Tales from the Microbial Laboratory

on the road...again.

Off to Virginia - to spend an evening with two friends that I haven't seen in much too long (25 years...or more?), to spend four days with other scientists discussing climate change and the direction one area of climate change research should go in, and then to spend time in my father's home in Earlysville - hopefully to just sit awhile, talk, bake something nice, and deal with my dual life, and to attend a family reunion at the foot of the Blue Ridge.  The Pointer Sisters and Stan are safely tucked away at the Paw Plaza, and Haiku remains in the Airstream, holding down the fort, with folks scheduled to visit her. 

The Petromammal...and hypocrisy.

 
~"The Petromammal, in his native habitat" (cartoon by Dan Conover, famed Xarker, man of a million talents, the best conversationalist that I know, and truthfully, the reason I started this blog many moons ago)~

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Petromammal:  an organism that is the result of co-evolution of a mammal with an energy source (in this case, petroleum).  Example of usage:  Humans are petromammals, and you'd better remember that as you type on your keyboard made of plastic leaving a comment on a site about how BP sucks.

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I am conflicted about oil.

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I'm an environmentalist - professionally by training, and personally because I think it's a critical responsibility of one residing on this planet.  But the truth is that I also think that each and everyone of us is painfully unaware of how much oil - and it's products - are integrated into our everyday lives.

I hate what is going on in the Gulf right now.  Even BP is calling it an 'environmental catastrophe'.  I resided along the Gulf Cost as a postdoctoral fellow for three years, and grew to love the panhandle of Florida.  I can't bring myself to look at any more images from the coastal marshes of Louisiana, can't bring myself to look at another oil-covered bird or an aerial image of the Gulf.  I'm angry at BP.  I'm angry at the looseness of government contracts that allow off-shore drilling without solid contigency plans (contigency plan?  what contigency plan?) and I'm angry at what I also see as another slow government response.  As a scientist I'm frustrated at the chaotic and slow response with respect to engaging independent scientists - both at the level of BP and the Federal Government.  I've been angry at Obama for his slow response (one of my favorite quotes has been something like 'there's never anything good about a flyover') - I do believe his intentions are good, but like alot of things - talk is cheap.  It's past time for action.

But I'm also angry with all of this outcry against BP.  I completely agree they are primarily at fault - and should be responsible for the cost of the clean-up (isn't there a cap on this - at 750 million?  and isn't Obama trying to get this changed?  I certainly hope so).  BP has made alot of mistakes.  But I also think that this spill has brought out the hypocrisy in all of us - in you, in me - are we not aware that petroleum and petroleum products permeate our every pore?  Are we not aware that we support the petroleum industry each and every day in about a million ways - and then the minute this occurs we cry foul?  Granted, our behavior in this moment is important - the Gulf of Mexico and it's inhabitants need our support.  But we need to carry over this heightened environmental and regulatory engagement into the quiet times - when we don't see oil washing up on white beaches, or images of dolphins swimming through a plume of dispersant-ladened oil.  Each of us needs to look at our own lives and the wealth of petroleum products we purchase and use and throw away on a daily basis - and we need to ask ourselves what we are willing to give up in order to help keep the Gulf of Mexico free of a raging oil.  Once you are willing to make sacrifices, then get on your plastic keyboard and send an email to BP.  

 

 

