Tales from the Microbial Laboratory

Fothergilla

I don't remember the species name, but this Fothergilla is happy as I type this, blooming away in my backyard garden.  It's a new addition - so these are my first blooms to enjoy (and photograph!) - they are definitely photogenic little things.

Not much time for the garden this afternoon - I'm dicing and chopping, preparing a crawfish ettouffe for guests that are arriving from outside of Philadelphia this afternoon - former neighbors and good friends, and we plan to sit on the deck and take deep breaths and enjoy the day, a good dinner, and our lives.  With a hint of New Orleans in the wisteria, a good bottle (or two) of red wine, and raspberry sorbet for later in the evening - I'm looking forward to an evening of enjoying my garden, instead of working in it.  Sometimes I forget to do that.    

Grace (in all it's many forms)

Remember, awhile back, when I wrote of a small orchard in my backyard, seeded with red clover and with daffodils scattered all around?  Well, this is it!  A small area in my back garden looks just like I had hoped!

I neglected to post the poem from a few lab meetings back - the lab just got busy with field sampling preparations and I was traveling and it was spring and well, we live in the south and it is warm and the temptations are many.  But I didn't want to forget to post this one - a sonnet about war that is in such contrast to my small field of red clover with the ocassional daffodil in bloom.  This sonnet is unpublished, and Katherine, who knows the poet, Tony Barnstone, received permission for me to present it here.  He's evidently from quite an artistic family - as one can tell from this fascinating site.  Katherine shared this one with us several lab meetings back, and my recommendation is to read it outloud - if only to yourself,  or to another if you are so fortunate.  Sonnets always sound so differently when spoken I think.

Grace under Pressure
by Tony Barnstone

When the potato masher hand grenade
flew in the hollow, Mark, the quiet boy,
looked at me with such sorrow. Then he lay
down on the thing.  He knew his death would buy
our lives, and so he spent it all, just tossed
his future in the pot like a big spender
in Vegas.  Damn him, who can pay that loss
off?  I can't.  "Neither borrower nor lender"
was what my pop taught me.  For what he gave,
with rag-doll arms spread wide when the bomb blew
him off the earth, I kissed his dirty face,
closed his dead eyes.  I knew I had to live
my life a cleaner way, the way he flew
into the sky (before he fell). With grace.

                                (U.S. Marine, Iwo Jima)

What is a 'lab'?

I refer to the lab alot, that nebulous entity - and on ocassion I write of someone in the lab - and while I try hard to respect their dignity (and my own) here, I couldn't resist tonight giving into temptation - because in this series of images, everything about the lab is revealed - they are funny and annoyed that I am asking them to pose for this photograph - yet they are more funny than annoyed and they are a group, an interactive one - and while I look at these images, taken from just a few moments in a day - I want to tell them that these are relationships that they will remember for the rest of their lives.  That these days are good.

The lab is good.  In a good frame of mind, in good spirits - happy perhaps.  This week we were notified that one of my doctoral students, Nikole (second from the right), received a National Science Foundation graduate research fellowship - the first one received at our small university, and as this news circulated around my small laboratory group, it elevated everyone, as such news should in a group that is pulling for each other.  New coral samples arrived safely from Puerto Rico, new experiments are underway - elucidating the bioavailability of acetate in a nanoparticle structure - manuscripts are being discussed and the lab is being (once again) re-arranged.  Laboratory's cycle, like any work place - and we're in a good place in the cycle and the next several years feel productive and exciting, even though they have just begun.

I still, every now and then, catch myself feeling as I did on the first day that I walked into my first position and was shown the lab.  My lab.  Yes - it was a physical space - but it's really people, these faces, that make up the lab.  It's like the difference between a house and a home.   

A Garden Meme

Over at A Lake County Point of View, there is a post on a Garden Meme.  I read through his comments, and what folks have posted, and I've been roaming the blogosphere, reading what others have posted - like Annie, for example, I've gotten money as a gift from my parents (for something like a new pair of shoes) and I've gone off and bought a tree...without telling anyone.  It makes me feel like I've gone out and bought some crack or something.   

1.  I've tilled my vegetable garden at midnight, using a flashlight so I could see.  It was an exceptionally busy time at work, and I felt that if my garden was tilled, that all else would resolve itself.

