Tales from the Microbial Laboratory

~yaupon hollies and italian cypresses (and a brother)~

I'd be remiss if I didn't start this post with a thank you to the dentist/non-blogger/brother of the scientist on vacation/blogger/sister on vacation - who, for the past two evenings, sat with a glass of wine and a bag of Lays potato chips, intently focused on his first ever blog posts.  He and I had a nice visit to Virginia - and we were glad that we could be there for our Dad.         

~~~~~

A week ago, when I was visting my favorite camellia grower, I noticed several yaupon hollies, covered in spanish moss.  They were really beautiful - the contrast between the red and green and silver-grey of the moss. 

Yaupon holly (Ilex vomitoria) is native to the southeastern United States (and west to Mexico) - it is mainly found along sandy coastal areas here in South Carolina.  The origin of the name is interesting (and according to Wikipedia):

Native Americans used the leaves and stems to brew a tea called asi or black drink for male-only purification and unity rituals. The ceremony included vomiting, and Europeans incorrectly believed that it was the drink itself that caused it (hence the Latin name). The active ingredient is actually caffeine, and the vomiting was either learned or as a result of the great quantities in which they drank the beverage.

So as I was driving south in the rain today - in bumper-to-bumper traffic on I-95 (that on at least five ocassions came to a complete standstill) - I found myself thinking about yaupon holly and italian cypresses (Cupressus sempervirens).

I have never been a big fan of italian cypresses - and I realized during a recent tour of a beautiful garden on James Island that much of this was due to their odd use in not very well landscaped suburban yards.  Their use in the James Island garden was quite beautiful - and less formal (think 'tuscany' vs 'viennese palace').  I've always associated them with formal - when possibly they might be the most beautiful when used informally.  

The weekend before Thanksgiving I spent some time cleaning out the area in front of my fence (the one that faces the road).  It's about 200' of wooden fence - and in front of it are a random collection of trees that were fortunate enough to find themselves there:  wax myrtles, an ash, a poplar - and a pine tree (one of those loblolly's that attempt to reach the sky and are a nightmare during hurricanes).  I'd like to spruce up this area - it's a narrow area (maybe 4-5'?) between the fence and a drainage ditch (water management is a big thing this close to the marsh) - the 'ditch' is managed by the county and gets periodically mowed/dug out, etc.  But the 4-5' is a nice width for certain trees - trees that are narrow perhaps?  So...what I'm thinking is to mingle what is there with some italian cypresses and yaupon holly.  There's something about the contrast that it will generate - the evergreen cypresses and wax myrtles and holly - with the other deciduous trees. 

I love mixed borders, and perhaps it will be a little experiment in mixing...and since each Christmas for awhile now I have gotten a tree to decorate (and then plant in the garden) - a nice Italian cypress might just fill the bill.  I'm excited. 

A new gardening adventure perhaps?!            

~another day off for the scientist/blogger~

 

Montpelier, Home of James and Dolley Madison

~~~~~

The scientist/blogger needs and deserves another day off so the dentist/non-blogger will ramble on.

Thoughts for the Thanksgiving weekend: James Madison (google him) was an incredible politician, academic, modest man that was overshadowed by his friend and neighbor Thomas Jefferson. Dolley was the first "first lady"(google Dolley) and visit Montpelier!

One of the advantages of being mega wealthy is that it enables one to pursue and explore as John Kluge (once the wealthiest in the country), educate the world on the wonderful culture of the aborigines of Australia. A must is visit the Kluge-Ruhe aboriginal museum in Charlotesville.

~~~~~

Moss with red fruiting bodies, Earlysville, Virginia

~~~~~

~~~therapy is working in gardens and getting your hands dirty.~~

~~~~~

 

Moss with oak leaf, Earlysville, Virginia

~~~~~

~~~Thanksgiving weekend is about non-stop eating, connecting with family and friends, a little football(Va Tech won, the blogger on vacation will be pleased)~ rest, good Virginia wine and late night munchies.

~~~~~

 

Zinnia, after a hard freeze, Earlysville, Virginia

~~the zinnia above was loved by our mother, maybe because they continuosly bloom or maybe because she just liked them, whatever the reason there will always be a zinnia garden in her honor. The seeds above are sleeping for the winter saving evergy to burst in the spring.

~~Goodnite from the dentist/non-blogger/brother of the scientist on vacation/blogger/sister on vacation 

~a festive day of thanksgiving~

Guest Blogger, walking around the gardens at Barboursville Vineyard

~~~~~

Your scientist/blogger is on vacation so her dentist/non-blogger will be the guest for a very busy day.