the first gardenias

Tonight the first two gardenias of summer rest in a mason jar on top of the Airstream's small oven - and their fragrance permeates the air around me.  I'm up to my chin in proposals to review, and I'm at that stage where they are running together:  dozens of hypotheses and experimental designs and budget justifications forming one big montage in my tired brain - me, worried that the ideas won't distinguish themselves in time for me to write clear and useful reviews.  In the early afternoon I was reading, and I was disrupted by a sound that made me rush outside, knowing already that it was too late.  Stan was in the back garden, fighting with a raccoon that shouldn't have been wandering the grove of bamboo in the early afternoon.  There was nothing I could do but to let the fight take it's natural course and I was relieved that it didn't take long, and I was relieved that the Pointer Sisters were in their kennels.  Stanley took the dead raccoon and buried it under a formosa azalea (leaving it there for me to retrieve minutes later, and bury in the back garden).  Last weekend Stanley tore a copperhead in two, and thankfully didn't get bitten - and now the 10 year old Stan is asleep, a bit ragged - with torn ears, a bite on his face - this sweet dog that lives to have his belly rubbed.  Annabelle Lee (frustrated that she had missed all of the fun) could only catch a skink in response and swallow it whole.  All the while, the blue of the hydrangeas are growing richer - blues that mirror Caribbean seas and a Michigan sky late on a summer evening and the bluebirds nesting in the purple martin house - and back near the vegetable garden a lily is covered in orange flowers and the first starfire lily opens - lilies from my Mother's garden that now live among these crazy dogs and a crazy scientist who measures good days by her ability to keep her cool (75% of the time) and forge ahead although it seems like her life is sporadically filled with tornados passing over her gardenia-scented and fragile world.  It's all going to be okay, and how do I know this?  The painted buntings are at the bird feeder everyday now, the brilliant male, the exquisite female, enjoying the millet and unaware of the chaos - or simply content in spite of it.   

out-of-sight, out-of-mind...

~inside the front gate:  peace and tranquility (more or less - that is, if you don't consider the jasmine that is taking over a live oak, the wisteria that is taking over a fig tree, and the antique rose 'Silver Moon' that is taking over the old front deck)~

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I'm unemployed and I'm swamped at work.

Nuts, eh?

Between now and the first of June I need to write a short proposal, contribute to a large proposal with colleagues, finish reviewing proposals for a grant panel, and revise a manuscript.

Still have the Gulf oil spill blues and the Unemployed blues.

Definitely nuts.  Impossible really.

(Whining isn't gonna get me anywhere, but boy, it's gotta be done from time-to-time).

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So today - in between reviewing proposals and panicking, I worked on the area outside of my front gate, an area that is about 100 feet of privacy fence often filled with mexican sunflowers (prolific reseeders) by late summer - and chaotic.  That is, chaos that I've been half-heartedly trying to get under control for the past year or so - although I often forget about it, since after I drive into my place I fall victim to the whole 'out of sight, out of mind' thing (the privacy fence was present when I purchased the place - I don't like it's look from the outside, but from the inside it actually does it's job:  it provides privacy.  This is also the fence that The Dan jumps with ease when she's not wearing her snazzy backpack).

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So this is what the area looked like this afternoon, after I had taken down a few branches (from the ash - which also had vines running up it's trunk and wrapping around several branches).  It doesn't look so terrible, does it?  Perhaps as if another afternoon or two might do the trick?

I first attacked this area (and it attacked back!) in early January of 2009 - and since then I've added a red buckeye (you can see it just to the left and behind the ladder), a hollywood juniper, and a chaste tree (one that I had sitting around in a pot forever, not even sure where it came from) along the fence.  The juniper and chaste tree are at the far end of the fence (you can't see them in the image above).

But we have this whole crazy biomass thing going down here, and cleaning an area of invasive vines either takes removing all of the soil in an area (down to the bedrock), releasing a nuclear weapon, or spraying truckloads of herbicides - neither of which I was willing to do - so lets just say that the area needed a little touching up.

Yeah, just a little.

(I first mentioned this little red chainsaw here - and again here.  I love this little thing.  It allows me to do things - or to at least feel like I'm accomplishing something.) 

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But zooming out a bit, things look much, much worse.

Translation:  I've still got a bunch more to do here.

