lydamorehouse: (Default)
 Given my body type, I really did feel much like a Hobbit trudging my way along the Beaver Dam Ski Trail to Flour Lake.  I left bright and early—around 9:00 am. I budgeted about four hours and am happy to say I managed the whole hike in three! I was back at the cabin just as my family was pulling a pizza out of the oven for lunch at noon. 
 
The destination this time? Hella worth it.
 
The view from the cliffs over Flour Lake
Image: The view from the cliffs over Flour Lake

 
This picture is actually on Ridge Run ski trail. I followed it around until it meets up with Beaver Damn Trail again. I stopped at a little ski shelter and had a trail bar and filled up my water from a second bottle that I’d brought along in my backpack. 
 
Because I followed the edges of Rudy Lake a lot closer, I got a much better picture of that lake.
 
A better picture of Rudy Lake
 
The funniest part of the whole Rudy Lake adventure to me is the memory of Mason and I reading that we could rent an oar boat if we made it to Rudy Lake. You had to pay a five-dollar fee, but you could do it. So, we brought along our money and headed off. Mason was small then, so I actually drove out along Summer Home Road and we parked at the spot where it’s only a mile hike to Rudy Lake.  We found the sign that says “Boat Rental,” but got to an overturned oar boat, which we managed to right… only to discover there are no oars. Like, you can slip your five dollars into the slot for the self-pay, oars do not magically appear from behind the trees. I suspect we were supposed to carry them in? 
 
Good news, here we are several years later, and the oar boat is still there… still no oars.
 
There’s not a lot else to report about this 11 mile hike. I did my usual thing where I stop and take pictures of odd things I see along the way.
 
Oooo, an abandon paper wasp nest!
 
An abandoned paper wasp nest
 
OOoo, a caterpillar!
 
Caterpillar in the woods
 
But, you know, it was mostly trees and path. I remembered to wear my bear whistle this time and I spotted several moose footprints in the mud, but I had no close encounters with any mega-fauna. Which, is fine with me? 
 
A section of the path with a boardwalk over a boggy area.
Image: boardwalk over boggy bits of the trail near Beaver Dam.
 
If I can figure out where the trail head is today or tomorrow, I may attempt Bear Cub World Cup ski trail next. There is at least one destination spot on that trail as well, which is Bear Cub Lake.  However tomorrow (Saturday—today, probably when I post this,) it is supposed to be the beginning of a rainy week. That will likely slow down some of my hiking. 
lydamorehouse: (Aizen)
On Sunday night, I watched former CONvergence guest Ms. Shannon Paul's live (streaming) "Comedy Through the Chaos: Proud to be About Pride" via YouTube.

Secretly, I have always been a fan of stand-up comedy. I even take an odd sort of pleasure even when the comedy is... not at its peak, let's say, which is why I fell into "The Marvelous Ms. Mavel" very easily. Shawn would be yelling "OMG, she's bombing, fast forward," and I'd be like, "Nah, give me the iPad and I'll plug in earphones and tell you when it's safe!" So, I guess that's my roundabout way of saying that some of the performers Ms. Shannon showcased were awesome and others were... well, let's just say that Shawn would have had to leave the room, if she'd been watching with me. But that's what you get with live comedy? So I thought it was very good, overall.

If you want to catch it in rerun, as it were, it is still available on-line.

I did not know that the episode I signed up to watch was going to be the Pride episode, but that worked out for me.Speaking of Pride,  I also decided to try another OutFront event. The walking tour of Twin Cities gay history go cancelled, so I decided to try a virtual town hall. This discussion about racism in the dating scene and is entitled, "A Spicy Lunch: A Conversation on White Supremacy in Relationships." I don't have a lot to add to this discussion, since I last dated in the late 1980s, but it seems like it will be an interesting discussion, nonetheless.

I spent a huge portion of my day today prepping a few Loft class proposals (which were, OF COURSE, due today.) I knew that it was time to start thinking about getting my ideas together a month ago, but did I do ANYTHING about them then? No. What do you take me for? Someone organized? Ha, I scoff! 

