Nate & Bess’ Wedding

I made a trip back to Montgomery County for my cousin Nate’s wedding yesterday. The ceremony reflected Nate and Bess’ personalities and values; I enjoyed it. The reception was a lot of fun.

Richard, Rebecca, and me at Table 13.

Duane, Matt, and me outside the reception hall.

Leaving the reception to a kazoo serenade.

It’s Fun to be an Uncle

I got to spend a few hours with my nephews and niece today. It’s fun to be an uncle.

Reading to Z.

Are You my Mother? is always a quality read. We need more considerate Snorts in this world.

The aftermath of L's blueberry crisp and ice cream.

At dinner L sat beside me, and she took advantage of her benevolent uncle. She made short work of her chicken and carrots, which meant time for  dessert . The ice cream and blueberry crisp disappear, followed by an inquisitive “More?” And repeat. Several times. Then a piece of chocolate cake. The girl can eat. (I kept the portions small, so I wasn’t grossly negligent here.)

Coaxing T to sleep.

I got to hold T for the first time. In the picture above the full effect is lost, for I was bobbing him up and down. The little guy likes to move. Thank goodness for rocking chairs. He has the greatest half smile when his eyes are closed and he is tired. The right side of his mouth twitches up, like he is thinking about something humorous and suppressing laughter. He made me laugh every time he did it.

I’ll say it again, it’s fun to be an uncle.

Fungicide Efficacy Experiment Harvest Complete

My two day plan for harvesting my fungicide efficacy experiment turned into a three day plan after I ran into complications yesterday. I decided to start early today in an effort to finish up by midday. So I did not wait for the sun. It was cool in the the darkness of the morning. And then came the sunrise. Sublime.

The sun rises at Rock Springs.

The sun rises at Rock Springs.

Pictures fail to do it justice.

The plants await harvesting.

After the harvest.

I am trying to collect numbers that show these two plants are different.

The harvest went smoothly, allowing me to wrap up at the site by 11am. That gave me time to get things set up for storage back in my lab on campus. I’ll have days of work ahead of me slicing and weighing samples, that will begin next week.

At Rock Springs the planting boxes are now a ghost town.

Harvesting Day 1: Rock Springs

Today was the first of two harvest days for my fungicide efficacy experiment. Today I collected all the above-ground  data (disease ratings, shoot heights, and percentage of necrotic needles). It ended up being 3,360 observations. Things went surprisingly smoothly, and I managed to complete the tasks I had set up for today in less time than I expected. In field research this is a rarity.

The weather was very pleasant. A heavenly breeze was blowing most of the afternoon. There was a kettle of hawks performing aerial stunts overhead. A two minute rain shower passed through, and for almost a minute it was raining on the neighboring field but not in my field. Evidently I was on the edge of the storm.

Tomorrow I will be collecting the plants and preparing them for storage. Very soon I will be isolating Phytopthora out of root samples, drying the roots, and maybe counting roots (I need to do a test run to see if this is feasible). If harvest day two goes as smoothly as today I will be pleased.

Keebler Town House Flatbread Crisps

This week I picked up Keebler Town House Flatbread Crisps in the sea salt and olive oil flavor. It was an impulsive deliberate purchase. I say this because I had decided to pick up a box of crackers before grocery shopping (the deliberate part), but I had no idea what type or brand of cracker I would get (the impulsive part). The combination of a Wegman’s sale, a new product, and a brief moment of wondering how the term flatbread differs from that of cracker* led me to make the purchase.

The flavor of these flatbreads/crackers/crisps reminds me of good pizza crust. They are excellent paired with cheese or by themselves. I’d like to try the Italian herb flavor as well.

These flatbread crisps will join the elite in my hierarchy of crackers.

* The terms flatbread, cracker, and crisp all are used on the box to refer to the product, it becomes all things to all people, evidently. According to my Oxford Concise Dictionary a cracker is “a thin dry biscuit, typically eaten with cheese” while flatbread is “flat, thin, often unleavened bread.”