Every summer at early-mid August, we enter a portion of the solar system rife with meteors, and ever year around this time, many of those chunks of rock and debris hit our atmosphere and burn up, giving us the Perseoid meteor shower. This year, the shower did not occur during a full moon, and so the skies were dark and the stars were bright.
Some of the photo club folks wanted to have a camping trip this weekend, and that devolved into a fire and star photography night at our place. The meteor shower was pretty good Saturday night. There have been lots of big meteors that leave trails that hang around for seconds after the main chunk had burned up. And they came quite often. If you stared at any one part of the sky, you were bound to see one within 20 minutes.
The star photography was so-so, at least for me. Its the same view from my back yard every time, so I’d like a change of foreground. I’m also stuck with the same problems every time: I need a wide lens that can open up wider than f/2.8, and I need a camera with useable image quality at high ISO’s (faster than iso 1600). So until I have that combination, I’m not likely to get any clearer images of the sky than I have previously.
I did experiment with long exposure star trails. I left the shutter open for over an hour which pretty much killed a fresh battery. The problem with long exposures and digital cameras is that the sensor heats up leading to extra noise in the image. This is where film photography has the advantage. Plus, older film cameras don’t even consume battery while the shutter is open, so you can expose an image all night if desired.
I think one hour is my limit with my current set up. The better option is to stack a series of shorter images which has the added advantage of cancelling out the random noise. However, and intervelometer is necessary to pull off a series of 30-second or 1-minute back-to-back exposures. So, I will continue to work within my limitations while admiring the images from those with more capability. In the mean time, here is my 67 minute exposure. Each star trail should be about 1/24th of a full circle, or an arc angle of about .
I’ve come into a real conundrum lately. I’m running out of space on my hard drive. Earlier in the year when I thought my hard drive was dying, I bought an external drive which I use to move old files for storage and back up my current system. The problem is that using the external hard drive as a working drive is not an ideal solution when my primary (read: only) computer at the moment is a portable notebook. Thus, I don’t want to be using the external hard drive to store all of my music and photography, the two leading classifications of files taking up the majority of my hard drive space.
There was a large chunk of time when my desktop was my only computer, so carrying all my music on a laptop wasn’t an option. Luckily, I had a functioning ipod at the time so I could have most of my music to listen to wherever I went. At 8 years of age, my ipod has finally bit the dust and I just haven’t been motivated to buy a new one since neither of our cars would support it without purchasing an FM transmitter. At work, if I want to listen to music, I simply plug my headphones into the laptop and on those rare occasions that I want to listen to something while being completely mobile, I’ll put it on my phone. Keeping my music collection on an external hard drive means I can only listen to my music at work or at home. I do not wish to transport my external drive back and forth. Thus my music, which only ammounts to about 40 GB, will stay on the local hard drive.
Photos are another matter. Last I’ve checked, my iphoto library is over 60 GB large, and my lightroom library ammasses another 60 GB, give or take. I shoot RAW which preserves as much detail from the camera capture as possible without losing any of it during the editing process. When the post processing edits are finished, I export as a high quality Jpeg which can be used universally in a number of programs. Think of the RAW files as digital negatives and the Jpegs as prints. I organize my JPEG collection in iPhoto because of its integration with the operating system, and the RAW photos with lightroom because lightroom is also a powerful RAW editor and converter.
Every year, I export my raw library to the external hard drive, freeing up space on my local drive for the next year’s batch of photos. Meanwhile, I keep the full collection of JPEGs on the local drive, backed up on the external, so that I can view them and use them at will. I also want to keep the most current set of RAW files on the local drive so that I’m not constrained to where and when I can work on them. As it is, I’m constrained to accessing older RAW files to when I’m at work, and sometimes that is a pain.
So, as I’ve said before, I’m running out of hard drive space. I have less than 20 GB free and that is causing performance issues with the machine as well. When I upgraded the RAM from 2GB to 8GB, it was like breathing new life into the computer. It ran smooth and fast. But as my free hard drive space diminished, so did that extra speed. You see, the operating system uses some of that hard drive space as extra “virtual” RAM, and as free hard drive space decreases, so does the ability to cache temporary information. As a result, I’ve filled up my alloted RAM space on a few large projects essentially grinding my computer to a halt.
The solution would be to buy a new hard drive with more space. Unfortunately, I’m also running out of money. So that 1TB drive that now only costs $100 is $100 out of my price range. I may have to bite the bullet and do it anyway becaue I’m beginning to run out of options.
