Picnic Day!

At first I was a little suspicious of picnic day- what exactly is it? Is there an actual picnic? Having experienced picnic day I am still unsure of the answers to these questions but it was still fun! As far as I can tell, its like an all campus open house/celebration. There is a parade and all (most?) of the departments have exhibits open with fun things to do/see. For example, I volunteered at the biotech exhibit and we had stations for cheese making, DNA extraction from strawberries and indigo/jeans enzyme. The plant science department gave out free plants and fruit samples which was probably my favorite part. There is also the 'Doxie derby' which is dachshund racing. They have a little gate and everything. Its pretty hilarious- some of the dogs understand what they are supposed to do but others just come out of the box and wander around :) It was pouring rain for most of the day but there were still tons of people out. This tells me one of two things: picnic day is a really big deal (worth being soaking wet) or that people in Davis are part duck. I'm leaning towards the former.

This picture is from the parade (taken by Rob Williams of the BAE dept). The guy inside the carriage is Bryan Jenkins - faculty in the department as well as head of the California Biomass Collaborative. He was a parade marshal (whatever that is?). Note the pouring rain..

So I got some free tomato and pepper plants! This is good since most of the ones I planted have been ransacked by slugs. I hate slugs. They are icky and they eat my plants. Anyway, I put out eggshells around my newly planted plants and so far no slug damage...