Russian Thistle = Tumbleweed

I am a certifiable NPR junkie.  This afternoon as I drove towards home, I was listening to Science Friday on my local NPR station (to which I contribute $5 per month), and they were talking about invasive species.  I LOVE this topic, as one of my good friends in grad school did her thesis on the Chinese mitten crab.  I named one of our cats Mittens, in honor of this incredible crustacean.  My favorite mitten crab story that she shared with me was about some folks trying to smuggle a few mitten crabs into the US on a commercial air flight.  The crabs got out of the cooler under the seat, and started traveling up and down the aisles of the airplane, terrorizing the passengers and flight attendants.

borrowed from http://www.rimeis.org/species/images/es2.jpg

But I digress, as usual............

I know that invasive species are generally bad, but I have eaten so many blackberries on the Burke-Gilman trail between my apartment in Fremont and the University of Washington campus, that I have a little sliver of doubt about the "invasive" adjective put in front of many species.

One of the callers into the Science Friday live broadcast explained that the tumbleweed plants that you see in so many movies (and that I have dodged when driving across the desert in between AZ and CA) are actually an "introduced" species from Eurasia called Russian Thistle.

They "tumble" as a way to distribute their seeds in the surrounding area.

Hmmmm........

Fish Flies are fanatical about JAZZ!!!!

[fish fly photo borrowed from http://karendecoster.com/wp-content/uploads/2010/06/3671610359_de632c84dd.jpg]

Another interesting critter I have learned about since moving to Michigan about a year ago is the fellow pictured above, who is called a fish fly or may fly.  They normally come out in the spring, but since we had such a wretched cold spring, I think their hatch happened later than normal this year.  

I took my smooch to a very cool Detroit Symphony Orchestra (DSO) event out at the Eleanor and Edsel Ford House this weekend, just a few miles from our house on Lake Saint Clair.  The DSO was on strike most of the time since we moved here, so this was the first time we had seen them in concert.  I chose the Louis Armstrong Tribute they were doing last weekend with following fireworks.

We were chilling on the grass listening to the great music, but as the sun went down the may flies started swarming around the lights.  The vocalists were obviously consuming the rather large critters as they tried to perform, because I heard a few chokes during one of the numbers.  They turned all the lights off up on the stage, and then the guest musicians were having some trouble reading the music.  They soldiered through it all, and made a few jokes, but I was glad I wasn't getting bombarded by the little chitinous creatures.

As we walked back to the parking lot, you could see thousands of may flies congregated around each light post.  Luckily the lights were about 25 feet off the ground, so we were not impacted.  The prius was not so lucky on the drive home.  Every time we got close to a street light, we smacked into several dozen of the critters that were way down at street level.  You could hear them crash into the wind shield.

The next morning there were horse flies all over the car eating the remains of the may flies.  Circle of life, I guess.......

Monkey Business (part the second)

We all have to be afraid of some kind of animal (or at least one), right?  For me it is definitely monkeys and snakes.  I will touch a snake (if it is not poisonous and does not look like it wants to consume me head first), but monkeys I just do not trust.  They are too much like people, I think, for my liking.  Their brains are too developed and I cannot tell what they are thinking, whereas I can usually outsmart my cats or turtles, or the average fish.

Having spent a week in Africa, I have also had several up close and personal monkey encounters that scared the bejeesus out of me!  Unlike the interactions of many americans with our monkey cousins (sorry if I have offended any creationists, but I have to say what I think), there were no zoo enclosures or bars involved in these encounters.  The scariest of these events I detailed in the previous posting.  This one is much more tame, but still gives me nightmares......

borrowed from http://www.awf.org/content/gallery?media=image&wildlife=987

Since we are not completely unpacked here, I could not find the picture of the exact perpetrator, I have posted the picture above, which is most likely a close relative.  This fellow is a black colobus monkey.  My nemesis did not have the long white fringe on his sides, but the coloring is similar.  My monkey, let's call him Spike, was about the size of a small german shepherd, but MUCH faster and more sneaky!

Spike and I met while I was visiting my friend Caroline in Kenya.  

