Mums, Music, and Star Wars

~Highlight of the Day: Watching it rain for nearly 30 minutes like Noah was on his way ~

I was recruited for potting and cutting mums (chrysanthemums) down in the lower production greenhouses today. So I looked at mums for eight hours. . . the 'Seaton Ruby' cultivar to be exact (not that you can tell mums apart when they're small green twigs with a few leaves anyway).

To clear my head of mums when I got home I delved into some bands I've recently discovered:

The Asteroid Galaxy Tour

and

We Were Evergreen

By recently I mean yesterday and today. And I wouldn't be surprised if everybody else has heard/listened to them before - I tend to be at least half a decade behind when it comes to these things. . . Anyway, both a little different from each other, and both a little (maybe a lot in the Asteroid Galaxy Tour's case) odd/unique. I really like them both though.

And of course the only way to properly wrap up such a Friday is to watch Star Wars:  A New Hope. I slept through the climax of course - saw everything up to the moment before Luke blows up the Death Star, and then woke up in time for Han to be flirting with Princess Leia during whatever ceremony they've got at the end of the movie. May I just say, Harrison Ford is probably the single most attractive actor that ever was or will be. I mean, this is the man who made Han Solo and Indiana Jones the ultimate manly adventurers they are! And we can watch as much of him as we want - we should all take a moment and appreciate just how lucky we all are :)

Homesick. . . Sort Of

~Highlight of the Day: Getting to sit in the Scott Amphitheater and finding my phone ~

I started off this beautiful, relatively cool day with slipping on the good ol' size 9 waders (it's the smallest size they've got) and taking a nice refreshing dip in the lake :) The algae wasn't that bad, but it still took us all morning because it's in little pieces that the pitchforks can't really pick up efficiently. If you ask me it's because we're selecting for small clumping algae, and it's reproducing fast enough for us to see the evolution ;) If you ask the lovely IPM Rachel* (She's in charge of us algae skimmers ) it's because we're doing our job well and the problem's being minimized.

Then it was off to the Scott Arboretum of Swarthmore College. You may recognize this picture if you've ever flipped through a landscape design book:

I must say, I was beyond impressed with the campus and it's grounds. The whole place is beautiful and stunning and well thought out. Every space is different, but commands respect in it's simplicity and purposefulness. I absolutely loved it. If you get a chance to go, take it.

And on top of the breathtaking public garden spaces they have green roofs on the dorms! You can't see much of them unless you actually go up onto the roof, but they are so cool.

I don't think I'd mind dabbling in green roofs a bit. . . I do hope and expect that the demand for them (and therefore experience with them) will continue to grow. If I don't end up working with them as part of a career I'll definitely keep it in mind for any future house planning I may have :)

By the way, did I mention campus was gorgeous? Apparently the buildings are made of a local stone called Wissahickon schist. . . I think Wissahickon is a nearby river. Anyway, being on a campus made me totally homesick for BYU. I know I'm going to think I was delusional to say so, right around finals week in a semester or two, but I can't help but feeling a sort of longing for classes and classmates and . . . and. . . even homework. I'm sure there's a perfectly good explanation for that last bit there. Maybe the heat is getting to me :)

Oh yes, and I harvested my first zucchini today, and made my favorite totally-changed-and-not-even-healthier-plotsky out of it. That didn't even use a fourth of it though, and I've got two more out in the garden on the way. . . I'm going to be eating a lot of zucchini!

I'd like to thank my fabulous roommate for
offering to take a picture of me and my zucchini :)

* There are so many Rachel's out here. There are four in our area of Longwood - IPM (integrated pest management) Rachel, Research Rachel, Rachel the Seasonal (or R Squared), and me. At church there's at least 3 or 4 more. . . On the Row they call me Ukulele Rachel, which I am totally ok with :)

Checking Out Our Government's Greenhouses!

~Highlight of the Day: Finding my presumed long lost black ear-thingy for my skull candy earphones (it was the last medium sized one. . . only the medium ones fit my ears!) ~

So I could write a ton of juicy details on the operations of the Smithsonian greenhouses and the U.S. Botanical Garden greenhouses, and then go on to list off a bunch of Latin names and what not. Or. . . I could just post a few pictures, only explain the really interesting ones, and get to bed at a semi-decent time :)  

Gotta be green - the yellow flats are made of corn,
and the pots are made out of wheat. I guess
 if anybody gets hungry before lunch they're set :)

spiderweb begonia!

How great is this? I thought it odd that Longwood has random topiary animals stashed away in dusty corners (like the life sized elephants in the barn at the nursery. . . ) but apparently it's something everybody does!

Now can you imagine my surprise when I, who just yesterday was
wondering about this flower, found it casually hanging out next to
 some cold frames back behind the US Botanic Garden greenhouses,
with a label!

I've decided I really like cacti and succulents. I think I may have to start a collection when I stop moving every three or four months :)

Look at this! We totally used to have one of these
when I was little! I may have
been more excited about this than the plants. . .
maybe :)

Um. . . dreadlocks. That's all I can think of when I look at this.

