Happy 30th birthday, Jim!

Happy birthday Jim!


As Picasso said..."Youth has no age." :-)

Holy Night Crawlers Batman!

Some good signs for our garden's continued health...

Garden Time!

This weekend Steph and I decided to take a break from job applying and thesis writing and get our garden in. It's definitely been on the "To do" list and now that it's done we can just sit back and let things grow (with some water of course!).

As you can see things were getting pretty overgrown:


But with some good ol' fashion spading fork wrangling...


...it got whipped into shape!


Though some lookers-on were unimpressed.


But after a visit to Tait Farm (and some knee popping), it all came together.



And even the staunchest critics had to admit it looked good.

Photo Phun

Our collaborators needed some ALB pictures, so I got to set up an insect photoshoot last week. I got a good, slightly creepy shot of a beetle and decided to ramp it up in photoshop. I was pretty happy with it as a rough attempt.

The original picture:

And my modifications:

Hiking!

Shasta-dog is Queen of the Hill in Rothrock...

I never really noticed the gorgeous purple-green color of small pine cones before.


Hemlock wooly adelgid at the Thousand Steps trail where we went hiking with our guest, a French grad student in Germany.
The view at the top of the Thousand Steps trail.

And a fence lizard at the top of the Thousand Steps trail! So cute.

More pottery!

Class #2 is now done - I think the better you get the less happy you are with your pieces. But these mostly turned out OK:

A modern-y bowl - unfortunately too small for much besides cereal:



Two flowerpots for the violets in our bathroom. I thought they'd be darker, but I like them!


A vase for very short, very fat flowers:
And a cream and sugar set! These pieces turned out well but the glaze wasn't what I hoped it was - but the lid was fun to make!