Even so, it wouldn't have taken all day, if I weren't building one of them from scratch. My friend Kate and I are proposing a class for readers (and writers who are readers) about BIPOC and queer science fiction. It should be a ton of fun, if it goes. We've picked some interesting stories to talk about.  The other class I sent a proposal in for was one of my intermediate science fiction/fantasy writing classes that I've taught before. Of course, that one was all pre-researched and prepared, but I am waiting to see how much of both of these classes we will have to convert to on-line. Neither of them would be scheduled until sometime in the middle of September at the earliest, but  I have my doubts if we'll be meeting in-person yet.

That took up a huge portion of my day. Partly, because I need to vet all the stories we're going to use, have sample discussion questions written up, and make sure, when possible, that there were audio versions for accessibility reasons. Also, the Loft has an online form that involves a lot of other little picky bits, like percentages of class time spent on this and that, and other administrative hoops that must be jumped through.

Just now, I went outside and grilled a few brats, even though it kind of feels like it might rain again. While I was out there, I fed the birds and checked in on the various beleaguered plants. After reading up on how various homemade pesticides worked, I decided that the one I wanted to try was garlic spray. Unlike some of the other pest controls, garlic spray is the least invasive. Apparently, how it works is that the garlic actually gives plants a case of "garlic breath" (https://www.savatree.com/garlic-insect-repellent.html) which repels most insects. Apparently, it can actually kill some sap-sucking insects like caterpillars (oh no! I have been carefully not spraying too near the parsley where the parsley worms/black swallowtail caterpillars have been munching, but now I'm worried!!)  It would be just my luck to kill off the caterpillars I want and not harm the four-striped plant bug that I would like to move on. 

Ugh. Gardening is hard.

How does your garden grow?

lydamorehouse: (Default)
Prompted by a comments discussion about the brown spots on my herbs this year, I went out this morning and did a little investigating.

I trimmed off the most affected areas, and while doing so came across this little fellow:

if you look by my finger in the picture you will see a little yellow and black stripped bug, the culprit
If you look down by my fingers you will see a yellow and black stripped bug, the culprit.

A Google search led me to identify this cheerfully-colored insect as a " four lined plant bug." Apparently when entomologist get lazy, this is what they come up with. It's scientific name is poecilocapsus lineatus. Even Wikipedia doesn't have much to say about it other than, "it is considered a pest." The University of MN's extension office, which pretty much hates to tell people to us pesticide, said, "...go ahead and spray these little f*ckers!" (I MAY be paraphrasing.)  Though, they did suggest using organic things, like soap,  since, you know you might want to eat some of the non-blighted oregano at some point. Their other advice was, "...come fall, burn it to the ground..." (again, may be a slight paraphrasing, though they do suggest cutting everything way back and composting it.)

While I was out inspecting that, I came across something else in my garden: ants aphid farming.

This is a "mutualistic" relationship that I remember learning about in biology class, but I'm not sure I'd ever seen before in real life (tm).

ants tending their aphids
Image: a photo of ant "cowgirl" tending and herding her aphids on my apple stump/tree

This is something I should probably do something about? But, these ants have set up their aphid farm on a plant that I care only minimally about. It's an apple tree that has self-bonsai'd over the years and is a tiny shrub in the center of our garden. I have considered pulling it up, but the rabbits love to eat the tender apple wood to the ground every winter, so I kind of feel like it fills some ecological niche in my back yard. 

I linked to an article about aphid farming by ants, but the gist of it is: the aphids are not entirely willing participants, but they do benefit from ant herding in that the ants will remove sick aphids and otherwise keep away other predators. The aphids, meanwhile, feed an enzyme they produce called 'honeydew' to the ants. 

It's a weird, wonderful world in my backyard, my friends. 
lydamorehouse: (Default)
I thought I'd post a few photos of the recent goings-on in my life. First, last night, Mason's school had "Science Night." One of the reasons we chose Crossroads is because it's a science magnet. They have a "scientist in residence," who is a Bell Museum curator. So as part of the big event last night the folks from the Bell Museum came out with some of the animals from thier interactive area, including (much to mama's chagrin) the giant bat cave cockroach:



That's a grown man's hand the cockroach is perched on, and, yes, those are lovely wings. Mason, who is a huge bug person, was actually a little freaked by this cockroach because -- well, because it seemed to like him. When the guy took it back, it instantly leaped into the air and flew over to perch on Mason's shoulder:




There was also a milliped from Africa so large it could wrap all the way around a woman's wrist. Mason was (oddly) similarly disinclined to hold that one, though I touched it. Despite his reaction last night, Mason woke up this morning begging mama to have a giant bat cave cockroach as a pet. You can probably imagine mama's reaction to that... especially since she spent her time in the science lab room cringing in a corner and trying not to squeal in horror every time the cockroach and Mason interacted.

