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~the back corner~
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I was noticing this evening that it was getting dark earlier. It's one of those things that you don't like to notice, because once you do it seems to speed up - almost as if the spin of the earth changes just because your awareness of it does.
The evening light is different too - lower, more golden - and less harsh. August is almost over, thankfully, and September and hints of cooler weather are almost here.
~Lycoris radiata, Surprise Lily~
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I love these lilies. Each year I completely forget about them - and then one day in late August there they are, simply stunning, a pleasant surprise while in the midst of the late summer doldrums. I think I need to plant more of them - in order to have more surprises at a time of year when the heat has beaten me down.
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It's that time of year when we watch for storms along our coast - but so far this year we've watched them off our shore, racing north. Yesterday was a beautiful day - because even though 'Danny' didn't come all that close to our shore, it's winds nonetheless cleared our skies and left them blue and breezy.
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Well, the Microbial Lab lost another member this week - a lover of all things zombie and data-driven. He often sends me random emails late in the evening - like one that said how bummed he was that his dream doctoral project had been taken already. The lab gathered Friday evening to wish him well before he heads to a job in the upstate at Clemson University - he packed up this morning and left this afternoon. His new position is a good one - and with someone that I enjoy working with - and thankfully he plans to still work with us our much anticipated website, CoralMicrobes.org. Sometimes I think I'm not meant for this transient type of work - essentially when my job is done, it means that a person is meant to move on. I suppose the upside of this is folks scattered all around the country - I have to keep reminding myself of this.
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I'll end with an update of the Microbial Lab's mission (first mentioned here) - updates to 'the list' are in bold:
~the Great Barrier Reef, in grayscale, 22 August 2008~
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A year ago, this past Saturday, I went on my first dive on the Great Barrier Reef. It was an amazing experience - it was not just my first dive on GBR, but my first dive anywhere. I can still close my eyes and see the color - the rich royal blue of the starfish, shades of green, darts of color.
Coral reef ecosystems are slowly - and sometimes not so slowly - being degraded. A recent article suggests that fish populations in the Caribbean are declining in proportion to coral reefs.
Tonight I thought about that reef - devoid of color. And I thought about how connected everything is, and how I hope folks catch on to this before it's too late. I'd like to think it's not too late.
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Tonight I went to see the documentary 'The Cove'. Here is a description of the movie from the Sundance Film Festival website:
Flipper was one of the most beloved television characters of all time. But ironically, the fascination with dolphins that he caused created a tragic epidemic that has threatened their existence and become a multibillion dollar industry. The largest supplier of dolphins in the world is located in the picturesque town of Taijii, Japan. But the town has a dark, horrifying secret that it doesn't want the rest of the world to know. There are guards patrolling the cove, where the dolphin capturing takes place, who prevent any photography. The only way to stop the evil acts of this company and the town that protects it is to expose them....and that's exactly what the brave group of activists in The Cove intend to do.Armed with state-of-the-art surveillance equipment, the members of the small group, led by the most famous dolphin trainer in the world, devise a covert plan to infiltrate the cove to document the horrifying events that happen there. Along the way, they uncover what may be the largest health crisis facing our planet— the poisoning of our seas. Part environmental documentary, part horror film, part spy thriller, The Cove is as suspenseful as it is enlightening. The final result is a heart-wrenching, but inspirational, story that shows the true power of film in the hands of people who aren't afraid to risk everything for a vital cause.
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I learned tonight that South Carolina was the first - and is currently the only - state in the union that has banned the capture and display of cetaceans. The ban went into effect in 1992.
If you want to learn more, check out takepart.com.
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Much of the documentary focused on Ric O'Barry - the former 'Flipper' trainer-turned-cetacean-activist. He's now the Campaign Director for SaveJapanDolphins.org - and he was compelling in the film, a man who woke up one day thinking 'what have I done?' and is now spending his life making up for the damage done by making the bottlenose dolphin everyone's favorite oceanic pet.
The Microbial Lab is now studying the microbiome of the Atlantic bottlenose dolphin. We hope to expand this work at some point to other cetaceans. Tonight I watched the film, hoping that perhaps our work could really make a difference - and maybe, if we're lucky, it will. But during the question and answer session at the end of the film (with Phillipe Cousteau of Earth Echo International), a woman from the audience asked 'what about the use of dolphins in helping autistic children?' - as if the forced captivity of one mammal to help a human trumps everything. How many autistic children have access to a dolphin for therapy? And...why a dolphin? The question, to me, just seemed to encompass everything that is wrong with how we as a species view other mammals. Ever since I was little I haven't gotten that mentality - that human-centric thing - that sense of denial that we aren't just another mammal too.
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If you get a chance to see the film, I'd recommend it.
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(PS I know, I know, I need to stop eating meat - including fish. I shouldn't rant again until I've done so.)
~a grasshopper on a variegated flowering maple leaf~
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Today, for lunch, I was invited to the home of a fellow gardener - she's the spouse of a colleague, and from time-to-time, she has a few of us over for a wonderfully british lunch - complete with freshly made scones, topped with whipped cream and raspberry jam. She knows my work situation, and I had laughed over lunch about how I had put myself on a 'plant purchasing diet' and she looked horrified at the thought of such a thing.