Most evenings during our stay in the Masai Mara game reserve, we ate outside at the pool.  Our first night it must have been raining, as we ate inside.  The landscape outside was much more interesting to me as the sun was setting, and I kept peeking outside.  Taking one break from conversing with my fellow photo safari travelers, I noticed a large monkey sitting on the balcony railing outside the window, watching the humans eat.  I went back to my delicious meal, but every time I looked back at the window, there was Spike, watching us.  I am sure that he was salivating at all the yummy veggies and fruits we were eating, while he could only watch.  If he could have gotten inside he would have, but I think he realized (probably from experience) that the employees would have shooed him out just as he tried to open a door and gain access.

After dinner we decided to spend a little time at the pool before heading to our luxurious tent, and there was Spike, still sitting on the railing.  I really did not want to pass by him, but Caroline assured me it would be fine.  Yeah, right!

I followed her toward the pool, and just as Caroline passed him, Spike jumped between us and touched her shoe.  Not sure why that was, but I think he just wanted to prove that he could, before he ran away as she shouted at him and stamped her feet.

YIKES!!

The next afternoon, we were sitting out by the pool before lunch was served.  I had a roll left over from breakfast that I was breaking into small pieces and feeding them to the very colorful birds which were hanging out to get a free lunch.  I saw Spike lurking about 20 yards away on the 10 foot wall that enclosed the compound.  I pointed him out to Caroline, and she just laughed at my uneasiness with poor old Spike's presence.

I want back to feeding and photographing the birds, and forgot about Spike for a while.  A few minutes later he had scaled down the wall and was sitting on the ground, now INSIDE the compound.  I tried to play it cool, but he started loping towards our location.

I mentioned this to Caroline, who replied something like, "don't worry about it, you don't have anything he wants, so he won't,"  she broke off her comment, as Spike was now charging towards us at full speed.

Turns out that Spike thought he needed some grains and carbs at that moment, and he was making a move for my roll fragment.  I started to grab for the remnants of the roll, but Spike's little furry hand was grabbing for it at the same time, and I did not think I would win the struggle for the roll, so I withdrew.

At this point the staff saw the theft in progress, and they started whooping and heaving stones at Spike so that he would leave the compound.  Case closed.

Monkey Business (part the first)

[Disclaimer:  This story has nothing to do with the fibreglass Chris Craft that played a role in the downfall of Gary Hart's presidential hopes]

borrowed from monkey_news.jpg

This monkey may be looking for the business section, I did not zoom in enough to find out, but my title is emblematic of my one of my monkey adventures in Kenya.  I will relate it here for your perusal.

Several years ago I got to spend about a week in Kenya visiting my friend Caroline, who had grown up there with her British ex-pat parents.  She was working there as an inspector for the Agency for International Development, doing worthwhile projects like ensuring that the cooking oil the US was sending to the country was going to the people who needed it, rather than being stockpiled by the elite and later sold to the people who could ill afford this basic purchase.

Caroline and I had spent a few days at the Masai Mara game park, sleeping in big tents on concrete slabs with solar showers, and we were heading back to Nairobi.  There was a drive thru park that Caroline wanted to hit on our way back to the big city.  She was about 10 meters away from the car trying to convince the guys in the guard shack that I was her sister, so the entry fee would not be so large.  [We were both short white women with approximately the same shade of brown hair, but she has a british accent, and we had different last names on our passports, so I think she was having to concoct quite a good story, so it was taking a while.]

I was sitting in the passenger seat of her british drive car, looking thru my camera bag to figure out how many rolls of film I still had.  Out of the corner of my eye I saw a grey brown flash to my right, to which I paid no attention.  I kept on with my film roll inventory, but saw the little flash again.  I looked to my right, and found that there was a small monkey on the headrest looking at me.  She had a baby monkey hanging on to her chest.  I instantly flashed back to something my friend Kathleen kept saying to me before I left for Kenya, "You are going to get bitten by a monkey and get AIDS."  I am not sure if she was saying this just to annoy me, or if she actually believed this, but I instantly jumped out of the car.  

I tried to close the door behind me, but the monkey was following me, and I didn't want to crush it.  Caroline had already told me that I should stand my ground and stomp my feet and yell when a monkey was being naughty, but I was not ready to adopt that strategy yet.  The monkey continued chasing me around the car until Caroline came to my rescue with the stomping/yelling technique.

I got back in the car and sealed myself in by closing all the windows and the sun roof.  Now I was broiling in the mid-day sun, and I hoped that Caroline would conclude her haggling so that we could get on our way.

