand bugs flying at your head. AHHHH! Yesterday we met Marc and Eliana and Christine at the Redland Orchid Festival at the Fruit and Spice Park. Even by 10am it was sweaty hot. We didn't buy much, just found a steal of a deal for some vanilla plants and bought those, tried some coconut and black sapote ice cream, had some deliciously refreshing lemonade and walked around for awhile. We hit a Mexican restaurant in Homestead afterwards and then we all went to Schnebly's Winery, way out west of Homestead. It was fairly busy in there and we tasted various tropical fruit wines. No grapes here. You'll find passion fruit, lychee, carambola, mango, guava and a few other blends, and apparently they have an avocado wine on the list to be tried soon. That ought to be interesting. The tasting was nice but the tour was rather short. I bought a passion fruit and mango wine and the mango tasted much sweeter than at the winery. Christine has some photos up on her blog if you want to see. I haven't downloaded ours yet. I'm off to work in the yard a bit. Dry, crunchy grass. The veggie bed is holding in there and half the tomatoes are down. We need rain! Mission Mostly Accomplished May 18, 2008 So, last night, on our third attempt, we're fairly certain we've got the moth that pollinates the ghost orchid on video. This is not-so-good screen shot of the video. The video is good and you can tell that it is a sphinx moth of some sort, but it is a bit out of focus. After watching it last night you can actually tell there are two in the area because one flies to the orchid and then behind it 15-20 feet one zooms by in the background. Since we found the ghost orchids last year Chris has been wanting to find out for sure what pollinates the ghost orchids. It was suspected that the giant sphinx moth was the pollinator because it has a proboscis long enough to reach into the nectar tube and then inadvertentaly grab the pollen. Last night around dusk Chris and I were sitting in our super cool camping chairs that came with foot rests, trying to not listen to the mosquitos in our ears. I'd just put my book down because the light had started to become too dark. In front of us was a smallish pop ash tree and something fluttered by it. It appeared too small for a sphinx moth, but then again it may or may not be a sphinx moth that pollinated it, we thought. So, we kept watching. It bounced around for a minute and then it it came to me and hovered near my arm. I was wearing a white sweatshirt and it was obviously attracted to me. Even though the moon was rising and starting to shine it was still to dark in the forest to make out exactly how big it was and what it was. Then the next thing we knew it was at the tree with one of the ghost orchids that we had the video camera set up on. We had our DSLR set up on another orchid 20 feet away with a remote just in case we heard something over there. As we watched the moth near the ghost orchid all of a sudden it went to the orchid and the ghost bounced in the area and it was clear that it had been to the flower! Then, it left the flower and zoomed by me and I heard the clear, low hum of the wings and off it went. We thought for sure it had gone to the other orchid so Chris hopped up to see. We looked for awhile and then sat back down to listen over the even lower hum of the mosquitos. We'd hear the moth ocassionally just for bits and moments and sometimes one of us would hear it and the other wouldn't. We stayed another hour trying to make out if we saw something else or if we heard it and eventually gave up a bit early. It was when we came home and saw the video, which was shot on an infrared setting, that we saw it was the sphinx moth, or at least a very large hawk moth of some kind. It worked just like a hummigbird and it zipped past the camera a few times before it went to the orchid. Then we saw the other one, and I thought maybe a third but I'm not positive, in the background. So, now we are wondering if they work in pairs. Yes, we are big dorks. I'm not sure if we'll post the video this week or not. We want to get something a little clearer and more definite and maybe even a photo because then we could clearly identify the species. But, we're on to something! Chris conned me into going last night and I had plans in my head to get a haircut and veg all night. I'm glad I went! More Turtling May 17, 2008 I'm about a quarter of the way into my book and I am really enjoying it. Archie Carr describes being on Tortuguero, an island off in the Caribbean Sea of Costa Rica, in the 1950's and 60's when sea turtle biology was really starting off. This was when turtle fishing was highly prevalent and the seven species of sea turtles weren't protected yet. He describes the native Indians turning over all of the female turtles as they came up to nest so that they could be picked up later to be utilized for food. Oddly enough it seems that the sea turtle fishermen were in an uproar over the damage this was causing to their industry; the sea turtle fishery was beginning to collapse. He describes the life on the island, somewhat how I could envision it being similar to being at Inti Wara Yassi. Secluded but with your fellow researchers and then off during the day tagging and doing research. It made me want to go and visit the island, or in the meantime just drive up to Melbourne and watch the loggerheads nest during the next month. I think Chris and I will have to spend a weekend up there soon. I haven't seen them nesting in, well, I guess five years now. Four years ago is when we moved down here. In college I was lucky enough during the summer of 2000 to get into an internship at my college tagging Kemps Ridley sea turtles. There were four of us interns, a grad student and a full time biologist who ran the tagging program.  We saw quite a bit of turtles that summer and after we caught each one we'd have to take them in to gather information on them and then release them where we caught them the next day or two. We tagged off of Sabine Pass, TX and then two places in Louisiana.  We placed entanglement nets that were changed on the hour and if we suspected something hitting the net. We caught our fair share of stingrays, fish and bull sharks. You can see the amount of shrimp boats that were out there on a daily basis. You also couldn't mistake the smell of a menhaden boat as it made its way back into port. Shrimp boats are not a sea turtle's friend.  When we caught stingrays and sharks we would take them a bit away from the net so we could release them and they wouldn't end up straight back into the net. I remember one day we caught the biggest Atlantic ray I'd ever seen. She was HUGE! It took at least two of us to wrestle her out of the net.  The bane of our existence were these huge mats of sargassum that would float right into the net. Two of us would be pulling the net up from the bottom, picking out sargassum and whatever else we saw, mainly looking for sea turtles. I got some kick ass arms that summer. You try dead lifting a wet net from the bottom.  