The holiday began with a bittersweet feeling of the first Thanksgiving without our mother and at the same time being there for our father and giving thanks for all the good that remains. We began the festive weekend traveling to Richmond, VA to join aunt Dottie and uncle Al and their daughter and son-inlaw for a wonderful meal at Willow Oaks country club on the James river that provided a spread of scrumptious food far too much to describe.

Today began with the blogger on vacation and the guest blogger working 3 hours laboring in our mother's gardens that we promised her would be cared for with the same loving care that she provided. We then visited pur mother's memorial that was just placed last week for a very emotional time with our father and we all agreeded it was the prettiest in the beautiful cemetary at the base of the blue ride mountains.

We then visited Montpelier, home of James Madison that had just completed a 20 million dollar renovation and the blogger on vacation was able to talk the guard into allowing her to enter free of charge to take pictures- very nice gesture. We then traveled down the road to another neighbor of James Madison and did a wine tasting at Barboursville vineyards which happens to be one of my favorite destinations. Wonderful wine, gardens,views and history!

Tomorrow will end the holiday with breakfast and a visit to the Kluge Aboriginal museum, more gardening, shopping and helping our father prepare for Christmas.

Very good times, very thankful for every day , family, friends and hoping you the very best Thanksgiving!!

your guest blogger

 

 

~Thanksgiving~

  Quartz rocks, Earlysville, Virginia

~~~~~

My family - my Father, Brother and I - along with my Mom's sister and her family - enjoyed Thanksgiving dinner looking out over a golf course and the James River.  Yes, we went to my Aunt's 'club' in Richmond, Virginia.

The upside of eating out is that you don't spend the day in the kitchen - cooking, baking, cleaning - which I generally don't mind (and generally prefer) - but we (this is the academic 'we' - since it was my Father's decision more or less) decided to go to our Aunts this year - who prefers eating out to eating in.

So to get into the spirit of things, we decided to enjoy this experience:  we ate slowly - enjoying the 55 degree blue sky day, pausing often between courses and glasses of champagne.  It was quite nice - slowing down is a good thing.

That being said...there is a small turkey breast in the refrigerator, and the ingredients to make a pumpkin pie on the counter.  And there are sweet potatoes.  So tomorrow will be spent visiting the Kluge-Ruhe Aboriginal Art Collection at the University of Virginia, cleaning out flower beds, and cooking a Thanksgiving dinner.

And - in the spirit of gratitude that this day evokes, thank you for stopping by.  I hope your day was a good one.

 

~gotta love it~

Science...and the Today Show. 

What more needs to be said? 

This morning, a colleague from here in Charleston and his collaborator were on the Today Show - because of the popularity of a YouTube video featuring shrimp on a treadmill. 

The video caught on a few years ago - but then the call came:  New York City. 

The story I'm waiting to hear about is how they got the shrimp there -- I'm guessing that's a good story, and when I hear about it, I'll update this page.  But in case you missed them this morning - and a bit later in the day - here's one of the many videos from YouTube. 

~giving thanks~

My favorite camellia grower, on his dock stretching out over Church Creek.

~~~~~

Yesterday, Sunday afternoon, I went out to Johns Island to visit one of my favorite people, a man who knows more about wind than anyone I know - and who collects camellias like many people collect coins.  No - he doesn't just collect them - he nurtures them, crosses them - and follows new ones that grow in his garden after hybridizing between this and that. 

I hadn't seen him since two days before my Mother passed away (which was over six months ago now) - it was a Saturday afternoon in mid-April, and knowing that my Mother wasn't well (and knowing that I was a day away from heading back up to Virginia) and not knowing quite what to do with myself - I went out to his place on Johns Island.  We spent the afternoon walking around the camellias and talking about our dislike of cancer.  His wife had passed away several years before - after a lengthy battle with melanoma.