She started waving her arms at me, and making a photo-taking sign (pretend your are holding a camera up to your face and clicking the shutter with your right index finger) then pointing up.  I just ignored her because I figured that she wanted me to get out of the car and take a picture of the monkey, who I assumed was now on top of the car.  I had already taken hundreds of pictures of monkeys, and did not want another one of my tormentor.

Then I noticed that there were things flying off the roof of the car; small objects, which I hoped were not monkey feces.  As I looked closer, I saw that the objects were things like:  lens cover; film canister; empty film box; etc.

In my haste to get back in the car and seal myself in, I must have left my camera case on top of the car.  The monkey was going thru it looking for something to eat.

I got out of the car, because I did not want all the exposed film canisters to be strewn out into the dirt.  Now that monkey had made me mad!  

It is possible that I did not get out of the car until Caroline had come over to my rescue once again.  Memories get a little dim with the passage of time.......

I love SNOW!!!!

Okay, I know my friends in the northeast who got dumped on this winter won't think this is amusing, but today in southeast Michigan we FINALLY got what I would consider a good dumping of snow.  Probably about 10-12 inches. Yippee!

Only bad thing is that it isn't an official snow day (i.e., day off school or work), since we already have the day off for President's Day.  I think I still might go out and make a few presidential snow people in the front yard, just for fun!

borrowed from http://www.reagan.utexas.edu/archives/photographs/large/c26776-27.jpg

I remember making snow tunnels in Chicagoland as a kid, after the winds had made a foot of snow into drifts several feet in depth.  That didn't happen all the time, but a good dumping of lake effect snow in the suburbs that results in not having to go to school is quite a memorable event.

When we moved from Illinois to Maryland, I could not believe that we got out of school for only a few inches of snow.  In Alaska the schools rarely closed either.  The big surprise school closing was the day that someone broke into the lot where they kept all of Juneau's public school buses, and slashed all the tires.

Time to find my snow pants!

It is a new year, and my thoughts turn to ----- hybrids!!!

Normally, my hybrid daydreams are of the automotive variety, but in learning a bit about the hatcheries in my current home state, I found out about a very attractive fish that is heavily stocked in Michigan's upper penninsula.  Its common name is splake, and it is pictured below:

borrowed from http://www.maine.gov/ifw/fishing/species/identification/splake.htm

I know a bit about fishes, and I had not heard of this fellow.  It is actually a hybrid between a brown (or speckled) trout, and a lake trout, hence the mishmashed name - SPLAKE.  The Marquette hatchery released over 300K of them a few years back.  Their web page is not up to date, so I don't know if they are still breeding this cultivar.

One thing I do know is that it looks awful tasty.....

As hubby and I traveled from west to east thru Canada to get to my new duty station, we took a fly fishing charter on a beautiful lake in Jasper National Park.  I had my gear in the car, but we thought it would make more sense to "go with the pros" as it were.  They provide everything, including the license.

We got in the wooden canoe powered by an electric motor, and helped the guide set up the gear, as we traveled to a good fishing spot.  I thought we would be casting with dry or wet flies, but it turns out that the best method for this lake is to troll at 1-2 knots with the fly sunk down about 15-20 feet.  We both caught an energetic lake trout, but we could not keep them as we were not local residents.  I don't normally believe in "catch and release" (I am more of a "catch and eat" gal), but we had a great time nonetheless.

So I guess that is an example of hybrid fishing as well!

How do little brothers get so smart?

Little brothers are very curious .......  when they are adolescents, they are EXTREMELY annoying.  I could list a few examples, but any one who HAS any younger brothers is more than familiar with the activities to which I refer.

However, when they get past that phase, they can be very helpful, to say the least.

I attempted to bake a rum cake to bring to a relative's house for Christmas.  I had the recipe, I followed it ALMOST to the letter, but I made a questionable Bundt pan choice too late in the process to recover from my blunder after all the stores were closed on Christmas Eve.  For those that don't know it, I am an EXPERT procrastinator, so I didn't make the cake until Christmas morning.

There were a series of unfortunate events I could go into in detail, but suffice it to say, the mini Bundt pan choice was a big mistake, and one should always have lots of Crisco on hand if one is going to do some serious baking.

So I was relaying the gory details to my little brother the day after Christmas (I had to find out how the book intensive gift choices went over with his 7 year old), and a statement of incredible wisdom and insight came out of his mouth.......

