Raspberries

This year's spring yielded a bucketful of raspberries on our two-year-old bushes. The berries were small, but very sweat, and the most delicious raspberries I personally have every eaten!

For any of you who know of the show, Numb3rs, in a recent episode, Larry notes that the chemical Ethyl Formate which is responsible for giving raspberries their flavor, was found in space by scientists looking for amino acids (a building block of life). I thought this was interesting, but the cosmos really doesn't taste like raspberries; it would take a great deal of other molecules to make outer space a raspberry flavored place!

Bumblebee Buisness

While I was pondering over my very ponder-inspiring garden, I saw a bumblebee behaving interestingly on the lattice. With my HD video setting, I hurredly shot this video, but really didn't need to hurry, as it continued this rutine long after I stopped taking the video! Curious about this particular behavior, and not finding satisfactory answers online, I ordered a book that deals specifically with Bumblebees as apposed to honeybees, of which I have read much, and their ecology, evolution, and behavior.

I am excited to delve into this study, as bees fascinate me. Did you know that bees leave chemical signals on petals of flowers which are later decoded by other bumblebees that come to the same flower, letting those bee know that that flower is exausted of its supply of pollen, so that no prescious foraging time is wasted? What I found even more interesting than this, was that a Bumblebee that detects a chemical signal on some surface that was made to direct it to a newfound, and profitable foraging site, can not only find the new site with astonishing precision and speed, but also, durring its flight, can even account for wind drift that it encounteres!!! Awesome right!!! I mean....I coudn't possibly dream of doing something like that without the aid of GPS, and the world at the level of a Bee is so much more complex, vast and confusing than the world we humans think we have "discovered". These little tid-bits of knowledge never cease to astonish me, and fill me with awe..but then, I get thinking to myself...well, of Course, God is a genious, of course he could make a such a tiny, simple-looking insect capable of such complex tasks.

More to come later on this topic, once I dive for a few days into my knew Bumblebee book.

Change is in the Air

Independence Day rolled in and right back out, as it does every year, with it's fleeting moments of joy, and camaraderie as family and friends mingle as one over a BBQ and a rustic American Flag Cake. It brought with it a new type of summer this year, though, and it will roll in again next year to find changes that were impending since I came along, but never realized in full until the present. As I sat with the family on a picnic blanket at Tanglewood last evening, eating drippy watermelon and listening to James Taylor pluck his guitar strings tunefully and sing about "showering the people you love with love" and assuring his loved ones that he is always there for him I looked around me to all of my loved ones, knowing they would always be there for me, and hoping that they feel as showered with my love as JT sings about.

I was just getting used to being a high school graduate when the college paper work came in by the ream and the postman handed me stacks of Colby College Envelopes stuffed to the poorly sealed seems with an incredulous and inquisitive look on his face. Luckily for me, I found how much I hate administration. Not only do I question Colby's need for no less than 8 documents which all ask for my name, my DOB, my age, my nationality and my signature and suspect some form of scheme to mass identity theft, but I have become seriously concerned with the lack of usable pens in my home which are desperately needed to carry out Colby's redundant and ceaseless requests for information. As Dad so profoundly noted, "You'd better get used to it because that's the rest of your life." Well, if the rest of my life is going to contain sheets of paper that request all my personal information, then yes, and thanks Dad...I'd better get used to it.

College is just eight weeks away, and so is my step up to the responsibility that comes with young-adulthood. I am excited and nervous as anything I will admit, but I am ready, and that's what counts. I look forward to the people out there that I will soon meet and who will become some of my best friends, and I look forward to learning that one thing that will give me the spark that will grow into a passion and that will fuel my interests and career for the greater part of my future.


And just on a very ponderous note, though so much will change for me in the coming months, so much will stay the same, and I find tremendous comfort in knowing that the people that are there for me are the friends and family that built me up to who I am today. Thank you for making me possible!

A Different Sort of Beatle Mania

Hello everybody! For my english class, my final project was to analyze the album, Rubber Soul, by the Beatles, and create a blog for it. If you like the Beatles, I think you'll find my blog interesting. You can see it here. Hope you like it!

Not Just a Walk in the Park

At Rockefeller State Park yesterday, quite a few birds streaked by me, hardly distinguishable as their colors blended almost perfectly into the forest understory and the lofty treetops. I could only identify most of the birds by their calls, since, for the most part, all I could see was a small dark form flitting here and there. However, by the Swan Lake, the birds were easy to watch. I saw many Yellow Rumped Warblers, several Swamp, House and Chipping Sparrows, and countless Red Winged Blackbirds, Robins, Starlings, Swallows and Great Tailed Grackles.

Even though I have seen many Pileated Woodpeckers before, I am always just as awed by their magnificence each time. The one pictured below was on the smaller side of the ones I have seen, but still it's size and colors are striking in the bird world! It was truly incredible to watch this large bird hammer the base of this termite infested tree with such precision and coordination and power. It's must have hammered at least 20 times a second, and the hollow sound reverberated through the forest. With such a large presence, this bird commands a lot of respect in the forest world--there were no other birds in the vicinity. The Pileated Woodpecker is a pretty solitary bird, and when it flies, it has such a slow, gliding flight, it almost doesn't look like a bird at all!

Shirley is pretty much under voice control now, so I let her off her leash in the quiet parts of the trail. Enjoying her new freedom, Shirley was tearing around and around the path ahead and behind us. Here, she reluctantly, but obediently comes at my command and moments after this picture, raced off again, crashing through the forest, and reducing my hopes of seeing wildlife significantly.

On a small island in the middle of Swan Lake, a family of turtles bathed in the first truly warm day of the year. Monica and I counted over thirty spread over this island and the bank of the pond just from where we were standing!

My First (Decent) Photoshop Drawing

I have always been interested in the capabilities of the computer to make art. Drawing in photoshop is not unlike drawing on a piece of paper, except for the fact that you can press "command z" and undo that stray mark or accidental smudge! Here is my first creation that looks like what it is supposed to. My logo is "Blue Rose Designs". This is because of my fascination with the fact that blue is such an uncommon color in nature. My goal, someday, is to be able to show fellow scientists how to genetically modify a rose to be blue, a feat which has proved impossible thus far. If we can genetically modify plants to 'naturally' produce true blue pigments (the only plant that is true blue is gentia), then we would have amazing insights into the genetic makeup of living organisms, and how they can be altered for the better. Who knows, maybe in the pursuit to make a rose blue someone will discover how to get ordinary stem cells (from bone marrow!) to differentiate on its own to become an arm or a leg, or a lung, so that amputees and transplant patients can have a body part that is of their own genetic makeup!

Homemade Sushi

There's nothing better than making something a little fancy, at home...especially when it's super healthy AND delicious! While at Mrs. Greens, I saw some Nori (a type of dried, pressed seaweed) and decided that I would make some sushi rolls. With very little to put inside, this is what I came up with:

Spreading the Rice

Adding Spinach and Avocado

Rolling and Cutting