For the past month, we’ve been able to enjoy some of the produce coming out of the garden. The lettuce has been producing beautiful and tasty leaves. There’s nothing like a freshly-picked salad. One of the lettuces has flowered and will soon go to seed. I think we will let it mature in an attempt to collect seeds to plant for next year. However, the rest of the heads continue to produce leaves to pick. Back when the chickens ate my lettuce to the ground, I planted more seeds in case the plants didn’t come back. Well, they did come back, but the seeds sprouted too, so I have transplanted some of the new lettuce and it is also doing well. We should have fresh salad into the fall. I’ve already harvested my first batch of cilantro since it was a bout to go to seed.
Lettuce and other greens
The tomatoes and peppers aren’t quite ready. One of the drawbacks to living so far north is that the growing season is late and short. Thus when many of my friends in the mid-Atlantic states were harvesting their first tomatoes, I was just putting mine in the ground. But, I’m happy to report that my tomato plants have exploded in size and that little green tomatoes should be ripe for harvest in a few more weeks. I have a banana pepper that might be ready to come off the plant soon, but the rest will be a while. Some of the plants still have flowers on them.
The tomatoes are getting big.Peppers
I grew a lot of basil this year, but I haven’t made much with it. I must find some good dishes that feature basil. Maybe a pizza night?
Basil
The strawberries are looking great. We even have a few ripe berries, but I’m not expecting much this year. Next year, we shall reap a bountiful strawberry harvest.
Half of the strawberry patchZucchini flower
The zucchini plants are doing great. They don’t creep out the way pumpkins do, so next year I can plant more of them closer together. We already have one that is ready to eat and a few more following behind. There are still flowers on the plants too, so hopefully we’ll get a nice bounty.
Our first zucchini.
The pie pumpkins are looking happy. We’re looking forward to canning and baking with our own pumpkin this year.
Pie Pumpkins
Overall, I’m very pleased with the progress of the garden. I’m already looking forward to expanding our capcity and planting a larger variety of food items next year. I have one more 4 x 8′ box in the garage ready to be transplanted to the garden and filled with dirt. I may make one more 4 x 8′ and one more 2 x 8′ box to expand the strawberry patch, depending on how much wood I have left. Next year, we’re hoping to plant chard, kale, beans, asparagus, maybe some onions and potatoes, and build an extensive herb garden that both provides food and aesthetics. We’d also like to add raspberry and blueberries along the fence row and start a small fruit orchard. The two apple trees in the yard are looking pretty sad, but they are producing a few apples. I’d like some pears, plums, and cherries. The fruit trees will also add value to the property even if they don’t start producing in bulk before we move.
I don’t usually like to gloat about my accomplishments, but sometimes a little self promotion doesn’t hurt. I’ll start with the announcement of my first publication, which officially rolled off the presses last month. Last year, our lab was contacted to write a book chapter in a methods and protocol book on assessing anxiety behaviors in Zebrafish. So Barrie, Maia, Mary, and I set out to publish our behaviortyping protocol for assessing observer preference, depth preference, and feeding latency for high-throughput experiments.
So, I officially have my name on a publication. But it gets better. If you follow the link, there is an image of the front cover of the book. That’s my photograph of the Zebrafish mirror biting test. How cool is that?
A few months ago, I was contacted by the editor of American Forests to use one of my images from the Hobo Cedar Grove in their summer issue of the magazine, American Forests. So after having a look at the organization and deciding that I support their goals and mission, I gave them permission to publish my image. I received my copy of the magazine to day to find my image was used as a two-page spread feature for one of the articles. The online issue features the photo, but the print version looks nicer.
Well, I made my last post a bit too soon. After spending the evening on Freezeout Ridge (story and photos to come soon), Erin reminded us that the aurora might still be occuring and that we could possibly see it tonight. Clarkia isn’t the best place to test this hypothesis because its surrounded by tall mountains in all directions, so as we passed through Bovill, I noticed a glow on the northern horizon. At this point, it was only 10:00, still early enough that the glow could be residual light from the sun. I pulled the car over and set up the camera for a test shot. Sure enough, there was a green and pink glow in the sky, but there was also some light left over from the sunset. So, we continued on.
