The Invisable Enemy

About a week ago I started getting these red itchy bites under my sports bra and other warm undesirable areas. This also coincided with the time I started clearing the back part of my garden. So I went out there looking for the culprit but the only thing I could find was lots of spiders and ants. I figured I would probably notice if I had spiders crawling all over me so it must be ants. But then I noticed that new bites would show up even without going into my garden. hm...
Derrick suggested that maybe it was chiggers and I do believe he is right. According to my internet research, they are basically invisible- explaining why I never saw anything crawling on me, inhabit overgrown grass, weeds, etc but the larvaa hop on animal hosts (ie, me), dissolve some of my cells with enzyme and have a feast until they are big enough to survive on plants. yay!
So in conclusion, I have a new least-favorite-garden-inhabitant: chiggers!!

Homesickness and update

This is another picture of Alcatraz- its so pretty to have been a maximum security prison!
Anyway, my parents have been planning their visit to come see us! I think they are very stressed about it - just trying to figure out when to what. I am very excited! Its been since Christmas since I've seen them. I have been getting especially homesick lately. Summer is the time when everyone gets together at my parents and we sit on the back porch, grill fish, drink wine .. and I miss it! Oh, and the beach. Point Reyes somewhat filled that void but its still not the same as Wrightsville.
So enough reminiscing, I have a lot of work to do this summer. I have some bactch reactor experiments to run, but before I do that I have to do a couple preliminary experiments. Should definitely take the whole summer if not longer. I am learning so much- my brain feels like it is on overload, but I am enjoying it a lot. Yesterday I sat in on a (2-hour) meeting about the Chevron proposal. It was slightly disorganized but I got to see a part of how the whole applying for $$ works; somewhat overwhelming.
Garden News: I have sooo many green tomatoes and lots of little peppers. AND baby corn! I'm so excited! In few weeks I think I will be overwhelmed with vegetables! I am planning to make a bunch of spaghetti sauce. And freeze the peppers. And make lots and lots of popcorn! :)

Vacation

We survived our vacation :) We spent the first weekend with Emily and Mark. Here we are at the Egyptian museum in San Jose- bathed as usual.Here we are at Alcatraz, our last stop, sunburned and greasy :) I think we actually look happier in this one ;)
In between we spent a night at Big Basin Redwoods SP, 2 nights at Point Reyes National Seashore and 1 night at Angel Island SP. I will put up the rest of the pictures on my google pics website. Overall it was a really fun but exhausting trip- lots of hiking and exploring!

Happy Birthday to me!

Here is a picture of my birthday present from Derrick. Its a new (for us) dining set! No more eating at the coffee table for us! We found it on the Facebook Marketplace. The girl was asking $80 but Derrick talked her down t0 $55. My husband the bargainer :) So anyway, we got a nice table for cheap and I am excited!

Wild Turkeys!

I found these roaming to the community garden last week! I also found tomatoes!! I have 2! I keep meaning to bring my camera out but thus far have not remembered. You will just have to take my word for it.
Man its so freakin hot here!! Its still not as miserable as the humidity in NC but going outside during the day is like stepping into an oven. This week its been up into the 100s several days. Yesterday we had a power outage on campus b/c of the AC usage!
I start real work on some research next week! And then the next week is vacation!! wo hoo! We are going out to the bay area for some camping and hiking! And to tour alcatraz. yay!
The End.

Another quarter of classes complete..

One more to go! I'm not really sure what to do with myself.. a whole summer before me .. :)
I went to the dentist this morning - 3 new cavities!! I never get cavaties- see what grad school has done to me ;)
My cucumber plant has a flower! and I have tomatoes - they are only about 1cm diameter but they are a start and a sign of hope :)
Hm.. well, thats about it! Life is gloriously boring!

Garden Update

This weekend wasn't really a weekend. I worked all day Saturday but took most of Sunday off. I went out to take some pictures of my garden and compared to a few months ago. As shown to the left- my tomatoes have come a long way! Still no fruit but lots and lots of flowers!

Here is my sunflower! It finally bloomed! If you look closely at the top left there is a cucumber beetle that I caught accidentally. I hope I squished him later! I have also discovered earwigs that I think are eating some of the leaves of my plants. They are flat little icky crawly things. I'm not sure how to get rid of them so hopefully they won't do too much damage..