Back in the water!

I was able to start the weekend by enjoying the glorious weather we had on Friday (sunny and 27C even on the coast!!) by slipping under the waves into the silent underwater world.

I was training a couple of new students in the lab to count and measure eelgrass. Both had never done it before so it was a great new experience for them and gave them a taste of what it to come with this summer's field work in July and August.

The big white things on their arms are the slates with the underwater paper and a small pencil attached. These armbands are extremely convenient since they stay out of the way but close at hand for recording data and you are less likely to lose it! Writing underwater with huge mitts on is very challenging. Although the most challenging part sometimes can be reading it when your are back on the surface!

Recreational and Scientific diving are VERY different. Usually you have your hands full of stuff, catch bags with the various tools, armbands, quadrats (see next photo) and anything else you might need to collect your samples/data. So getting used to controlling your buoyancy while handling all these tools requires practice and this is why we had a practice day and we will have at least one more before the official sampling begins!

The quadrat is a marine ecologists' most used tools. It is a 3 sided square of a specific size that you use to delineate and standardize your sampling area. It is always helpful to have it in bright colours not typically found underwater so that you can easily see it. This one is in white and red electrical tape to contrast with the eelgrass and the bottom. The white areas also delineate a smaller area that can be used to collect subsamples if needed. It is a very simple but essential piece of sampling equipment. The two divers above were counting and measuring the eelgrass plants in the white subset. We are planning a lot of field work this summer. I will be sure to take a lot of pictures of us working and the various tools we use to do our work!!

We also got to test our newly repaired research vessel! It worked beautifully and is ready for another season of research. This vessel has a long history with me and I am preparing a post about it.

I hope you are having a wonderful weekend!

Spring Garden!

My new composter and expanded veggie garden got me all excited for the gardening season! Feeling that it was too early for planting, I was always told to wait until after the threat of the last frost has passed (end of May in Nova Scotia), I headed to the bookstore to pick up a book on backyard composting.

We had a composter in our backyard that previous tenants left behind years ago but we were really never successful at it so what better way to learn then to read about it before getting your hands dirty. One thing I have a really hard time with is resisting books. I LOVE books and I do eventually read them all! Sitting on the shelf beside the composting book was this book...

I sat in the bookstore looking at my books thinking about all of the issues we currently have with food. My thoughts turned back to the Omnivore's Dilemma and In Defense of Food, both books my Michael Pollan and both AMAZING. Mainly I was thinking about where it comes from and how it is grown and the environmental impacts of it all. Even though I try to buy everything local and organic, it can be difficult in the dead of winter to get local greens...so I bought Niki's book (she is from Nova Scotia!) and vowed to give some of her ideas a try. So I quickly read the relevant sections on designing a garden, crop rotation and most importantly the section about plants themselves. To my surprise, she recommended planting some crops before the last frost! There are so many cold hardy plants, like broccoli, kholrabi, lettuce, spinach, kale, leeks, carrots and the list goes on that I made a garden plan and planted it on April 27th!

With a little care, like row covers, I am hoping to successfully grow all of these veggies! The strawberries and chives have been there for a couple of years but everything else is new, much of them new to me as a gardener! The poppies come from seeds from my grandmother's garden that my mom has kept growing since her passing in the 90's. They will give the garden some wonderful colour and bring me back to my youth at the cottage by the lake at the same time. I am planning to start a fall crop indoors in July (need to get a grow light set up...) and build a mini hoop tunnel to protect them into the winter. So far I have planted 4 rows of salad greens and this weekend will be planting the rest with some broadcast seeds in between many of the seedlings that are popping up! I also have a plant for a small A-frame to get some pole beans climbing and plant some more greens underneath to keep them going through the heat of the summer. Who knows if it will all work out but I will keep you posted. Here are some promising first signs...