When we got home, the sky had darkened and the glow to the north was brighter than ever, with some streaks rising high into the sky. So we unloaded the car from the day’s excursion and I set up the camera in the field and produced the image above. Then I thought about trying to capture star trails, so I dialed the ISO down to 100 and left the shutter open for 10 minutes, being too impatient to wait any longer.
Of course, no Aurora night would be complete without a storm blowing in to cut viewing time short.
We got alerts that a solar flare could cause an aurora that would be visible into the middle states. So, last night, I checked the sky and luckily it was clear to the north. I saw a faint glow on the horizon and set up the camera. Sure enough, there was an aurora. The excitement didn’t last too long. I wanted to view this one from Steptoe Butte, one of the best places around for viewing auroral activity. So, we got in the car and started driving west. Unfortunately, the sky was overcast over much of the Palouse, and by the time we got home, the clouds had moved in overhead. Figures that most of the time we get big auroral activity that can be seen in Idaho, we also get storms the same night.
A garden update from the last post: I’m happy to announce that the lettuce that the chickens ate down to the soil is growing back quite nicely and will be ready for consumption within a few days.
And now on to the main post:
Elk River hosts an annual Independence Day celebration they call “Fireworks in the Mountains,” but they don’t necessarily hold it on the 4th of July, but on the weekend before or after if the 4th happens to be mid-week. The event attracts a lot of people and the general store stays open late to sell its famous huckleberry ice cream. Of course, the local bar wasn’t doing to bad on business either.
The actual fireworks show was small, but the allure is that the loud bang can be heard reverberating off of the mountains all the way down the upper basin and back. However, the hoards of people visiting and camping had brought their own fireworks, and many bought some pretty big and expensive pieces, the kind that are illegal in most states. These added supplemental entertainment while waiting for the real show to begin.
I can’t believe it’s July already. Time is flying by this summer. June has been a mixture of hot and dry with cold and rainy, and that has been good for my garden. Last year, I built two raised beds, each 8′ x 4′, but I only got one bed filled with dirt. It yielded some nice tomato plants that I had started from seed, until the goat got in and ate them down. This year, I got the second bed filled with dirt and built two more 8′ x 2′ beds which I filled with strawberry plants. The two larger boxes contain tomatoes, peppers, lettuce, cilantro, and basil and some marigolds to help keep bugs away. The photo above was from early last week, and everything is doing well. The lettuce had been looking good, so this weekend, we actually picked a few leaves and had a very delicious home-grown salad. And then, for some reason, that got the chickens interested as well. The next day, we found the chickens eating lettuce out of the long boxes also full of lettuce on the porch. That’s when I ran outside to discover they had gotten to the garden supply first. All that gorgeous lettuce was gone in an instant.
I’m not sure what set them off. They had been in and around the garden area the entire season and not touched a plant. I wonder if by picking off leaves, the lettuce plants emitted a chemical that the chickens picked up on and finally noticed that the lettuce was there. I’ve since taken precautions to exclude the chickens from the fenced-in garden. We got some chicken wire and attached it to the gate, but had discovered that the chickens were still getting in. It turns out that the one side of the fence didn’t actually reach the ground, and the birds were able to walk right under it. So, I blocked that off and so far the chickens haven’t been back to bother the crops. I’m hoping that enough plant material is left for new leaves to start growing, but just in case, I planted some more seeds, though they won’t be ready for consumption for another two months. But by that time, the tomatoes and peppers should be ready and we can have a fully home-grown salad.
On the flower front, one of my natives that I bought and planted last summer had survived, and so the blanketflower is now in bloom. I also noticed a couple of sunflower plants growing. I hadn’t planted any this year, so they must have come from the bird feeder. One was starting to get pretty big when Mower (the goat) decided it was a lovely snack. Mow also loves to eat roses, and I noticed a few blooms on our rose bush had gone missing, so the goat is now grounded from the free snack buffet until the flower season comes to an end. She’s already eaten most of the flower buds from the day lilies, but a few remain in the back of the house.
Now that we had the mud/horse manure compost scraped into a big pile, it’s much easier to load into the cart. I’ll work on adding more raised beds to the vegetable garden, but we can also add some nice compost to the flower gardens this fall to help control weeds and feed the plants. We’re also going to rip out the creeping cedar bush that seems to be taking over and plant the area with flowers to attract hummingbirds and butterflies. I’d like to do mostly native wildflowers, but I’ll settle for a few cultivated varieties.