"So you were making a rum cake, were you drinking any rum at the time?" he asked.  I wasn't, since it was Christmas morning, and I was still trying to be more nice than naughty......

"That was your first mistake!" he replied.  Or "No WONDER the cakes didn't come out the way you expected!" or something to that effect.  I don't have a photographic memory, so the story will necessarily change from telling to telling......

I am not sure if he is so smart now because he is a parent, or if he benefited from all the big sisterly advice I provided through the years, but he certainly turned out to be an excellent guy. I would like to think that I had even a small part of his becoming such a smart, caring and funny adult.

Canada is Cool!

borrowed from http://lavendercottagegardening.blogspot.com/2010/06/happy-canada-day.html

I don't just mean temperature wise, Canada is just cool in many different ways:

1)  They introduced me to gravy + cheese + french fries = poutine

2)  They are an Arctic nation (ok, that is temperature related, or at least latitude dependent, though China would like to think that it is also an Arctic nation [do an internet search on China, icebreaker, research, arctic.... and you will see what I am talking about])

3)  They are pretty good at brewing and distilling (e.g., even their cheap beer is pretty good)

4)  They are pretty darn good at that game they invented (hockey, not skiiing, for those of you who were wondering......GO CANUCKS!!!)

5)  They have lots of moose and polar bear and beavers (fish, not so much, unless you count those mushy fleshed atlantic salmon they farm in the pacific)

6)  Lots of them speak a language quite similar to us here down south, or for us here in the Detroit region [or Alaska] up north

7)  Their national anthem has a much better melody than ours.  OK, I know I grew up mostly in Baltimore County, and that is kind of like heretical when you are from the land of Francis Scott Key, but really, just listen to the two anthems side by side, and see what you think!

8)  I cannot think of anything that is cool about curling, other than the playing surface....

9)  They have more than one official national language, which is pretty neat!

10)  They understand that embargoes don't normally work.  It has only been about 50 years, so maybe we have not given that experiment enough time yet!

Feather bowling, anyone?

borrowed from http://media.smithsonianmag.com/images/feather-bowling-detroit-388.jpg

My brother in law Dan would not consider this ACTUAL bowling, but a few weeks ago we had a competition between the officers and chiefs at my unit, at a FEATHER bowling venue.  What is feather bowling, you are certainly asking yourself now........

Well, it is apparently something that is done in a couple locations within Michigan.  One of those very few establishments is located very close to my house, at an establishment called the Cadieux Cafe.  It is a Belgian inspired bar/restaurant, which has two feather bowling lanes located adjacent to the main building.

Feather Bowling involves a bocce length court that is bowed, just as the picture above shows.  Two teams of six people roll those wooden cheese wheel type things towards a feather stuck in the dirt lane, creating a vertical target for each team to shoot for.  Now it is just like horseshoes or curling, the team with the largest number of throwy things closest to the target earns the larger number of points.  At the lanes where we played, the goal was 10 points to win the game.

We won the challenge, but I am hoping that the next time we play the chiefs in something, it is more manly, like paint ball or laser tag!

Why can't white men dance?

borrowed from KYLE-VANDEN-BOSCH-thumb-590x357-53092.jpg

I went to my first Detroit Lions game last week, and it was the first NFL game I had attended in quite a few years.  I prefer to watch football on TV, because you get to see everything all zoomed in, especially now that they have all those crazy cameras on cables suspended over the field.  But because I had not seen a game in person for a while, I didn't realize/remember that they do some crazy introductions before the game starts.

I expected that there would be lots of dry ice and loud/deep/dramatic announcer voices, but I didn't expect that they would do some silly dances as they were introduced.  The defense was the part of the team that was introduced, and most of them were African Americans who had a good sense of rhythm.  Unfortunately, the defensive captain is a white guy who should not even ATTEMPT to dance, but he did.....  Good think for the Lions that he is a much better football player than a dancer.  He should NOT give up his day job.

My husband is white, and he can swing and jitterbug with the best of them, but he probably would have looked just as silly as poor Kyle Vanden Bosch if he had tried to dance to the modern hip-hop type music that they were playing.

Come to think of it, being a white girl myself, and not such a great dancer, I think I would have embarrassed myself with the musical choices that seemed to be prevalent during those pre-game introductions.