Variegated Ginkgo biloba!?! How awesome is that?! I want one. . .

Ok, so I still ended up talking way too much and spouting off Latin names. . . but much less than I would have, let me assure you! Also, must Downton Abbey be sooooo incredibly sad and emotionally draining? I'm having some issues here. 

Something Green!

~Highlight of the Day: Hearing that it's supposed to get to 66 degrees tonight. So excited*. ~

Woohoo! I made massive poinsettia baskets today, for the Christmas display! It included lots of sphagnum moss, tons of small poinsettias, and the guts needed to get over my terrifyingly gripping fear of sporotrichosis :) Sporothrix schenckii is some fungus that resides in sphagnum moss. If it gets into an open cut it causes nasty painful blisters/lacerations. I made the mistake of looking up pictures once. Don't do it.

Here's some of the finished product. I wish I could be here to see them go up in December. . .

Aaaaand here's a mystery flower that's blooming in front of our porch. If I wasn't flying home I would totally be tempted to dig one up. . . :) It's just that cool. We (being my roommate, me, and whoever else was there when we were examining it) decided it's something between an iris and a crocosmia, with a leaf-to-stem relationship resembling gladiolus.

Also, I ate something like eight tomatos of three different varieties out of my garden today. It's starting to make me feel like weeding may actually be for something :)

I think I could feed the row with this baby. Make a whole stew and then some. When it's finally ripe I'm going
 to have to call, 'TIMBER!' and go at it with an axe or something. I guess it's kind of hard to see the scale of it in the picture. Well, it's big.

*This is not sarcasm. It is genuine excitement for a temperature under room temperature. I want to wake up cold and have to use my blanket!

Tilt Head To Right, Re-examine Picture.

~ Highlight of the Day: Having dinner at house 64, and polishing it off with avocado pie :) ~

Two for two now my waders have leaked. This time it wasn't as bad - I didn't have to pour the water out of my boots - but I did come out of them damp with nasty lake water. I learned though that fish eat frogs, that the algae growing in the lake is not slimy (just a little stinky), and that a cool summer morning can be quite enjoyable, despite leaky waders :)

And after all that valuable education I came home and eventually got around to weeding. I got so carried away with weeding, in fact, that it was nearly dark before I came in. So here's the garden plot at night, because, after using my watermelon scaffolding as a camera tripod I actually got a picture that wasn't too blurry. . .

The best part of this picture is how you
can't really see if I've actually weeded or not. . . :)

Food, Food, and . . . More Food

My milk has gone buttermilk on me twice now. I need to figure out how to prevent it, since my amount-of-groceries-bought to time-till-next-trip ratio is a finely tuned thing, and having half a gallon go bad suddenly throws it all off. So this morning I made two large batches of buttermilk pancakes. And now I'm up to my eyeballs in them.

This would be enough to feed my family of 4 guys and 3 girls.
So I'm looking at breakfast for the next two weeks here. . .

I have a theory about chocolate chip pancakes, by the way. I hypothesize that chocolate chip pancakes are healthier for you than just plain old pancakes. Here's why: plain old pancakes must be eaten with something, mainly syrup. Chocolate chip pancakes, however, can be eaten by themselves. So we're comparing the consumption of syrup to chocolate chips. I don't know about you guys, but syrup just seems worse for you than chocolate. . . so I only make chocolate chip pancakes :)

After I finished piling up a mountain of pancakes, I made avocado pie! It was my turn to bring something for "munch n' mingle" after church, and avocado pie is the perfect thing for several reasons. First, it's super easy, provided I have all the ingredients. I can really just throw it in the blender, scoop it into the crust, and put it in the fridge. Second, it's not brownies, chocolate chip cookies, or store bought, therefore it's impressive and shows off my homemaking skills to all those attractive eligible bachelors :) Third, it requires no baking, cooking, microwaving, or any other type of heat, so the house stays cool (as cool as a house that just had a zillion pancakes cooked in it can be)

 

Isn't that just the prettiest colored pie you've ever seen? I think I'll serve this at my wedding. . . :)

I also checked out the garden today, and ate my first tomato! It was delicious. I can't wait for more. And the zucchini are getting ready to be harvested, which is good because I just can't remember to use the ones I get from the store. I threw out yet another produce bag of zucchini-turned-mush this morning. So sad.

Anything For Air Conditioning

~ Highlight of the Day: going to the Washington D.C. Temple ~

I like cars, and driving, and long road trips. I am perfectly content to drive for hours and just look out the window, and when it comes to what I drive the bigger the better :) But recently cars mean only one thing to me. Air Conditioning. Oh sweet air conditioning!

Today was especially great. I got about 6.5 hours of air conditioned driving in, and then several hours in a lovely, air conditioned temple. The Washington D.C. temple, by the way, is huge and absolutely beautiful, with well designed, extensive grounds. Rarely will I admit the grounds of a temple come even close to the Seattle temple's grounds, but I think Washington D.C. scored a pretty close second.