One of the things we'd have to do after we brought the turtles back to where we were staying was to work them up, get blood, carapace scrapings, measurements and overall health, scrape barnacles off and look for fibropapilloma. That was a great summer. That's when I decided I wanted to work with sea turtles. And here I am...not working with sea turtles 8 years later. TAMUG Sea Turtle Lab. The good news is that Kemps ridley's are on their way back. They are slowly starting to nest on Texas beaches again. Typically they nest in an arribada in Mexico. The book made me reminisce a bit so here I am sharing a little piece of my history. Swimming with Turtles May 14, 2008 My friend Meghan just got back from her honeymoon. And since Flickr lets you upload videos now she has uploaded some freakin' awesome SCUBA vidoes from Belize. This one is awesome! And this one is cool too!!! And this. Wow, wow, wow!!!! Now, I have the severe urge to do diving. Must get gear in order. Service Chris' tank. See if regulator works. Diving, here I come!!! The turtle appears to be a hawksbill sea turtle to me. I've seen a juvenile in the Keys when we were snorkeling once on a reef. Then there were the greens and Kemps ridley's I tagged during the summer of 2000. And the loggerheads nesting on the beach in Melbourne. Must go back and see that again this summer. Prime time for that is coming up. *sigh*. Shortly after I posted last night I got a call from my Michelle's husband to let me know that the baby was born. It was a girl and she is healthy! I'm just excited to see photos! Patiently Waiting May 13, 2008  I'm still patiently waiting the news on the baby. No word yet. So, I will share this little photo I snapped last Friday at work of a barred owl. It was not happy with me at all. There was much hissing involved and me reassuring it that I was not about to make off with it or possibly its nest. This is the best one of the shots I took. I did a little curves work to make the owl stand out better and it seemed to work well....because this is my second photo, now, to make Explore! I am excited! I was a bit surprised because there weren't as many comments but I think that the trick is to have people favorite it. I don't know, I can't read Flickr. It is fickle sometimes. But, this photo makes me happy and I just might have to print it out. There's not a whole lot going on. I tried a run this evening and made it about a mile and a half and had to walk most of the rest of the way. The trouble with running before dinner is that you smell all of this incredible food in the neighborhood and start envisioning running into peoples living rooms and feasting. That and I was having trouble with my breathing today. I am also down three miles so far because I kayaked instead of running on Saturday. *oh well*. Slowly, slowly, I waddle on. Through Bookmooch I got Mr. Darcy Takes a Wife, the 'sequel' to Pride and Prejudice. I am thoroughly looking forward to reading this, and it is even written in Regency English. WOO! Heh! My yard is already escaping from me. It is so hot these days. And no rain. Please, send us a mediocre Tropical Depression. Note, I did not say hurricane. Almost An Auntie May 12, 2008 My bff, Michelle, (well, one of my BFF's), is going in for an induction tomorrow to have her baby!!! I'm super excited and when I called her this afternoon I almost hung up crying. My voice cracked there are the end, because this is such an exciting little event for me and she's one of my closest friends. We connected somehow our freshman year of college, and though we're several states away and don't always get to talk on the phone or email, we always have this connection. So, tomorrow, when it gets tough Chelle Belle, think of those times we sipped green tea on my balcony and watched across at Galveston Bay. I'm getting all teary eyed just writing about it! Sometime last winter one of the owners of My Folia sent me an invite via Flickr. I signed up and didn't do a heck of a lot with it until getting reinvigorated about it recently. My page is there and I am slowly adding things to it. I'm thinking it will be a great way for me to remember what we have in the garden. I will need to go around, slowly, adding what we have been growing over the years. Because I am the worlds biggest dork, I had to start a new Flickr group today. It's called Awesome Octagons, and I just know someone reading this wants to join!! I found a group for the hexagon crochet squares, but no octagons and I wanted to share! So, now there is a group! WOO! Also, I am trying to get The Divine Sisterhood of the Gluestick up and going too. Meghan has been doing wedding related activities lately so I am going to try and post challenges every once in awhile. There's one up right now that I need to do myself, but I hope I can get a few of you reading to join!  These are the stacks of octagons I am working on right now. I am working on another round of purple and then have one each left of both colors. I saw there is a nice sea green color that I think I will use to join and to add the border.  So far I love this yarn. It is Paton's Brilliant. The speckles of silver intwined with the color make it very shimmery and I think unique for a baby afghan.  The rose is blooming again. This is the not the most recent one I bought, but the one I've had for awhile. I started more onion and okra seeds tonight. Sunday Scribblings May 11, 2008 It's hot outside. The summer heat has arrived, and with it a complete lack of rain. I don't think we've seen any significant rain since early April. The yard shows it. Everyone, save those who actually water their lawn, has brown grass and the weeds are taking over. Chris has slowly been taking some tomatoes down today. I am guarding a few of mine, hoping to get some more tomatoes out of them to save and eat in the next few weeks. But, they are mostly done. We'll start again with sowing seeds in late August, this time for an earlier harvest than we got this year. I know which I will and won't be planting again. Copia was a deadbeat. I think I had one or two come out of that one, and Great White did poorly. We lacked on water and part of the problem was the amount of tomatoes we had planted. They were fun to plant and watch as they grew. I will miss having the fresh tomatoes in the kitchen. It's a good thing we've stocked up on salsa! I do have one tomato sauce left as well. Yesterday we braved the heat and went to the Loxahatchee River up in Jupiter to kayak. The water was cool and with the shade from the old growth cypress we weren't too hot.  We put in at a park on Indiantown Road and paddled down the river to the second spillway. We've done this route before while doing a geocache.  It is a very peaceful river, with just a small amount of flow, a few spots a litt |