2.  I make my graduate students go into neighborhoods near the lab and help me fill my car up with bags of leaves for mulching.  I simply can't get enough leaves.  For some reason, doing it with someone else makes me feel more like I'm on a top secret mission, instead of the possibility that I'm really a bag lady (literally).

3.  I love to walk along downtown Charleston streets and take cuttings (aka break off a piece of something) and place them in my pocket.  My friends always think that we'll get arrested - to which I reply, have you ever known anyone in prison for taking a cutting?  No really, have you?

4.  I plant way more than I post about on this site.  I even embarrass myself sometimes. 

5.  Deep down, I still don't feel like I plant enough.  Not even close.

Ahhh...(it's still) Spring!

'Elizabeth', again.

Ahhh...Spring!

Magnolia x 'Elizabeth'

terminal species

I returned to Charleston today - and was greeted by a familiar fragrance in my own garden.  Walking up the stairs to the deck, a few hours ago, I could tell that my wisteria, that has almost taken over the side deck, was in bloom.  Their blooms are fleeting, their aggressive vines have given me headaches for years - but oh - for that week or so when it is in bloom, when I am greeted each day by the familiar scent - I just can't bear to let it go. 

I'm tired.  It was a very good weekend with my parents - good days - and their flower beds are in good shape and their spirits are improved and for a few days I stuffed as many cruciferous vegetables down their throats as I could.  It's time to settle into this new life with a terminal illness in the family - mixing conversations about wigs and scarfs and chemotherapy and fears - with conversations about a cousin's pending new baby, a flower that finally decided to bloom after 25 years (a Fritillaria) and what my mom should put in a Easter basket for her only grandchild.  I'm sure there are books on this to read, that would help me to navigate these new waters - but perhaps for now I'll just think of everyone as being terminal (not in a morbid sense - but in a real one) and accept the days that we have.

So - time to get back to the lab.  Two coolers worth of coral samples arrived from Puerto Rico today - and with disappointment, Katherine told me on the phone that they were unable to find Acropora cervicornis - a magnificant coral that is listed now as 'threatened' under the Endangered Species Act.  On the drive down today, listening to NPR, I recall hearing something (was it today?) on how the Bush Administration is trying to once again loosen restrictions on the Endangered Species Act - you can read a bit about it here.  Groups are calling it the worst attack on the ESA in 35 years.  As our laboratory sits and watches - over the year(s)- reefs change, changing in composition resulting in reductions in overall diversity - it's hard not to see the coral reef as a mirror of other ecosystems.  Thinking back, in Ecology 101:  a diverse ecosystem is a more stable one.  A basic premise of ecosystem science.

But for now, I'll sort through my work emails, and try to remember where I was before I drove up to Virginia.  I'm swamped with work, that's for sure.  I think that for now though, I'll wander my own garden with the Ancient Wonder Beagle and the gallbladder-less (Dog)Wood and feel grateful for the time I just had with my mother.  And water a few things - we are horribly dry here.  We need a spring rain. 

This Day was Good

I'm home for a few days, in Albemarle Co. outside of Charlottesville, with the Blue Ridge mountains in the distance - enjoying the fact that my mother has emerged from her first week of chemotherapy relatively intact and in good spirits.  She had a tough week, a dark week really, but today she ate like someone who wanted to, and even joined me in her garden for awhile.  My college roommate, Jill, came and spent the afternoon with us (which was quite a treat, because it meant that she drove down from Connecticut) - yes, this roommate - and we pulled weeds and complained about how all of the acorns had already taken root and we hauled mulch and stopped to watch the bluebirds and we kept bugging my Dad to get us more iced tea and in the whole spirit of one-day-at-a-time in the world of lung cancer, it was a most excellent day.

A Silverbell (branch), lots of leaves, and it's been a year...

I've posted alot of images this week of the two-winged Silverbell tree that is in full bloom right now - but I'm not sure that any of the previous images really show how each branch is literally just covered in these gorgeous four-petalled blossoms.  I can't imagine what this tree will be like in the spring when it's established and is larger!