 

What I did for the Earth on Earth Day

I know Earth Day was just over a week ago...but it did take me a couple of weekends to finish up the project. It all started on April 20th, when the Halifax Regional Municipality was selling HUGE, AWESOME compost bins for $25 to try to encourage more backyard composting. I was so in! So I stood in line for an hour and 40 mins in the freezing cold wind and fog with my hands stuffed in my pockets and my hood drawn around my face. I so wished I had another sweater on. Did I mention I was alone? I am sure if Diego had come with me we would have bailed after 15 mins and we would have never got this awesome composter!

The weather on the 21st took a turn for the better so I cleaned up the yard and installed the composter in the sunniest spot in our backyard, without taking precious recreational space. It is easy to access and I am so looking forward to the results!

 We also finally installed the rain barrel we had sitting in the backyard since last year. It will feed the side garden (see the hose?) that is always so dry and it looks nice at the front of the house. Here's hoping that it doesn't get pushed over by the drunk students that roam our streets. Speaking of side garden....you might not have noticed but we extended it another 3 ft giving us a total of 25 ft x 2 ft of full sun garden!

Here you can see the addition and the weeping hose (or whatever it is actually called) I put in to the whole garden and attached to the rain barrel. I put it in to encourage deeper roots and make my watering job easier with a lower impact on our drinking water resources. We have a backyard rain barrel in the works too... However, now that we have the rain barrel connected to the downspout... we just need it to rain!

What did you do for Earth Day?

Spring Equinox

The old saying in like a lion out like a lamb doesn't seem to apply to March this year. At least not in Nova Scotia! Today is the Spring Equinox and we just got 10 cm of heavy wet white stuff mixed with ice pellets and lots of wind. Sounds more like out like a lion to me...

We even got a 1/2 snow day! It is very rare for the University to close, so when it does you know it is bad...

I remember snow days as a kid in Ontario. Unlike here in Nova Scotia where they cancel school at the thought of snow, the only thing cancelled at my school were the buses. This meant that the teachers who could come in would and were paid to essentially babysit the kids that could make it to school. This meant that parents could drop their kids off if they chose but also all the kids that could walk, did. I cannot imagine all of the days off parents have to take in NS just because of school cancellations. Anyhow, snow days consisted of playing outside, board games, card games, music, fun science experiments, indoor gym, reading in the library and even music. Not all the teachers had to be there. Grade levels were combined and activities organized for everyone to have fun. They were the best days because they consisted of having fun with your friends at school ALL DAY and not just at recess. My snow day today consisted of shoveling snow and now posting here! Fun but perhaps not as exciting as building a snow fort and having a snowball fight with the English school across the ditch.

Despite the ugliness outside, there is some true beauty happening inside our house. I bought this orchid the other day because of its stunning colour! Sadly, it is not natural BUT it will have nice white flowers next time it blooms.

 In the mean time I will enjoy their turquoise and dark blue hues. Another of my orchids is putting out flower stalks for the third time in 12 months! I am looking forward to the 20+ blooms it will produce in the next couple of weeks. I also discovered another nice surprise the other day...

One of my cacti was budding! This beautiful orange flower opened yesterday and there is at least one more on the way!

I noticed that the heather on campus is blooming as were the crocuses. I am dreaming of gardening season!
In the mean time, I hope you are all warm and safe and enjoying the spring equinox, inside or outside!

What smells like a hyacinth but isn't?

 Obviously, Dracaena fragrans, or commonly known as the corn stalk plant. Actually, it isn't that obvious since I had no idea until last year when my plant flowered and was hit with this amazing scent that is reminiscent of hyacinth and stargazer lily.

It produces on long stalk of whitish flowers with many clusters in early February. The flowers are closed during the day and release no scent whatsoever. However, once the sun starts to sink on the horizon the flowers open up and release their strong scent that fills our whole apartment!