So the evening before I went to St Petersburg for a few days, I got an out-of-the-blue call from my favorite camellia grower, saying that he was just checking up on me, because he hadn't seen me for a long time.  I felt bad - when you have an 87 year old friend, you shouldn't go six months between visits - and so I promised him that after I got back into town and got 'caught up' (which in reality never actually happens), that I would come out and visit.  Which I did yesterday - homemade pound cake in hand.  Once again we wandered the camellias - he showed me a deep pink sasanqua seedling that was 'something new' he had found amongst his sixty year old field of camellias, and a newly registered japonica from the latest American Camellia Society publication that he wanted - and before I left, he gave me a tea camellia seedling, along with a piece of paper that described how to make tea from the leaves.

I have learned alot about grief over the past six months.  I often think about the years before my Mother passed away - and how I couldn't imagine how one makes it through the loss of a parent.  Now, six months later - I realize that 'making it through' means getting up every day, and reminding yourself that your Mother would want, more than anything else, for you to be grateful for the day that you have.  When I told my Father later in the day that I had taken a pound cake to my camellia-growing friend, he said for the first time in my life 'you're just like your Mother'.  We then talked about all of the cakes that my Mother made for people over the years - german chocolate, fruit cakes, six-layer yellow cakes with chocolate frosting, coconut cakes - there was a lifetime filled with wonderful cakes.  I now make the same cakes, find comfort in making them - and even more comfort in giving them away.  I have my Mother to thank for that comfort - even still.

~~~~~

Each year, one early evening during Thanksgiving week, the laboratory heads to a bar (one that serves pitchers of beer) and gives thanks...which means that we take turns going around the table and expressing something that we are grateful for.  It is generally focused on our lab - the science, the facilities, our collaborators - but often migrates in other directions - the election, families, our lives.  Once again we congregated late this afternoon, with pitchers of Sierra Nevada and plates of french fries and took turns being thankful.  It is an interesting exercise - and an important one I think - to reflect back on the previous year (with this one being particularly chaotic) in search of things to be thankful for:  the renewed service contracts on critical pieces of equipment, microorganisms that continue to fascinate us, opportunities to go to meetings, help from labmates - input on specific aims and experimental design and results given and received, gratitude expressed in spite of (or because of?) the challenges and frustrations, realizations of what we might really want to be when we grow up. 

For the past two years - this one as well as this one - Katherine has started our 'annual lab give thanks' with a poem.  She always selects something that is perfect for the year, for the day - and she did once again this year.  If there is anything that I have learned over the past year, it's the appreciation of the moment, of the trivial (that ends up not being so trivial after all) and the mundane.  Before she read the poem, she said that it was a good one for folks working in a marine biology laboratory - and I had to laugh because when she was done, the eclair-baking postdoc couldn't resist saying that the starfish wouldn't necessarily be in the channel.  (It's a tough crowd).      

Starfish by Eleanor Lerman (from Our Post Soviet History Unfolds, 2005, published by Sarabande Books)   This is what life does. It lets you walk up to the store to buy breakfast and the paper, on a stiff knee. It lets you choose the way you have your eggs, your coffee. Then it sits a fisherman down beside you at the counter who say, Last night, the channel was full of starfish. And you wonder, is this a message, finally, or just another day?   Life lets you take the dog for a walk down to the pond, where whole generations of biological processes are boiling beneath the mud. Reeds speak to you of the natural world: they whisper, they sing. And herons pass by. Are you old enough to appreciate the moment? Too old? There is movement beneath the water, but it may be nothing. There may be nothing going on.   And then life suggests that you remember the years you ran around, the years you developed a shocking lifestyle, advocated careless abandon, owned a chilly heart. Upon reflection, you are genuinely surprised to find how quiet you have become. And then life lets you go home to think about all this. Which you do, for quite a long time.   Later, you wake up beside your old love, the one who never had any conditions, the one who waited you out. This is life’s way of letting you know that you are lucky. (It won’t give you smart or brave, so you’ll have to settle for lucky.) Because you were born at a good time. Because you were able to listen when people spoke to you. Because you stopped when you should have and started again.   So life lets you have a sandwich, and pie for your late night dessert. (Pie for the dog, as well.) And then life sends you back to bed, to dreamland, while outside, the starfish drift through the channel, with smiles on their starry faces as they head out to deep water, to the far and boundless sea.

  

~(Beautiful) SUNKEN GARDENS~

Sunken Gardens, St. Petersburg, Florida

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And I have to say that my garden visits over the past six months have been quite tropical in nature - Flamingo Gardens in Davie, Florida, Flecker Botanic Garden in Cairns, Australia and now Sunken Gardens in St Pete.  A far cry from the boxwoods and magnolias of Virginia, and the camellia-rich gardens of Charleston.

The sign just oozes Florida, doesn't it?

I would be remiss if I didn't mention that the home I stayed at during my visit was pink.  Pepto-Bismol pink.  The current occupants (who are not very pink people) have spent much of their time since they've been in the home 'de-pinking' the interior... and the garden.  Evidently when they first moved in, everything and anything that had either pink leaves or pink flowers was in their back garden.  The history of their home is pretty hilarious - and perhaps, just perhaps, in a hundred years someone will be visiting them.  They had a beautiful garden. 

So on a Friday morning, two Fridays ago now, my gracious hosts took me to visit a garden.