Before I left, she and I were walking through her beautiful garden - and at some point she stopped, disappeared for a minute, and came back with a pot and a trowel - and dug up a small clump of toad lilies. She then handed the pot to me and asked 'Will this get you through the weekend?'
I love gardeners. They just understand these things.
Now, the upside of this 'plant purchasing diet' is that it's made me think about seeds, and my substantial stash of seeds that I've ignored for a few years. The reality is that I love growing things, I love watching plants grow and learning about how a plant grows - so I think all of this is a good thing, and right now the table outside of the Airstream is covered with a flat of foxglove seedlings that will be ready to transplant into the garden in the fall. Also, two begonias, with wonderful leaf shapes, are being propagated - and there is mountain mint in a pot and crinum seedlings just taking off.
And tomorrow I will add my friend's toad lilies into my garden.
~the new South Carolina 'Protect Wild Dolphins' specialty license plate~
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I've never been someone who thought about their license plate - or the license plates of the cars on the road around me. In fact, it's always baffled me a bit that anyone would care enough about their license plate to pay extra for one...until now.
According to the Protect Dolphin website:
...the funds generated from the sale of the plate will be used by EarthEcho International, Inc. for scientific and educational programs that serve to restore and protect the ocean environment and freshwater systems that sustain life on earth and to protect the sentinel species – wild dolphins. Some of the funds will be utilized for continuing promotion and marketing of the license plate. The remainder of the funds will be used to collect, analyze, and archive scientific data regarding the wild dolphin population in South Carolina waters when providing care and assistance to stranded wild dolphins; distribute information to the local scientific community, federal, state, and local government agencies, educational institutions, and all South Carolinians for the purpose of protecting and preserving wild dolphins.
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The Microbial Lab, which is quite obsessed at the present time with dolphins and the microbiota in their upper respiratory tracts, oh, lets face it - their microbiota all over - is quite delighted about anyone or thing that promotes funding for research to protect and preserve us wild dolphins.
As part of this new license plate's 'coming out' party, there's a special showing of the documentary 'The Cove' - see below. I'm planning on attending the 5:30 show.
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~the ever-so handsome Stanley in his favorite spot~
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The dogs are slowly transitioning to this new life at ground level - and sometimes don't know whether they should go up the steps to the old place, or out to the Airstream under the live oak. Their confusion is to be expected - as is Stanley's need to go up to his favorite spot at the corner of the front deck. For years this is where he has viewed the world - with his head settled between the two railings. Often when I can't find him, he's there - in the corner, under the crazy vines of the confederate jasmine.
I've been calling Stan my 'little sweet potato' of late. He is such a fine, sweet dog.
~Vernonia gigantea, giant ironweed~
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The ironweed might be the highlight of my mid-August southern garden - it's 6-7 feet tall, reaching up to the arching leaves of the banana tree, as if they were in an unspoken race to the sky. Yesterday I enjoyed stopping the mania for awhile and taking my camera out into the garden: a few days ago was Garden Bloggers' Bloom Day over at May Dreams Gardens, and I missed July (my last Bloom Day post was in June). I was determined to not let the weekend go by without a good walk through my own garden.
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~Rudbeckia laciniata L., greenheaded/cutleaf coneflower~
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At a garden show last October at Magnolia Gardens, I got a tiny little greenheaded coneflower - and it is blooming now in my dog-days-of-summer garden. It's a sweet thing, perfect really - there's something about yellow in the hot August garden, perhaps it's a gentle plea to accept the warmth instead of fighting it?
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Yesterday evening, a few members of the lab met Katherine and her husband for beers at a favorite watering hole. Katherine had just finished up her first week at her new job downtown - and she was desperate to see everyone - and we quickly caught her up on various aspects of the lab's new 'wartime' life. Everyone decided to meet every other week at this spot on Friday evening - consider it our new 'ground zero' for coping.
No matter how difficult the war, poetry always makes things a little brighter. With six of us sitting around the table, Katherine read a wonderful poem to us by a poet that was definitely new to me (and most likely the rest of us at the table, except for Katherine's husband). Here is a bit of the bio from the poet's website:
With degrees in physics from U.C. Berkeley and Stanford University, Weisburd has worked as a policy analyst for Congress, a science journalist at Science News Magazine and an outreach coordinator for a nanotechnology program at the University of New Mexico.
Now how fun is that? (The Microbial Lab has an affinity for poet-scientists...or is it scientist-poets?)
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Little God Origami by Stefi Weisburd
The number of corners in the soul can't
compare with the universe's dimensions folded
neatly into swans. In the soul's
space, one word on a thousand pieces
of paper the size of cookie fortunes falls
from the heavens. At last, the oracular
answer, you cry, pawing at the scraps that twirl
like seed-pod helicopters. Alas, the window
to your soul needs a good scrubbing, so
the letters doodle into indecipherables just
like every answer that has rained
down through history, and you realize, in
your little smog of thought, that death
will simply be the cessation of asking, a thousand
cranes unfolding themselves and returning to the trees.
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