Knitting, Botany, Mycology, Nature, Adventure, and Life... in no particular order.
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Botany Stamp Excitement
2011 USPS postage stamps have been announced and Asa Gray is on the docket! I am more than a little thrilled that the “father of American botany” is getting recognition in his 201 year.
(Taken from http://www.usps.com/communications/newsroom/2010/pr10_125.htm)
American Scientists
The third American Scientists stamp issuance honors chemist Melvin Calvin, botanist Asa Gray, physicist Maria Goeppert Mayer, and biochemist Severo Ochoa. The stamps go on sale June 16.
Melvin Calvin was the first scientist to trace in detail the process of photosynthesis and conducted pioneering research on using plants as an alternative energy source. He won the Nobel Prize in chemistry in 1961.
Asa Gray, one of the first professional botanists in the United States, advanced the specialized field of plant geography and became the principal American advocate of evolutionary theory in the mid-nineteenth century.
Maria Goeppert Mayer developed a theoretical model that helped explain the structure of the atomic nucleus; for this work she became the only woman other than Marie Curie to win a Nobel Prize in physics.
Severo Ochoa, a biochemist, was the first scientist to synthesize ribonucleic acid (RNA) and competed in the race to decipher the genetic code. Ochoa won the Nobel Prize in physiology or medicine in 1959.
For each stamp in this block of four, art director Ethel Kessler collaborated with Greg Berger of Bethesda, MD, to create a collage featuring a photograph and signature of the scientist, along with items such as equations and diagrams that are associated with the scientist’s research.
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Visiting an Old Friend
The road to the NY Sheep & Wool festival in Rhinebeck was paved with visiting old haunts. I used going as an excuse to also head out the the area of my undergraduate school and where my sister lives.
So, on the cool and cloudy Friday before Rhinebeck I spend a bit of time visiting the Durfee Conservatory.
The conservatory was first built in 1867 as part of the fist land grant college in the Unites States, Mass Aggie (Massachusetts Agricultural College). It was built in a beautiful Victorian fashion and had a place to hitch your horse out front when you visited. In addition to being important for education at the school, it was a well loved escape for students and locals. It is believed that Amherst local Emily Dickinson used to visit the greenhouse.
The greenhouse today is not the original one, but it does have some of the original plants. While not being as elegant a building as the original, it does have some more modern conveniences.
As an undergraduate I spent my Senior year working in the greenhouse part time and it was wonderful to go back and see the things that are still the same and the things that have changed and finally been updated. If you are out in that area I would strongly suggest a visit. Then you can see some things like these:
The small, innocent looking flowers of the Sweet Olive (Osmanthus) which fill the first house with one of the best scents in the whole world.
The rain forest room. Warm, smelling of damp soil and green, it is filled with a myriad of fun things to find. A pond with fish, fig tree, palm trees, bananas, papyrus, monstera, tropical fruit, ginger, and many other things that flower at different times or have wonderful leaves.
New Theobroma pods and flowers (Chocolate)
Flowers on the starfruit tree (Averrhoa) which are in the same family as the small herbaceous Oxalis plants we plant up here.
The bamboo grove for quiet contemplation.
There are many non-tropicals to see in the other rooms as well.
The sensitive plant that closes up with a touch (Mimosa pudica)
And a whole room of arid plants that are now in happy new tables and places that give them room and a better way to be appreciated.
So that is a brief tour of Durfee. Next up, Rhinebeck. (For which I have less pictures and the pictures are not quite so exciting.)
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Planning
Some of you who know me may realize that while I am up for spontaneous fun and adventure, I like planning. I think it’s the act or organization, making lists, making piles, plotting courses, etc. If I didn’t like those things I would probably be less good at my job and I probably would not have done as many cool things on vacation in Seattle and San Francisco in the past.
So what am I planning now? Well there is the upcoming and forementioned trip to Maine, which requires good amounts of gathering of various nerdy equipment (and also material to explain and exemplify herbarium practices); a wedding present to make and give to my friends (well after their wedding next month it seems) that has me plotting with cables and with lace; what to make for a ravelry swap partner that lives way off in Canada (yarn to be purchased soon); and a running training schedule!
So the knitting things all seem reasonable and logical and unsurprising. (I spent a good portion of yesterday with graph paper and reference books!) The trip to Maine also seems like a good thing to plan. Showing up at a field station without your favorite reference books or flashlight or collecting gear (or Pooh Bear) would make for a difficult week! And well, of course I want to be organized and prepared to help figure out how the collections there could be handeled and grown, that takes a lot of thinking and energy! But running… that doesn’t seem so plannable, or does it.
A group of friends at work and I are going to participate in the Susan G. Komen 5K run in Massachusetts on September 26th. People will be running, joging, walking, pushing strollers, etc all to raise money and awareness for breast cancer research in Massachusetts. In addition to feeling like it was a good time to step up and raise some money, I felt like it was good time to step up my running game, so I joined a team. While there is no real onus by the team to run, and our training is fun, I have decided to go for it. 5K is a mere 3.1 miles, and I hope to really give it my all. Hence the planning. I have a decent schedule for the 8 weeks before the race and I hope to get my time in at 27 minutes at the highest. Right now I can do it in about 31-33 minutes so that seems reasonable. BUT this is planning that now leads into longer term planning…
I am giong to sign up and run my first ever 1/2 marathon in November! The Harvard Pilgrim Maine Coast Half Marathon in York ME! Whew! I’m excited/terrified, but now I have plenty of time to plan. Anyone want to join me?
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Summer Tradion
Many people have nice summer traditions like family barbiques, camping, hiking a certain mountian, a beach adventure, etc. This year will be my 4th year with my favorite summer tradition, spending a week in the woods of Maine learning about science!
The Humboldt Field Reasearch Institute at Eagel Hill (lovingly called Eagel Hill by those who are in the know) is a little spot on the coast of downeast Maine where you can ignore all the problems in the world for a week and focus on learning whatever it is that you think is exciting. They offer various natural history seminars where you take advantage of the flora and fauna in the area and use lab equipment on site.
My example of a typical day on site: Wake up early as the sun strams in the huge windows in your simple cabin, walk down to the main dining area and make some hot tea and sit outsite (or on the couches by the fireplace if it’s chilly), knit or read or look through your notes, hot breakfast, lecture or working in the lab, tea break, back to the lab/class, lunch, maybe go hike on one of the trails looking at/for respective organisims of interest, tea break, studying said collected organisms in the lab, social time at 6.30, dinner at 7, back to the lab to spend time working on the day’s material. This of course varies from course to course and person to person. You can put as much time in as you want, so though it sounds like a nice relaxing time (and in some ways is) it can also be 8-10 hours of brain work! Sooo Great!
Am I crazy… wicked crazy! Is it some of the most fun I have in a given year… without a doubt! Do I know know more than I ever used to about slime molds, mosses and hepatics… you betcha! Am I going to know a whole ton about hypogaeous (under ground) fungi when I get back the 2nd week in August… absolutely!
So while some of you may feel like watermellon, corn on the cob, and grilling is the perfect summer tradition, I think the perfect summer tradition is running around in the woods of Maine for a week learning!
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My Ceropegia woodii is happy and flowering again (in the Asclepiadaceae). Commonly called “Chain of Hearts”
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Slime Mold Ahoy!
With all the wet weather we’ve been getting some slime molds (mycomycetes) coming up in the bark mulch outside work. Here is one almost mature. Commonly called the bubble gum slime mold (well as common as any slime mold) it is a Lycogala. It’s spores will be a lovely lavender color when mature.
