xo all!
Tuesday, May 29, 2012
Thursday, May 24, 2012
one more..
hi!
I finally finished the captions on the second part of the May 20th album...go half way down the album to the flea market for the new captions and another 100 photos...
xo
enjoy!!
hi!
photos!
ate at the Burger Joint the other day, and Icelandic Fish and Chips yesterday (no photos of fish n chips - forgot the camera, boo...yesterday I stayed behind in the lab to process some benthic organic matter that we collected the day before...today is also a lab day as it is supposed to be crappy outside so we can't do slugs just yet...
nice to catch up on emails and the blog - uploaded more photos to a new album. I still need to finish captions and uploading the final 100 pictures to the album from May 20th...stay tuned...
I've got another week here..plenty of time to finish up the rest of landscape field work as long as the weather cooperates!
yikes!
xo
Sunday, May 20, 2012
Gόδan dag!
Which sounds like "Goh-then darg" or something like that. The "d" is a special character that I can't find right now on the mac. All I really know how to say is "Ja" (yes, but pronounced "Yeow") and "Nei" (no) and "Takk" (Thank you).
We've been having a fantastic time together of late exploring Rekyjavik and the surrounding area! We feel very lucky to be able to share this time together under the guise of field work - go science!!!
We have no internets at the apartment so we've had to compile pictures and blog posts at home then wait for a chance at the internets...Uploading pictures goes slowly, but probably doesn't help that I upload 100s of photos at a time..
at this point, I have to update captions on the photos (which I can only do with internet access!), so this post shall be brief...
Here is a link for 400+ photos...captions only on the first half - this is a lesson in keeping photo posts brief! phew!
Dan also captioned the first link of photos, here it is again..
xo
ct!
Thursday, May 17, 2012
Hallo!!
We have made it to Iceland!!! All flights went smoothly and all our baggage arrive safely. We spent our first day struggling to stay up, we arrived at 630am to happily sunny Iceland... We bought our duty free rations and sped our way to the airport Kaffitar for a strong cup of coffee and kleina, an Icelandic pastry - diamond shaped savior of a pastry that went well with our cuppa joe. Fully caffienated, we grabbed the trusty silver bullet - the Suzuki Vitara rental car that Dan will be using all summer for field work and general get up and go. We got the keys to Dan's University Apartment which we were pleasantly surprised with - top floor (3rd) with a great view of the famous church and snow-topped mountains. We picked up some apartment kitchen supplies and field gear at Veidi, groceries at the Bonus and Haugkuap, and walked to downtown to get a tasty bowl of noodle soup at the Nudlestation. We also took an awesome 3 hour nap that totally recharged the senses...After another nice walk through the neighborhood and the seaside, we were happy to change into the PJs and call it a night....we crashed at 1130pm and here we are now Thursday morning and we're headed into Hengil already for a day of field work! It should be an easy day, sampling for epilithon which means scrubbing rocks in 11 of the 13 streams...
We still have Dan's immigration stuff to take care of and some office stuff with the apartment, but then we should be able to go on our ferry ride tomorrow!
more soon, pics soon!!
xo
ct and dn
We still have Dan's immigration stuff to take care of and some office stuff with the apartment, but then we should be able to go on our ferry ride tomorrow!
more soon, pics soon!!
xo
ct and dn
Monday, May 14, 2012
OK, GO!
woo hoo!!
The house is cleaned, our bags are packed, taped up, and labeled!...I've sent off rough drafts of my 2 chapters off to my advisor to mull over, all important loose ends are tended (i.e. someone is taking care of Hannah and the garden, work can sit as is for a few weeks)...we are ready to go!!
Jon picks us up tomorrow morning at 730 am...within an hour and a half I hope we are happily through security and awaiting our departure at the Birmingham airport...At that point is when I personally can FINALLY relax...and get ready to enjoy exploring Reykjavik with Dan, and feel happy about participating in field work - so nice to be a warm body(hopefully I get a work out of sorts and lose these extra Southern pounds - darn you fried okra and BBQ ribs!!).
We already miss Hannah terribly...her face stink is intoxicating...
xo, us
The house is cleaned, our bags are packed, taped up, and labeled!...I've sent off rough drafts of my 2 chapters off to my advisor to mull over, all important loose ends are tended (i.e. someone is taking care of Hannah and the garden, work can sit as is for a few weeks)...we are ready to go!!
Jon picks us up tomorrow morning at 730 am...within an hour and a half I hope we are happily through security and awaiting our departure at the Birmingham airport...At that point is when I personally can FINALLY relax...and get ready to enjoy exploring Reykjavik with Dan, and feel happy about participating in field work - so nice to be a warm body(hopefully I get a work out of sorts and lose these extra Southern pounds - darn you fried okra and BBQ ribs!!).