There's a large Lady Banks rose (with white flowers) that needs some selective pruning (is that redundant...isn't all pruning selective?) - and entangled in this rose is a pink rose (one that a friend gave me years ago) that gets 30' skinny canes that climb up into the ash tree.  And there's an explosion of Canna americanallis var. variegata 'Pretoria' - which I should both share with others and perhaps transplant to a few different locations (this is one of the few cannas that I enjoy - although wow, more nice ones are beingreleased and I'm changing my mind a bit about these guys).  Then there's everything else - unwanted spiderworts (these things are crazy-invasive here, and mine started as a gift the first year I lived here from a gardener-friend...what was she thinking?  I have grown to despise spiderworts), honeysuckle, Virginia creeper, wild grapes, poison ivy, etc.  And there are drainage ditches (that are required because of the threat of coastal flooding - and periodically folks from the county come out to re-dig the ditches) - they are now like invasive plant 'pits', and if I had a weed whacker perhaps I could manage them, but I don't and so I'm thinking about...round-up.  Yep.  A chemical.  Haven't decided for sure yet though.

So - much more to do, yes, but progress was made today.  I have a vision for this area - an out-of-focus vision, but definitely a vision.  But I still have proposals to read and write though, dammit, and a small proposal to write and a larger one to contribute to and...so I'd better get to it.

my future...or not.

Can't you just see the Pointer Sisters in a video like this?

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a Pointer Sister solution

~The Dan (and her backpack) in the wilds of the garden~

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So I've mentioned of late that The Dan has been jumping and clearing 6 and 7 foot fences.  It's been a major problem - especially since she cleared the fence at the Paw Plaza Hotel (where I board the dogs) and I'm sure it traumatized the folks in charge at the time - they actually had to get in a car to catch up with her.

So, a guy at the Paw Plaza had an idea.

A brilliant idea.

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~The Dan's backpack 'Outward Hound'~

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He suggested that I purchase a dog backpack and fill the saddlebags with bottles of water.  And so I did.

Now The Dan knows when her backpack comes out, that she's going to get to run around outside.  The last time that I took them to the Paw Plaza (when I went to St Thomas), I took her backpack along - and they said it worked brilliantly.  The extra weight keeps the silly Dan on the ground.

(I think it's hilarious that the backpack is an 'Outward Hound' backpack. 

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~ The Pointer Sisters roaming the salvias~

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I need to adjust the weight - I think the two bottles of water might be a bit heavy, and she could probably be kept from jumping with less weight.  I also might try a bag of dry beans or rice on each side, thinking that it might be more comfortable (but honestly, I think they would smell it and it would drive The Dan nuts and Annabelle Lee would try to eat it - so I might be stuck with water...wait, sand maybe?).

Also, it weirds Annabelle Lee (aka Bella Banana) out a bit, since The Dan is usually the fastest, and now Annabelle is turning her head around, waiting for The Dan to catch up with her.  I also think the weight isn't terrible for Dan's back (I hope) - it's weight is evenly distributed - plus, she doesn't wear it all of the time.

And...she's not jumping the fence and trying to catch (aka kill) the neighbor's cats and worrying me that I'll never catch her and she'll be squished by a car.

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petromammal

I would like to have a new word considered by the Urban Dictionary for inclusion:

Petromammal:  an organism that is the result of co-evolution of a mammal with an energy source (in this case, petroleum).  Example of usage:  Humans are petromammals, and you'd better remember that as you type on your keyboard made of plastic leaving a comment on a site about how BP sucks.

Please help me spread this new word, and use your own 'example of usage' if you wish (I'm feeling a bit cynical these days - reflected in my own use of the word).

Update:  Cartoon image of a petromammal forthcoming.

images

This link has images that show what is unfolding in the Gulf - far better than any words I can write here.

Pretty much in a funk about all of this, but have jumped into it (how could I not?) and a small proposal is due next week.

Otherwise, the garden and dogs are doing fine.

How Much Oil Has Leaked Into the Gulf of Mexico?

Found here.

jumping into the fray

I've been watching the oil spill, sneaking glimpses like sneaking pieces of chocolate - a curious, even addictive appetite, a past history of experiences - yet reluctant to jump in, to make a call and say 'I'm available if needed'.

But tonight I watched this video, and it isn't about the science, it's more about having a social conscience.  I received an email, a few emails were sent - the word 'team' was tossed around.  We'll see - the work that needs to be done requires big money, varied expertise - willing investigators.  But I hope something comes of it - I can't stand just sitting by, watching, waiting for more video. 

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A good source of information can be found here.

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