For the past seven years, I have been living with slow, unreliable internet. In 2004-2005, the Weis Ecology Center was on dial-up service. Camp McDowell in Alabama was also on dial-up service, shared on a wireless network. If you can remember far enough back when dial-up was the forefront of home internet technology, you might also remember how long it took for webpages to load and how it would randomly lose connection, and then the busy signals trying to reconnect. In 2006, those problems had not improved. Ferry Beach had a more reliable connection, though it was still slow. I’m not sure if, at the time, they were on cable, DSL, or satellite. But when I settled at the Sheridan School Mountain Campus in Virginia, the facility’s only option was dial-up or satellite, and satellite is just a little bit faster and more reliable than a dial-up connection. In my last year at the Mountain Campus, DSL became available, and we finally had a decent connection to the outside world.
Meanwhile, Erin was living in Hagerstown with cable. My parents had cable internet at home, too, so in between my working stints away from civilization, I had my technology fix. The funny thing about cable is that you rarely get the speeds you’re paying for. Today, this is probably not a problem. The lowest priced plans are probably around 3 Mbps which is more than plenty fast for just about anything you’d want to do online. But when Erin moved to the farm, we took a bandidth cut for a satellite connection that was very cranky and often unreliable.
Then we moved out here. The town of Deary actually has cable and DSL capabilities, but we live just 2 miles out of town, and that’s far enough that we can’t have either. Our only option at the time was satellite. I suppose I was just grateful I could have internet at the house, but it became increasingly frustrating. We paid for 512 kbps service, but saw actual speeds around 300 kbps or slower. Periodically, the service would just lose connection, sometimes for hours at a time. The other downside of satellite is the bandwidth usage caps. I could probably live with the slow speed, but we can’t even do things like stream movies because we’d use our monthly alloted download usage pretty quickly.
There was another potential option that we looked into, and that was wireless. First Step has wireless antennas throughout the palouse and surrounding region providing high speed internet to very rural places. There was a tower in Deary. The caveat is that you must have a direct line-of-sight to a tower to recieve a signal, and at the time of moving in, we did not. In the past year, First Step put a new tower in Deary on top of Spud hill, and we do have sight of the summit. So I requested a site survey, we recieved approval, and I signed us up for service. It was installed yesterday.
Suddenly, its like we’ve caught up with the present. Sort of.
The good news, we’re paying less for 1.5 mbps service than we did for our crappy satellite signal. We’re also seeing realized speeds in the vicinity of tthat which we are paying for, something that doesn’t always happen with cable or DSL, and certainly not with the satellite. Oh, and there are no usage caps. We can now stream movies, use skype, download large programs and OS updates. So, I may sign up for Hulu Plus and Netflix Streaming, since we don’t have TV service, and keep up with the shows I’ve been missing.
The novelty will wear off soon, but its nice to know we can have fast, reliable internet out here in what seems like the middle of nowhere.
Since last week, we had been down to three puppies. Three is much more manageable than seven, but still a crowd. In fact, having two out at a time was still a handful. Tuesday, I made up posters advertising the rest of the pups, and in less than 24 hours, we had two more sold. This left us with one Pink Girl to care for.
Having one puppy isn’t so bad. They’re a lot more mellow by themselves, they don’t eat as much, and most importantly, there’s not as much pee and poop to clean up. Of the three that were left were all the lighter dogs. It seems that the darker color is more popular. But the lighter dogs had the better personalities. Green Girl and Brown Boy were so mellow and laid back. And Pink Girl just wanted love and snuggles. If we were to have kept one, Erin would have kept Brown Boy. I think I would have chosen Pink Girl.
Pink Girl was very much like Greta in some ways. Her number one goal was to snuggle up to you an give and get love. It turns out, she really likes to nap in someone’s arms. She really liked Greta and looked up to her so much, but Greta would grumble and put up with it. I think she was just jealous that the puppy was getting attention instead of her.
A day went by and there were no more calls. I thought that maybe we would actually keep Pink Girl because nobody seemed to want her. Then we got three inquiries on Friday. Erin really wanted to keep a puppy, and I’ll admit that I was attached to the idea myself, but the reality is that we can barely afford the animals we have, and until our financial situation improves, we really should not be adding to our collection. So, we loaded the puppy into the car and brought her into Moscow with us where she met her new family. And with that, we are now puppyless.
We still have Lana, the mother. While she’s calmed down a little, she can’t stay with us forever, and she’s going to have to go sooner than later. Erin has been looking into rescue centers because she’s not likely to find a home going to one of the humane society shelters, even though the local shelters are no-kill.