We already miss Hannah terribly...her face stink is intoxicating...
xo, us
Sunday, May 13, 2012
briefly...
Hi-o!!
Happy Mother's Day to all those moms out there!! We love you!! Well, we love our moms at least..
We've been pretty absent from the blogosphere lately - prepping for Iceland, me writing my thesis, and general life getting in the way!!
Here are a few photos of the yard etc, it's been raining tons here in the Southeast - great for the garden and a great break from that hot yellow orb in the sky...these photos are from the last couple of weeks - currently the garden is super thriving...I should probably document it before we leave...so many things to tend to...
Also, here is a clip of Hannah - we are those people who do these things to our pup you know this - we have no TV might I remind you...
also, no more mouse action in the house..which is great! the widow maker stands in the corner if need be though...
we leave on Tuesday for Iceland - get ready for updates from the island of 50 degree highs!! woo hoo!!! We hope to go here for a trip, eat here for a fancy lobster (langostine) meal, check out Geysir, and in general just enjoy the hours of daylight in Rey-town...We also plan to work our behinds off in the field, but that too will be fun!
stay tuned!
xo
Thursday, May 3, 2012
And now for something a little different....
It's late now...but we're still up - and on a weeknight!
Adrenaline is rushing because...we caught a mouse!
Eeeek!!
Background: So we saw a mouse scurrying about a few months ago, tried comically to catch the darn thing, and failed. We set out trap for the little bugger but no bites...we figured we must have scared the bejesus out of him and he high tailed it outta the house lickety split.
Perhaps. Perhaps not.
This week we noticed something gnawing at Hannah's dog treats - argh! He's back!
So I set out some clap traps baited with peanut butter and played the waiting game - next day, no mouse, still peanut butter....next day, no mouse, no peanut butter - blasted!
At least we were getting somewhere...so just this evening I was lounging on the couch having a little chat with my dear Miss Hanson while Dan perused through this month's Ecology issue.., when - gasp! He spots a mouse dash from the kitchen to the closet where we keep Hannah's vittles.
What to do?!?!?
Well, I decide to tape the gap at the bottom of the door shut with some clear packing tape lest he escape, and I continue on with my nice little chat with Miss Hanson...
After my chat (during which we see the mouse peek out from the door, note the packing tape, and scurry back to the depths of the closet at least twice), Dan and I discuss the options for our furry unwelcomed guest (BTW, Hannah is downright useless in the pest-catching department. She would like to fancy herself a threat to squirrels and cats alike, but the truth is she is too slow to catch anything and too scared to know what to do with any feeble-minded prey that she just might stumbled upon). A quick google search of "how to catch a cornered mouse" proves somewhat useless...catch the mouse with a dust broom and pan and throw it out of the house, shoo the mouse into a tin can and drive it at least a mile away from the house...etc...
So we come up with our own plan -> open door, trap mouse in closet with window screens, slowly remove items from the closet to get at the mouse, and use the shop vac to vacuum the thing up, hope the mouse suffocates in the vacuum and then throw away said mouse.
Easy peasy right??
Well, actually, yes it was in fact that easy and couldn't have gone more smoothly had we invited the Navy Seals to complete the mission...We open the door, I hold the screen to keep it trapped in the closet, I slowly hand Dan random things in my way between us and victory (and a sound night of sleep) and...
! SNAP!
one of the mouse traps goes off as Mr. Mousey desperately hops around the closet with no possible escape. We're all startled, but the trap doesn't actually catch the mouse, it just scares us both...soldier on...Dan hands me the shop vac and turns it on, and poke and prod around with it until ....SLURP!!!! Elation mixed with **shudders** washes over us...
Well, we caught the mouse in the shop vac, now what?
Um, we can't just keep it in the shop vac, we don't know if it is alive or dead, we don't want to just open the shop vac outside to free it right outside our house, so what do we do?
Well, we drive down to the Riverwalk (which is at least a mile away) to open the shop vac there - to find either a very frightened mouse that we will free and hope it will never return to our casa, or, we find a mouse dead as a door nail that will now "sleep with the fishes".
Regardless we've been needing to empty out the shop vac, so this is really a win win for everyone involved.
So I carry the shop vac with a bag over the opening in the hose, lest the mouse run out the vac via the hose and escape in our car (bad) while Dan drives us to a well-lit, but empty parking lot next to the Bama Belle (the river boat that chugs along the Black Warrior for various events including our Brews Cruise we took early upon our arrival in T-Town). We brace ourselves for anything.
...I open the shop vac carefully, we peer inside...and we see...a mouse that once was, but alas, is no more...relief...closure...(sadness yes, but really folks, it's a mouse eating Hannah's food and god knows what)..
.so we unceremoniously dump the contents of the shop vac into the trash can - a mound of Hannah fur the size of a large well-fed rabbit and, a dead mouse.