 The flowers take about a week to open up and each flower only lasts a couple of days. Since it opens up and releases its scent at night and it native to Africa, it makes me wonder what pollinator it is trying to attract... bats, moths, beetles, some small mammal? Whatever the pollinator is, this plant adds a wonderful atmosphere that evokes images of being in the mountain forests of Africa which in the middle of winter when it looks like this outside is always welcome.

The corn stalk plant is VERY easy to care for. I had the plant for about 2 years before it started to bloom and so far it has bloomed 2 years in a row. It needs moderate to bright but indirect light and moist soil. I had it for the longest time in an East facing window that only gets bright light in the winter because of the giant Norway Maple in our front yard that blocks almost all the light through the summer. It was obviously getting enough light since it was growing and flowering. I just moved it closer to a south facing window because of some furniture re-arranging so we will see how it does there. It can grow up to 6 ft tall and can live up to 10 years or more! It can also be propagated from stem cuttings, so once it reaches the desired height you can cut the top of the cane and root it like a stem cutting! I will soon be cutting mine and potting it with its parent since you can grow 2-3 per pot and cut them at different heights to get a layered effect.

Finally Some Progress!!!

Friday was a GREAT day... After a long summer of hard work I finally finished Chapter 2 of my thesis!!! I also had my first chapter come out in print (you can view the abstract here) AND I finished the first week of teaching without a hitch! Diego is also progressing nicely! He has one chapter left to do revisions and his thesis will be off to his committee members...his defense...definitely before Christmas!

First and foremost I want to say Thanks to all of my friends nearby and in cyber space for your patience. It is hard but necessary to completely immerse myself in my work and I will need to keep at it for the next two chapters! I will keep you updated with my progress as I achieve "small" victories!

Of course it hasn't been all work. I do have to have some diversions to keep me from going absolutely crazy! Like my garden (the photos are from earlier this year)!

Kale
Our upside down tomatoes...they had white flies but still produced lots of cherry tomatoes.
Our herb garden was out of control! We also had lots of tomato plants everywhere! I made sauce with them for the winter.
We had lots of peas and the brussel sprouts are starting to form!
Our potato plants flowered...did you know the smell amazing!?! AND they made about 2 kg of potatoes! I planted red ones and they are delicious!
We also made a lot of delicious food...like this amazing Hawaiian Pizza! I made 3 batches of strawberry jam (Diego LOVES it on yogurt), 2 batches of strawberry-rhubarb and one batch of plum jam. They are all very tasty!
We had a couple of small side projects too (that are still in progress...). We were inspired to make our kitchen space more efficient so we magnetized our wooden cooking utensils! Now we have more counter space (no utensil holder) and they are right where we need them.
We also magnetized our existing spice jars to go on the side of the fridge and freed up some space on the shelf above the stove...it was a nightmare of crowded jars and spices were hard to find...not anymore!
Can you see the hanging wooden spoons? We drilled holes in our salsa spoons so we could hang them within reach...now they are no longer crowding up our drawer! Can you tell we have been spending too much time cooped up at home??!
The last item of note is my new found passion for vintage hairstyles! Diego bought me the above book for my birthday (end of Aug) and I have been doing vintage styles ever since!
I did this one on my b-day dinner out. I had victory rolls at the front, late 40's style. Many of them are time consuming and require patience BUT once you get the technique right then you can start making it more efficient.
This one is my favorite. It is a 30's style and the front has a finger wave. It is also one of the easiest to do! I usually do half at night (like foam curlers) and then sleep on it so it only takes 15 mins in the morning. Although, you do have to sleep in a kerchief! Diego loves the styles and laughs every time he sees me in a kerchief. I have yet to venture and try the beehive! I will let you know when I do!

Back to work! Ciao for now!

Spring has arrived!

Happy Spring!