~~~~~

This garden first opened in 1935 as Turner's Sunken Gardens.

It has an interesting history - the four acre garden was purchased in 1903 by George Turner, Sr. - a plumber - who was also a passionate garden (remind you of anyone?).  There was a shallow lake on the property (which Turner drained) - and this area formed the basis for his developing garden.  According to their brochure, some of the plants in the garden need some protection on colder-than-normal nights - to think of the royal palms being protected by someone during cold nights over the many years that this garden has been in existence is a nice thought, isn't it? 

This garden seemed to evolve over the years:   first the plants, and in the 1950's - wildlife were brought in.  One of my hosts for the tour had worked there in the past, and remembered where the bald eagle had been - and other animals.  You could see the structures (aka fake boulders) suggesting a diverse past history.  Oh - and the giftshop.  Not just any giftshop - but at one point, the World's Largest Giftshop - or so they advertised (which, according to the brochure, first opened in 1967). 

So, this was a hoppin' place at one point.

But then Florida started changing (everywhere did, I suppose), and that whole Disney thing happened - and who wanted to go tour a garden when you could go to the Magical Kingdom?

But thankfully, some folks - and if I remember correctly - folks in the Turner family, kept the gardens going.  And even more fortunate for this lovely garden - was that in 1999 the City of St. Petersburg purchased the gardens, and saved it from development.  After a few years of work on the garden, it was once again opened to the public.

(If you happen to stop by this garden, be sure to look at the photo display of the garden's history - it really is an interesting one, and one with a nice ending).

~~~~~    

The images that I captured at Sunken Gardens two Fridays ago could be summed up as flowers, fruits (aka fruit-like objects), leaves, trunks and views.  I just enjoyed this garden - and forgot most of the names I saw (I always intend to write them down, but rarely do).

[And might I add how grateful I am that even though Disney has thrived (more or less) - that there are people out there who value gardens just as much?]

~~~~~

First, the flowers...

 

~~~~~~

...and fruits...

   

...and next the leaves...

 

~~~~~

...and then the trunks (there were lots and lots of interesting tree trunks)...

  

   

    

     

...and last, there were alot of nice views...