So in a few days, we should hopefuly be back to our normal life with only two dogs…
… and four cats, four horses, three birds, a goat, a hedgehog, a fock of chickens, and a tank full of fish. Did I miss any?
Somehow, I managed to go to two conferences in one semester. Tomorrow, I’ll be heading to Port Townsend, WA along with several other members of the department for the bi-annual Evo-WIBO conference. This is a small, regional conference for evolutionary biologists in the Pacific Northwest. There are only going to be around 200 or so people attending (compared to the 2-3000 at SICB), and there is only one talk session at a time. So lucky me, I got chosen to give an oral presentation.
Did I mention it’s a small conference? It begins Saturday morning and ends Sunday at noon. All that for a 7-8 hour one-way drive. It’s too bad that I have to be back in Moscow on Monday because I’d love to stick around and explore the Olympic Penninsula a bit.
The puppies are now over 8 weeks old and oh so cute. As you can imagine, seven growing pups indoors can create quite a mess that is hard to keep on top of. On top of that, any time you step into their room, they all mob you for attention. So, as spring weather has descended upon the Palouse, we found scrap lumber and fencing and built an outdoor playpen for the dogs. So far it is doing the job. It’s also giving the pups some much needed fresh air and sunshine, which in turn tires them out so all they want to do is sleep when they come in at night.
The dogs have quite a range of personalities. Some of them are going to be very active, great for life on a farm or as an outdoor companion. Two of them are quite mellow and would rather cuddle up with you. They’re all very friendly and very loving.
So, the puppies are now ready for their own families. Did I mention that they are pure-bred German shepherds? If you’re in the Northwest area and would like a dog, or know someone who would like a dog, please contact me. I’d like to find them homes sooner than later.
This semester, one of my classes has required me to turn in all of my assignments in LaTeX. LaTeX (la-tek) is built on TeX, a typesetting language meant to produce beautiful documents reminiscent of the days when papers were printed from engraved plates. Typesetting was an art that got lost in the digital age.
When I first got the news that assignments were to be handed in using LaTeX, I admit I was a bit worried. The assignments were already going to be difficult enough since it is a bioinformatics class working with data types I have not been used to dealing with. On top of that, I’d have to learn a new system for typing up my homework. It has been a pain in the butt, but it has also been fun and pretty useful. One of the big advantages of LaTeX is its typesetting of mathematical formulas. It is easy and elegant, once you get used to the syntax. Anyone who has used the Microsoft equation editor that comes with Office knows it is a pain to work with. The point and click interface is slow and clumbsy. The LaTex looks ugly, but it also makes sense. The formula above reads as follows in LaTex:
The second advantage of LaTeX is that it can be completely integrated with R, the programming language that I use to analyze data. Natively, R outputs to plain text. But LaTeX integration with Sweave lets me run R code along with the TeX document and output data tables and graphics in a printable format, integrated with text. Plus, if I need to alter the R code, I can do so right in the Sweave document.
Lately, I discovered a LaTeX plugin for wordpress that allows me to make mathematical formulas in LaTeX’s math mode. There’s currently no math typesetting for html, yet the internet is a great resource for learning about math topics. Unfortunately, the LaTex doesn’t integrate as selectable text, but instead is output as an image, but it’s a good start for now. Perhaps I can make some future posts that involve some mathematical modeling of biological topics.
Since I have been using LaTeX for bioinformatics class, I have been using it to turn in assignments for other classes. It has been a useful medium for typing up Quantitative Genetics problem sets, and the presentation that I’ll be giving at Evo-Wibo in two weeks will be made using LaTeX. At some point, I’ll have to install Lilypond, a typesetting language for producing music notation.
I’m a nerd, and proud of it.
By the way, extra props if you understand the equation at the top of the page.
Beth, one of the photo club members and employee at the Prichard Art Gallery downtown, mentioned at our last meeting that a student was in town with the current exhibit at the gallery. He didn’t know anyone and was desperate to hang out with people his own age. So we got a group together last night and hung out around the town.
I thought the visiting student was an art student, but it turns out he’s actually studying conservation biology and had spent some time working environmental education. And, he’s from Maine. Well wouldn’t you know it? He spent some time at the Ferry Beach Ecology School. He knows a lot of the people I worked with, either by working with them himself, or interacting with them during one of the FBES alumni reunions that I have been unable to attend. He’s also in grad school with another Ferry Beach alum that I worked with.