I saw these crocuses displaying their colours 2 weeks ago even before many other plants had even started pushing the soil up!
Diego and I went for a long walk yesterday and although it was a bit nippy in the wind we found the signs of spring all around us.
We made it to the waterfront spring has been underway for a couple of weeks now. As soon as there is enough light (usually early March) the microscopic plants (phytoplankton) that drive the highly productive ocean system here off of Nova Scotia came to life and started multiplying. This is why the water in the photo below is greenish. Normally (now that we have sewage treatment!) the water would be crystal clear in the winter.
Once the phytoplankton get really abundant then the very small animals and larvae of bottom dwellers and fishes called zooplankton "appear" and begin to feed on the phytoplankton and each other! If you look closely at the photo you will see little round balls with two training tails. These are called ctenophores (or sea gooseberry). They are voracious predators and always appear after a week or 2 after the spring bloom starts. Eventually, the phytoplankton get grazed down by the very abundant zooplankton, which then also attract larger predators (krill, larger fishes) then eventually the whales arrive to dine on the feast that Altantic Canada has to offer.
Now that Spring has arrived to both land and sea, it will soon be time for planting in the garden! Above are the first awakenings in our garden. I can wait to have our very first chives!

How could I resist?

Aren't these gorgeous??? I have never seen any with the red centre. I bought them on Remembrance Day and thought the red was a perfect fit. I have 3 more orchids that have flower stalks growing and I never remember which is what colour so I always get a surprise!

Still no package from CSN, even though I check every day...must have been held up at the border but it can't be long now!

Birthday Mushrooms!

It was my birthday last Sunday and in the usual fashion we had a party on Saturday...and guess who forgot to take even one photo? Both me and Diego! Regardless, it was a GREAT party with about 30 people and the weather was perfect to be outside! As usual we cooked too much Mexican food (it was DELICIOUS!) but enjoyed it all week! I also want to say THANK YOU to all that came and for the AMAZING gifts! One of the gifts from Diego was a lovely walk around the neighbourhood (I LOVE walks!) that ended at this tree behind the Oceanography Department.
As you all know that with my new job came an in depth learning of terrestrial ecosystems and a deep fascination with mushrooms. But really aren't they gorgeous?!?!
They were large, soft, rubbery and BRIGHT yellow and orange with beautiful ruffled edges. They are called sulphur shelf (Laetiporus sulphureus) and young specimens are edible (with caution) but they were too beautiful to even contemplate eating!
I took about 20 photos, then we sat quietly under the tree and enjoyed their beauty and the cool shade of the huge tree in the hot afternoon. This was a perfect moment to top off a wonderful birthday weekend.I continued to look at the mushrooms every day this week, but even on Monday, just one day after we went to see them they had already started to fade. You can even see the top one in the photo below starting to loose its brightness.Now they are a mess of whitish yellow at the base of the tree. It's like they kept their splendor just for my birthday. I hope they remember for next year! :)

BIG News!

Diego and I bought our House (ie: the one we are currently renting the second floor flat!). We are now the proud owners of a Duplex! Closing day was on June 30th and we had an adequate celebration of bubbly and sushi. Yesterday was Canada Day (Happy 143 Canada!) and we had a small BBQ with friends, with a toast to the new house and some lovely fireworks to top it off. Now the new garden and plants I have put in are not in vain!
New veggie patch in the backyard. I planted eggplant, carrots, parsnips, fennel, snow peas, dill and green onions.
Close up of zucchini and green onions.
Our side of the house garden with a jungle of cherry tomato plants coming back from last year's leftovers! I used the plants as ground cover over the winter and low and behold, they seeded themselves! :)
The radishes also seeded themselves, but bolted early on since we had some hot weather in early June. I will collect the seed heads this time and keep them for a cooler location next year.
There were a few leftover onions that have gotten huge and will be very tasty! I also planted some cilantro which is coming along nicely and some nasturtiums for a colourful and peppery salad treat!
Yesterday was a great day for some sun tea! Citrus mint sweetened with Honey. Refreshing! I will leave you with a couple of photos of our beautiful petunias!
Have a great weekend!