   

    

 

~~~~~

So there you have it.  Your own private tour of Beautiful Sunken Gardens in mid-November. 

The Pointer Sisters

 

The Pointer Sisters with their Buffalo Pelt

~~~~~

We are family
I got all my sisters with me
We are family
Get up everybody and sing

We are family
I got all my sisters with me
We are family
Get up everybody and sing

Everyone can see we're together
As we walk on by
And we fly just like birds of a feather
I'm not telling no lie

All of the people around us to say
Can we be that close
Just let me state for the record
We're giving love in a family dose, yeah

CHORUS
We are family
I got all my sisters with me
We are family
Get up everybody and sing

We are family
I got all my sisters with me
We are family
Get up everybody and sing

Living life is fun and we've just begun
To get our share of the world's delights
High hopes we have for the future
And our goal's in sight
No we don't get depressed
Here's what we call our golden rule
Have faith in you and the things you do
You won't go wrong, oh no
This is our family Jewel, yeah

CHORUS
We are family
I got all my sisters with me
We are family
Get up everybody and sing

We are family
I got all my sisters with me
We are family
Get up everybody and sing

We are family
I got all my sisters with me
We are family
Get up everybody and sing

We are family
I got all my sisters with me
We are family
Get up everybody and sing

~details~

    Mexican Sunflower after the first freeze of the year - the hollow stems bent, the orange of the flower petals now resembling tissue paper.  Often I think I like them like this as much as like this.

~~~~~

The chicken's body and it's severed head were nowhere to be found this morning.  I'm guessing that some lucky night visitor benefited from Annabelle's actions yesterday.  Hopefully Saturday my neighbor will come to his house (he isn't living there yet - he is spending his weekends fixing it up) - and I'll confess the new old dog's sins...and offer to buy him another hen - although I think we need to have a talk about where he keeps them.  He seems like a nice guy - I don't think he'll freak out or anything.

~~~~~

This evening after a late meeting at work - I was able to attend a talk given by my architherapist.  I haven't spoken of him in awhile, mainly because my house plans are on-hold due to issues related to job security.  I'm a research track professor, so I write grants to bring in my salary - and grants have become painfully difficult to get (budget cuts are slashing university budgets nation-wide, and grant agencies are getting more applications as a result, making the competition stiff).  Often times success rates are in the single digits.

So the house is on hold.

And I've got alot of grant applications to write.

(But I won't complain about that tonight).

So the talk, given by my architherapist, was co-sponsored by the Clemson Architecture Center and the Charleston Civic Design Center and held at FISH downtown.  He had a standing-room only crowd, and spoke about several of his home designs, and his artwork.

He started with a quote by Oscar Wilde, on his first slide, one that I wasn't familiar with:

The true mystery of the world is the visible, not the invisible.

I sort of got hung up on this quote.

My lab, in many ways, studies the mysteries of the invisible world.  

Except - we have ways of viewing them.

So I couldn't stop thinking that it is not so much what we see - but what we are aware of - what we allow ourselves to see.

Perhaps I'd say...the true mystery of the world is in our awareness, not in the visible.

And so you can see - after a long meeting at work, I kept going in this foolish circle, obsessing over an Oscar Wilde quote.

On the way home, as I turned off the highway to head down the road towards the marsh - I saw police lights behind me, and pulled over.  It seems that my license plate light(s) were out.

I didn't know there were lights there.

I'm absolutely horrible regarding the details of my life.

~~~~ 

Enough for tonight.  I'm tired.

~first freeze~

~~~~~

Early morning.  We had a freeze last night.  Anything without protection bit the dust.

Mid-day.  The lab, as usual, met today.  A student, one who has a presentation Monday for a seminar course, went through her slides for us.

Late afternoon.  My Mother's 'memorial' (aka gravestone) was put in place.  My Father went to see it - he told me that it was beautiful.  His voice sounded so sad.

Early evening.  The person who bought the place next door put up a small chicken coop a few feet from the fence on the side of my property.  He put two hens in there.  I've been calling it 'dog TV' - my dogs were obsessed with it for a few days, but for the last few days had seemed to be used to the...clucking.

My dogs are bird dogs.

Tonight when I got home and let the dogs out, Annabelle and The Stan rushed to the fence.  It seems that one of the hens had escaped the coop - and was racing back and forth along the fence. 

Right along the fence. 

And it was poking it's head through the wire (farm type fencing) every few squares.

Within seconds, literally, Annabelle had bitten the head off of the hen.

I now fully understand the expression 'running around like a chicken with it's head cut off'.

(I didn't need to fully understand that expression.)

Late evening.  Far less dramatic, thank God.