In addition to teaching environmental ed, Will is also an avid birder and hiker. He’s an awesome guy and I now wish I had the opportunity to work with him in Maine. So far, he seems to be enjoying his time in Moscow, so maybe we’ll get him to return for a more recreational visit.
Out of nowhere, our dog population has increased four fold. Here’s the back story.
Several weeks ago, I came home to find two extra dogs at the house. They were two German Shepherds, a male and a female, that Erin had decided to watch for a friend while she got on her feet and found a place to live with her dogs. Four big dogs in our tiny house is a bit much, and it didn’t help that the two we were watching were very active. Lana, the female, is a very nervous dog, especially around men, and she would just pace around. Ace, the male, was a one-year old and in tact, so his energy was more youthful, but nonetheless, he also began to pick on our other animals. The two would routinely stalk the cats. But the last straw was when they, along with Greta, attacked and killed one of our chickens. We had to return the dogs for fear that one of the cats would be the next victim.
Lana was also pregnant before we got the dogs. The original owner was unable to keep both dogs and Ace was her baby. She had acquired Lana from someone else. She was going to breed the dogs and sell the puppies, and as it turned out, Lana was pregnant. So when we went to return the dogs, we made the deal to keep Lana indefinitely and deal with the puppies. So, Lana is now our dog for the moment.
The puppies came yesterday, starting around 7 pm. When I got home an hour and a half later, the fifth puppy had popped out. When it seemed like she was done, three more came out. We have eight puppies in total, all purebred German shepherds. The goal is to sell them all in 8-10 weeks, and once they are gone, we will find Lana a new home.
Somehow, I had arranged the semester to be fairly light allowing me to work on my research. I was only signed up for one class, the work of which parallelled the work I have to do for my degree, namely write up a dissertation project proposal. On top of that, I was slated to teach one lab section, so overall my class and teaching load would be light. Funny how things actually work out. I am taking 3 classes, though one not for credit, and teaching two sections of lab. 314 lab isn’t really that bad, it’s all computer-based, but the extra time committment and grading will be a minor annoyance. The bioinformatics class will be fast-paced and full of work, but I should come out of it with the basic tools to analyze gene expression and sequencing data that will surely be a part of my dissertation. And Quantitative Genetics is just something that I need a firm background in since we are primarily a quantitative genetics lab. So all of that, topped with a research proposal and a manuscript of the selection data I presneted last week, and I’ve got a busy semester ahead of me.
Holy crap it’s Thanksgiving already! Well I’ve been thinking about what to make this post about. There are several great options: The real story of thanksgiving and how it became what we perceive it to be today, the start of the commercial materialism season, the nature of human behavior, and so on. But I think rather than the normal cynical post about our need to celebrate lies and propaganda, I’ll just fill you in with a brief update of what I’ve been up to.
For starters, it’s been a busy semester. The past month, I’ve been breeding the 3rd generation of selection fish with mixed success. Several families have produced over 200 eggs repeatedly, and even with the high mortality rates, we’re getting a good number of survivors. Some of the families have more trouble breeding than others, but at this point, I think we’ll have enough adults to test four families from each line.
I’ve been sitting on my data from the second generation since the summer ended, busy with teaching and class work. I don’t really have any options to wait anymore. In January, I’ll be presenting the results at the Society for Integrative and Comparative Biology (or SICB) meeting in Charleston, SC.
Last week, I got to meet photographer and photojournalist Steve McCurry. His work for National Geographic is legendary and has been featured on the front covers for the past 30 years. It was neat to meet him in person, hear him speak, and see some of his work on display at WSU.
Erin and I had our second annual Thanksgiving dinner on Saturday. Last year we had a small affair with way too much food. This year, we invited many more people, mostly graduate students from the department, and ended up feeding 16. We had a good time and the food was great. The left-overs are dwindling down, but the turkey soup Erin made last night is to die for.
Taking a break from the usual trips into the mountains, I went to Florida last weekend to celebrate the marriage of one of my good buddies. The wedding was in Pensacola Beach, with the actual ceremony on the beach outside of town.
I’ve been to Florida before, but not the Gulf coast, and especially not the panhandle, and so when I got there, I was quite surprised at just how built up it was. When I think of Florida, it’s usually the Tampa/Orlando area, which I try to avoid, or the south-Florida beaches, keys, and the Everglades. To me, the panhandle was just an extension of Alabama and Georgia.