I realized this morning that I've been posting in this space for a year now.  I'm now sure if I've held to what my original intentions were - but I'm also not sure that it matters.  Life happens along the way anyway, and that would naturally change what I need to express here.  I'm sure that the months or year or if we're lucky and the stars and planets are all in alignment, years, to come will be overshadowed by my mother's lung cancer diagnosis.  I'm guessing that to get through this, my garden will become filled up, since my usual approach to handling stress is to plant something.  Yes, the garden will definitely benefit.  Oh, and there's this whole living in the Airstream while I build a house 'thing'.  I hope to write more about science - and over the past few weeks the laboratory has really come together, in a way that it hasn't been in a few years.  It feels good, more than good - it feels vibrant and exciting and as a group I sense that we'll be moving forward in interesting directions.  Two members of the lab leave for Puerto Rico tomorrow for a coral sampling trip - while I drive up to Virginia, to see how my mom is doing after her first chemotherapy session.  I'm taking with me tomatoes for my Dad (although he can't get them into the ground yet) - Sungolds and Big Mamas and Better Boys and Matt's Wild Cherry - and some violets that I need to pot up today, for my mom.  My Dad has gotten a large pile of mulch delivered, and my goal for the several days that I am there is to spread it around mom's perennial beds and wherever else she wants it.  One day at a time.  As for yesterday, I was relieved to hear that 11 yr-old (Dog)Wood's gall bladder and liver are cancer-free, and that it seems that her problems are stemming from a pesky bacterial infection.  Those bacteria - they just sneak up on you. 

But for today, I'll be spending time in my garden - it's a warm sunny lowcountry day, with a breeze blowing and live oak leaves falling.  Yes, as you can tell, there have been alot of live oak leaves falling.  You can guess what I'll be doing...

   

Architect No. 2

Over at Xark, I read about this great webcomic site, xkcd - boy, I liked a bunch of the comics there.  But this one about global warming was particularly compelling, especially since I spent an hour of my morning talking with an architect about the kind of home that I want to build.  A 'green' home, or whatever that means.  But as I slowly (and we're talking slowly) negotiate the building process - I'm learning quite a bit along the way about some stuff I just never paid any attention to before. 

Like LEED.  Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design - and their Green Building Rating System.  For residential homes, this is a 'voluntary rating system that promotes the design and construction of high performance "green" homes'.  On their site they list 16 relatively simple things that a person can do to lower their energy footprint - stuff like use compact fluorescent light bulbs, plug air leaks, program your thermostat, etc - and I like how they include alot of yard tips, like using native plants (that tend to thrive with less care if chosen carefully), planting trees to provide wind protection (especially up north) and shade (especially down here in the lowcountry!), and using non-toxic approaches in the garden.  There's tougher stuff on the list too - like trying to use wood alternatives or FSC-certified wood products, and switching to green power (where green power refers to 'electricity supplied in whole or in part from renewable energy sources, such as wind and solar power, geothermal, hydropower, and various forms of biomass. Increasingly, electricity customers are being given electricity supply options, either as retail power markets open to competition or when their regulated utilities develop green pricing programs'.)

So I've talked about Rannai Tankless Water Heaters, and Earthcraft homes, Hardie Plank siding (not sure about this one yet), hybrid solar systems (boy would it be cool to live part-time off the electrical grid), wood pilings vs concrete masonry units (cmu) and the new impact-resistant windows designed specifically for the V-zone.  Yep, since I'm in the V-flood zone and the D2 seismic zone - they're gonna tell me what kind of windows I can (and cannot) use - and how deep my pilings need to be, etc.  So one of the next steps will be a geotechnical report of the place - and a boundary/topographical survey.

So, Architect No. 1 was with a pretty big firm - and while he was a big V-zone designer, he was also a big home designer, and that really wasn't what I was after.  I'm building a small home.  Then there was Architect No. 2, who, I think - is the only LEED guy in our area (or one of only a very, very few), and he works on his own - and he actually asked if we could meet out at my piece of land (where I live now).  So as we sat on the chairs in the middle of my circle of live oaks, he paused for a moment - in between talking about metal roofs and window orientation and recycled flooring - Architect No. 2 said 'wow, this is like sitting in a sanctuary' and in that one sentence I knew that he understood what I was after.  My own little environmentally-responsible sanctuary.