The other big events was the free-range tour of the I-Zone (stands for "Inquiry-Zone"), which I think I've described before. It's a bunch of cubicles set up in a large atrium area in the school. At each station there's some kind of science experiment for the kids to investigate on their own. There were light bulbs to light using wires, a battery, and circuits. There are blocks to play with, magnets to experiment with, lightboxes, kalidoscopes to make, and just a TON of fun stuff for the kids to learn about/play with. There's cockroach farms (new addition: bat cave cockroaches in addition to their already thriving Madagascar hissing cockroach farm!) tanks with fish, plants, turtles, etc. There are grow lights with different plants being grown -- and, well, it's no surprise that when Mason first experienced the I-Zone during the open house when we were considering attending Crossroads, he CRIED when it was time to leave.

As we were leaving, he said the only thing that would have made the night more perfect was if the library/media center were open.

Also, I have a few shots of our Ostara celebration to share. As I said earlier, Mason and I decorated over a dozen eggs. We did our usual Goddess/Ostara symbols (spiral, moon, sun), but Mason also decided to add a bit of BLING this year:



Here's all of the eggs, Mason's bunny Sirraliyboadoh (I can NEVER spell that name), and our Trader Joe's tulips:



I also took a picture of all our food -- we had hot cross buns (I finally found the perfect recipie) and quiche lorraine (from a recipie from Shawn's mother):



Bonus image of Mason playing his DS. At that moment, I believe he was "training up" a Pokemon.

Head Down

Mar. 26th, 2009 01:34 pm
lydamorehouse: (Default)
Sorry I've been absent. I've been writing a bit over at my Tate Hallaway blog about things I've been thinking about, but, honestly, much of my time has been eaten by the beginnings of a head cold/allergies. Shawn and Mason have both come down with sniffles too, and we kept Mason out of school with the hopes that he might actually recover (not to mention not add to the germ factory that is kindergarten.)

Last night, despite keeping Mason home, he and I went to the Bell Museum family night field trip that was sponsored by Crossroads. Crossroads has a partnership with the Bell Museum and their I-Zone instructor is actually a scientist-in-residence who is a curator at the Bell. Even though I really worried that Mason would get sicker and not have fun, I'm really glad we went. The only structure was a little pep talk in the auditorium about how cool Crossroads/the Bell Museum is, and then they... let us run free. The museum is usually closed in the evening, so we had the place to ourselves. Kind of like "Night at the Museum" but without Brn Stiller or the whole coming-to-life T-Rex thing. So, really, better. Much. Plus, they gave us cookies and lemonade WHICH WE WERE ALLOWED TO TAKE IN THE MUSEUM!!!!!

It was crazy fun.

Mama, of course, was way sicker than either Mason or I, so she stayed home, which was probably for the best if only because Mason got to not only hold a Madagascar hissing cockroach (who LOVED the warm, moistness of his palm and nearly settled in for the evening,) but also a whip scorpion (which isn't really a scorpion at all, but a kind of arachnid related to the daddy-longlegs called a "harvestmen." Like the daddy-longlegs it has no venom, as well as super-long limbs.) Mason was thrilled about the whip scorpion because he used to make us read to him about them from a book about bugs when he was really quite a bit younger and in his bug phase. The bug guy was actually quite surprised how much we knew about them.

Mason is back at school today and I tried to get a lot of revision work done, despite sleeping rather badly last night and still having serious sniffles. I'm trying to way the benefits of going to Wyrdsmiths tonight, honestly. For one, I haven't been in a long time and I miss everyone, but on the other hand I have a lot of writing I need to be DOING... not critiquing. But it sounds like Eleanor will be there, which is always a bonus (and not an every meeting occurance). I wonder if it would be rude to bring along my laptop?

Well, I'll probably go, but that means I should head out to Walgren's now to get antihistimines... or I'll be suffering.

See you guys later. Hope all you fellow Minnesotans are enjoying the random bits of snow we've been having! (ha.)

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