Pensacola Beach is quite nice. It’s a barrier island made up of nearly pure quartz sand which is why the beaches are so white. The Gulf waters have a clear turquoise hue that becomes brilliant blue as the water gets deeper. Despite being so far north and so late in the season, there was still good beach weather, helped by the nice warm water. Daytime highs were anywhere from the mid-70’s to low 80’s with cool breezes and, surprisingly, low humidity. You could not ask for anything more perfect. Nights and mornings were chilly, but bearable.
As I mentioned before, we were down for a wedding, and were staying with a few other folks from the U of I. We all split the cost of a rental which meant we all had to travel together, so there wasn’t much sight seeing. There really isn’t a whole lot to see beyond the beach anyway. Pensacola is a Navy and Air Force town, next to one of the largest bases I’ve seen. The barrier island is also home to the Gulf Islands National Seashore, offering miles of undeveloped beach and island habitat that would have been fun to explore.
Luckily, due to to a scheduling error (I thought I had booked my flights home for Sunday), we had an extra day in Pensacola, and after dropping people off at the airport in the morning, we headed back to the island to check out Fort Pickens, a civil war era fort at the end of the island. With some more free time, this area seems like a great place to watch for birds and other wildlife. I’m thinking that if a similar situation arises again, Erin and I will arrange to have our own transportation so that we can go out on our own.
So, there you have it. I have now been to Pensacola, the Florida panhandle, and the gulf coast.
Last night, we had the storm of storms come across the Palouse. It was a quick, but powerful cell the big lightning strikes every few seconds that produced enough power to disrupt phone service (land line) each time a bolt struck the ground. Luckily, we had no major power surges and all of the electronics in the house work just fine. But the ligntning and thunder show was both awesome and a bit frightening. I stood outside with the camera as the storm approached, but quickly retreated into the house as the storm came atop of me. Winds picked up and the temperature dropped twenty degrees. Unfortunately, as with all scattered storms, the effects were short-lived. As the storm passed and the winds died down, the heat came back, but at least it wasn’t nearly as hot as it was during the day.
I tried to get some shots of the storm leaving the area, but I had waited too long to get any good lighning shots with the barn in the foreground. This represents my first successful lightning photography. The last try failed to capture the bolts, but did capture that amazing red sunset.
Escaping the Heat at over 6000 feet. This view is from Crater Peak. Below is Crater Lake and Lookout Mountain is the rocky peak in the distance.
While the east coast has contended with an earthquake and a hurricane, we have been enduring our summer heat wave, temperatures in excess of 90 degrees. It rarely gets to 95 out here, but when it does, it’s brutal. Of course, when it’s in the mid-90’s up on the Palouse, it’s over 100 down in Lewiston. Currently, our weather station reads 98 outside and 92 inside.
We don’t have air conditioning. There’s really no need for it. While it’s in the 90’s now, at night, it will cool off below 70, sometimes getting downright chilly. We wake up in the morning and the house is quite comfortable. It’s also only this unbearably hot for maybe 2 weeks out of the year. But this brings up some the question: how do we beat the heat? During the week, the answer is simple. I work in the lab. But I go home as the temperature has crested and the temperatures are still fairly brutal. The house, made of cinder block, holds that heat for a good time into the night, so as the sun sets, it can still be uncomfortable inside while very nice out. It does help keep the house from getting too cold in the middle of the night. So how do I beat the heat? Here are a few ways:
1. Seek Shade.
I know what you’re thinking… What? 98 is 98, and 98 is hot in the shade or not. But here in Idaho, we don’t have the humidity levels seen by much of the eastern half of the country, and while 98 is brutal in the beating sunshine regardless of humidity, it does make all the difference in the shade. It is also the reason why the night cools down so much. Water is very good at holding its temperature, and it takes quite a bit of energy to change it. In Virginia, where the 95 degree day would be accompanied by a balmy 70-90% humidity, the sun heats up that moisture in the air, and that moisture retains the heat well into the night. Because the air is saturated, liquid, such as sweat, doesn’t evaporate as readily and you feel miserable. In contrast, the humidity reading out here is 18%, and with less water in the air to hold that heat, temperatures plummet as the sun goes down. But this also works in the shade too. So, 98 in the shade outside, especially with a nice breeze, is a much different place than 98 in the direct sun.
