Rutherford Robinia Arrives

As of 5 am, Dianthus has a new brother.
We're all well and tired.

Endings and Feeling Old

I really don't think of myself as a particularly sentimental person, but somehow I find myself teary and nostalgic about lots of different things.
This week, the end of the space shuttle program and the last Harry Potter movie both have me weepy (not to mention things associated with the Women's World Cup).
Anybody else get choked up over the "ending of an era"?
As far as feeling old, when Kate and William married back in April, I was going to write about things one drags oneself out of bed to witness-- I remember the excitement of watching Charles and Dianna's wedding fresh (although I probably did not stay up for it) and that same year I was up at 3 am several times to view the first shuttle launch on television. First shuttle launch and royal wedding were a big part of my third grade year. In April I was going to ask how many of the rest of you were up for either when it struck me that we're not actually all the same age. Somehow Jenny and Irene watching shuttle launches at Dianthus's age probably didn't make the same impression.

Knitting group Wed. night

Since it happens so rarely, I had to post it. We're having knitting group at my house Wed. night since Tuscon Trekker is in town. Email me for details! And a Chinese friend is moving in with me. She's excited to take Sally for walks. I'm excited for her cooking and pet sitting.

Black Widow Bite

Because it is so funny, in that absurdest horrible kind of way, and because I want to make you all laugh as well as evoke your sympathy, I'm going to post on both blogs (more details on Sp Sq) that I recently returned from being hospitalized with a black widow bite.
Having lived in a hotbed of brown recluses in Lawrence, I was fairly blase about spider bites. Thursday afternoon being what perhaps the most physically uncomfortable afternoon of my life (ankle break and labor included, although both were more acutely painful), I may now turn into an arachniphobe.
Avoid black widow bites, and if you cannot avoid them, avoid getting them when you are 36 weeks pregnant and antivenom, muscle relaxants and serious pain drugs are all out of the question. You surely needed me to tell you that.
Don't miss TTs message below.

Tucson Trekker in Lawrence

Hey all,
I do still exist and as proof (well, for some of you) I am coming to Lawrence. I sure hope I can hook up with those of you there -- perhaps even for a baby group or knitting or knitting with babies. Wow knitting needles and babies, what a combo! Anyway, I will be in Lawrence starting tomorrow evening (July 2) until about the 19th or so and then again for the last few days.

Hope to see you!

Symbioses and Other Suggestions

I'm teaching Economically Important Plants this fall, and, needless to say, I want to make it the coolest class ever. Suggestions are welcome for activities, content, and readings that could help make it so.
I'm thinking of having one day (generally during the agriculture section) on soil and symbioses. I'll have them review nutrient cycles in advance (I think students really need to understand nitrogen in order to get fertilizer in order to understand any ag. issues) and we'll talk about nitrogen fixation (probably using either soybeans or peanuts for case study, possibly the cool bacteria (Anabaena?) that fixes nitrogen with the waterferns (azolla?) in rice paddies). I also want to talk about mycorrhizal associations and pollination.
At the moment, the very cool pollination associations I can think of (yucca and yucca moth, monarchs and milkweeds, bats and saguaros aren't heavy on economic importance. Honey bees are plenty important, but not as useful for cool co-evolution discussions.
Ideas? Vanilla orchids couldn't be cultivated elsewhere for lack of a very specific bee: buzz pollination and the solanaceae?
Any specific mycorrhizal associations that are interesting?
Other soil symbioses?

Just checking in

Hi everyone,

I've done it again -- I've gone months without checking the blog! Horrible, I know, since I really do enjoy reading the updates from everyone, which I'm looking forward to doing again now. My excuse, if there is one, is that I post lots of photos and the occasional inane update on Facebook and figure that's enough of a mass dissemination; my relatives really enjoy being able to keep up with their Nebraska crew that way.

But anyway, everything's good here. Little Z is 20 months old already and is a big chatterbox. She's getting long and lean and is generally a blast to hang out with. W and I are doing fine. He continues to tinker with honeybees as a hobby, with 4 hives in our backyard. He's also just about to start an MBA program, a little bit at a time. I have the summer free to spend with Z-toddler and O-dog, but as I got a decent state-funded grant to do 1 year of research with some students, I do that twice a week this summer, too, and will have 1 course release in the spring as well as 3 weeks in Costa Rica during our J-term. A requirement of this state funding is that I submit a full NSF Career proposal; that July deadline is looming. In the fall, I'll be teaching comparative (supposedly vertebrate) anatomy, which is freaking me out a little. I've never had anatomy and have had ornithology and mammalogy but no other vertebrate-ologies. I'd frankly rather (and be more qualified to) teach botany or entomology. But I digress. Any ideas you guys have got would be welcome! I've assigned a typical textbook as well as "Your Inner Fish" by Shubin.


W and I just got back from a week in Alaska. My parents insisted we leave Z with them for a while, so it was our first time away from her. Everything was great on both ends, although the packaged tour was a little too packaged-tour-y for me. We got to see great views of McKinley and plenty of critters, too. My favorite part of the trip was an air tour of McKinley that turned into a glacier landing at the climbers' base camp.



Otherwise, we're just rolling along here. I'm looking forward to going through the last few months of posts and hoping that everyone's well.