writing (sort of) and the things I do to avoid writing

I'm still working on my big paper from my phd. I think that I finally have a story that I like but it requires that I go back into some older papers in big-thing ecology that I may or may not have read in general classes. Hopefully I can find enough of those papers online, I sure wouldn't want to have to go to the library.
So in between serious thinking time, we've done some more working in the garden. Today we put new copper mesh up around the boxes to try to keep slugs out of the veggies-it seemed to work last year but got pretty beat up by the end of the year. Thairo weeded the herb garden and planted more rosemary, savory, chives, and margoram. I can't believe that the parsley and chervil overwintered. The tarragon has come back from its roots. And as expected, the thyme, oregano, and sage overwintered fine. We're going to wait a few more weeks to plant basil and cilantro. The tomatoes have mostly sprouted including the variety that I saved seeds for last year, I wasn't sure that I did it correctly but apparently it's good enough.

Begining of garden season '10

We survived the Olympics and haven't seemed to have any of the dreaded post-Olympic depression. I think that I'm finally recovered from the cruise-dock rock lasted 5 days this time. It's still amusing to Thairo to watch me stagger into walls and still not amusing to me. We've agreed to disagree. Thairo's still waiting for a few projects to start, seems like spring is taking it's time to spring in Nevada, Washington, and Mars (or where ever else there's archaeology going on).
We're trying to not get too far ahead of ourselves gardening even though we have this extra time with both of us at home. So far we've planted poppies and wildflowers in the front yard, larkspur in the back, and have a tray of lupine sprouting in our seedling nursery (AKA the bookshelf in front of the dining room window). This weekend we're going to plant red sunflowers in the front yard.
And (drumroll) start the veggies. Peas, lettuce, and maybe carrots can go into the garden this weekend and we'll probably start tomatoes in the seedling nursery too. We saved some seeds last year so will try those, plus Thairo's friend sent us 6 more fun varieties. I think that we're going to get a brandywine, roma, and cherry from either West Coast or PNW seeds. We've talked about having 24 tomato plants. I know probably not enough for me. I can't wait for the glut of tomatoes in August, I want to make gallons of tomato juice.

I'll post some pics once I take some.

OLYMPICS!!!!

We don't have tickets to any of the official events but have been thoroughly enjoying our city turning into the biggest party on the planet. Last night we went to see Corb Lund. Love him. It was a great show. Then this morning we got up early and went to watch Steven Colbert film his show. Also good times.

We don't have anymore specific plans but will do something this weekend. A couple of very lucky friends are coming in tomorrow-she got Canada/US hockey tickets in the lottery last year. So we'll have to do something with them to show off our city.

Nearing the end

I only have 20L left to filter from what is hopefully the last large volume filtration I have to do for a while. And this one was really easy, my lovely compatriot let me sleep 5 hours while she watched the filtration. Whoohoo. We didn't make it to the last station on the line because of a huge storm, but this water that I'm finishing up right now is from the station that we skipped on the way out that is really important. We're going to do a minor station later this morning, which will wrap up our part of the cruise. I'm not sure what we're going to do for the next 3 days because the ship's time is already paid for and I'm sure that we're not going to get back to dock more than 12 hours ahead of schedule???

Heave ho

I'm not sure if the weather is actually worse this Feb than last or if I'm just over the excitement of getting tossed around. We've already skipped 2 major stations of the 4 that we've passed. I'm filtering the second set of large volume samples, yeah 2 down 2 to go-hopefully. One of the major stations that we skipped is really important to the project. We should have enough time to pick up the samples if the weather is reasonable-which what does that mean in Feb? I think I'll go nap while I'm waiting for carboys to filter

Line P v. IV

I'm back out at sea. So far so good. The water is pretty calm. I was feeling a little woozy this afternoon but just took the opportunity to nap and try to get on the overnight schedule. More to come...

Not dead yet, I'm feeling betta

Not much going on here. We spent Christmas in WY with the fam. Thairo and I snuck away to Saratoga one day which was great. The water was too hot to stay in very long even though it was hair-freezing-cold.
Now I'm getting ready for my first and last cruise of the year. There's an army of us going this time. 3 from the oceanography lab, and another post-doc from my main lab. We'll be doing all the regular DNA and gas work, plus several nitrogen and sulfur species. Not sure if we'll actually detect the compounds that we're looking for deep in the ocean, but as far as I've been able to tell, we'll be the first to try. So hopefully even a "not there" result will be publishable.
I should post more about the cruise in the next few weeks.