But 98 is still 98, and dammit, I need to cool off.
2. Cool off in Water
Yesterday, we had our annual Bio Department float trip on the Snake River. I was a bit worried that the 100+ degree temperatures were going to pose health risks being out in the sun all day with no shade. But it turned out to be quite a pleasant ride down the river. I have no idea what the actual water temperature was in the river, but I was so hot in the sun that the initial dip was chilling. But almost immediately, I acclimated and the water felt good – not too hot, and not too cold. I also wore a shirt the whole time, which I kept damp and that helped keep me cool out of the water.
It was good to be on the water again. I haven’t done any river activities since leaving camp last summer, and I miss it, especially since the rivers here have enough flow in late summer to run and still have fun. And the scenery is different. It’s new. The canyon walls are so fun to look at. I think I’ve run the same section of the Shenandoah so many times that I’ve gotten bored with it.
I have no desire to submerge myself in the Snake River again. While it felt good, the water is pretty dirty and gross. After all, it has been flowing from the Tetons, past the cities, farms and cattle feed lots of southern Idaho. I can only imagine how dirty the water gets downstream of Lewiston where we add shipping traffic to the mix. The nearest water sources to home are the Potlatch River at Little Boulder Creek or Elk River. The Potlatch River would be a good place take the dogs to wade in the water. It’s not really deep enough to swim. Elk River has a little swimming hole below the upper falls and might be good to check out, though the water originates high up in the mountains and I hear it’s quite cold.
In Virginia, we would hit up one of the swimming holes on the creeks coming down the Blue Ridge in Shenandoah National Park. While these creeks weren’t fed by snow melt, they did take on ground water throughout their journey to the Shenandoah River, and so the temperature of the streams was probably 50-60 degrees, or quite fidgid. But on a 90+ degree humid day, a dip in the cold water felt refreshing.
3. Head up in elevation.
When summer camp came around, I generally had a 2-week session (7-8th grade, or 9-12th grade) during the hottest weeks. We couldn’t really change our trips around the weather, so we had to make due and work with what we had. Backpacking in the heat is no fun, and backpacking with a bunch of students who don’t usually do this for fun in the heat is no fun. Our philosophy was to teach the kids leadership and responsibility and let them choose and plan their own trip. But I was able to slyly craft my suggestions into their plans. I’d often convince them that a hike in the central district of Shenandoah National Park was the way to go: best views, most attractions, and, most of all, highest elevations. Nearly all of the AT in the central district is above 3500 feet, with high spots reaching 4000 feet. That’s almost 3000 feet higher than camp, and more importantly, at least 10 degrees cooler than camp. So if it was supposed to be 90 in Luray, it would be around 80 up on the trail. Pretty crafty.
Last weekend, it was a brutal 85 here at home in Deary (elevation 2800). So I loaded the dogs into the car and we took a drive up to Freezeout Saddle (elevation ~6000). The car read 71 degrees. It was wonderful. 70 in the sun out here can be quite warm, but when we retreated into the shade of the trees, I thought I might need a jacket. Boy, did it feel good. We actually drove past Freezeout Saddle because I wanted to see what was beyond and maybe even hike out to Lookout Mountain (elevation 6800). The road was quite rocky and slow, but nothing the Subaru couldn’t handle. It did take me an extra hour to go the extra 11 miles (I think it was 11), and when I got to the trailhead at 4, I figured it was too late to start an 8-mile hike. There are some nice facilities up there. At Crater Peak, there is a picnic and camping area, and another couple of sites just down the road at Crater Saddle. And at the trailhead to Lookout Mountain, there is another little campground. All of these are primitive, but they come with picnic tables and fire rings and a relatively new pit toilet. Instead of hiking, we kept driving on FS 301 taking it all the way to Avery and the St. Joe River. We came home on the paved road via St. Maries. The point is, if you can go up in elevation, do it. With today’s 95 degree temperatures, it’ll probably be 80 up at the saddle.
So here I am, trying to decide how I want to cool off. Do I go swimming, or do I head up to higher elevations? Both require me to get into the hot car and waste gas. And here’s the other caveat, by the time I get anywhere, the sun may have fallen enough to provide me with the evening refuge. Maybe today I’ll just endure the heat and wait it out for sunset. Indecision sucks.
The heat wave is supposed to break in a couple of days, and we’ll be looking at much cooler temperatures for next weekend’s backpacking trip in the Eagle Cap Wilderness.