As a last "screw you" the mouse is the last thing to fall out of the shop vac and thuds onto the rim of the trash can, refusing to leave our presence without a final "goodbye"...great...now there is a dead mouse brightly perched on the rim of the trash receptacle and Dan states we should just leave it and flee the scene... right...so little Timmy and his mother carry on with their morning stroll in which they always get a sweet tea and a blueberry scone, walk along the river and point out different birds they see, and dispose of their wrappers in a responsible fashion and then BAM...they are faced a symbol of their mortality in the form of a dead mouse...(In all reality a feral cat, rabid squirrel, or desperate crow would have found that thing and devoured it post haste).
..but in any case, Dan valiantly takes a plastic bag and pushes the rodent into its final resting place ..."thump"...
we get back into the car and drive home at 11:30pm on a Wednesday night after disposing of a body down by the river which we offed with a shop vac (now nicknamed "The Widow Maker" according to Dan)...
..sigh...I need to be writing my thesis right now...
xo
Adrenaline is rushing because...we caught a mouse!
Eeeek!!
Background: So we saw a mouse scurrying about a few months ago, tried comically to catch the darn thing, and failed. We set out trap for the little bugger but no bites...we figured we must have scared the bejesus out of him and he high tailed it outta the house lickety split.
Perhaps. Perhaps not.
This week we noticed something gnawing at Hannah's dog treats - argh! He's back!
So I set out some clap traps baited with peanut butter and played the waiting game - next day, no mouse, still peanut butter....next day, no mouse, no peanut butter - blasted!
At least we were getting somewhere...so just this evening I was lounging on the couch having a little chat with my dear Miss Hanson while Dan perused through this month's Ecology issue.., when - gasp! He spots a mouse dash from the kitchen to the closet where we keep Hannah's vittles.
What to do?!?!?
Well, I decide to tape the gap at the bottom of the door shut with some clear packing tape lest he escape, and I continue on with my nice little chat with Miss Hanson...
After my chat (during which we see the mouse peek out from the door, note the packing tape, and scurry back to the depths of the closet at least twice), Dan and I discuss the options for our furry unwelcomed guest (BTW, Hannah is downright useless in the pest-catching department. She would like to fancy herself a threat to squirrels and cats alike, but the truth is she is too slow to catch anything and too scared to know what to do with any feeble-minded prey that she just might stumbled upon). A quick google search of "how to catch a cornered mouse" proves somewhat useless...catch the mouse with a dust broom and pan and throw it out of the house, shoo the mouse into a tin can and drive it at least a mile away from the house...etc...
So we come up with our own plan -> open door, trap mouse in closet with window screens, slowly remove items from the closet to get at the mouse, and use the shop vac to vacuum the thing up, hope the mouse suffocates in the vacuum and then throw away said mouse.
Easy peasy right??
Well, actually, yes it was in fact that easy and couldn't have gone more smoothly had we invited the Navy Seals to complete the mission...We open the door, I hold the screen to keep it trapped in the closet, I slowly hand Dan random things in my way between us and victory (and a sound night of sleep) and...
! SNAP!
one of the mouse traps goes off as Mr. Mousey desperately hops around the closet with no possible escape. We're all startled, but the trap doesn't actually catch the mouse, it just scares us both...soldier on...Dan hands me the shop vac and turns it on, and poke and prod around with it until ....SLURP!!!! Elation mixed with **shudders** washes over us...
Well, we caught the mouse in the shop vac, now what?
Um, we can't just keep it in the shop vac, we don't know if it is alive or dead, we don't want to just open the shop vac outside to free it right outside our house, so what do we do?
Well, we drive down to the Riverwalk (which is at least a mile away) to open the shop vac there - to find either a very frightened mouse that we will free and hope it will never return to our casa, or, we find a mouse dead as a door nail that will now "sleep with the fishes".
Regardless we've been needing to empty out the shop vac, so this is really a win win for everyone involved.
So I carry the shop vac with a bag over the opening in the hose, lest the mouse run out the vac via the hose and escape in our car (bad) while Dan drives us to a well-lit, but empty parking lot next to the Bama Belle (the river boat that chugs along the Black Warrior for various events including our Brews Cruise we took early upon our arrival in T-Town). We brace ourselves for anything.
...I open the shop vac carefully, we peer inside...and we see...a mouse that once was, but alas, is no more...relief...closure...(sadness yes, but really folks, it's a mouse eating Hannah's food and god knows what)..
.so we unceremoniously dump the contents of the shop vac into the trash can - a mound of Hannah fur the size of a large well-fed rabbit and, a dead mouse.
As a last "screw you" the mouse is the last thing to fall out of the shop vac and thuds onto the rim of the trash can, refusing to leave our presence without a final "goodbye"...great...now there is a dead mouse brightly perched on the rim of the trash receptacle and Dan states we should just leave it and flee the scene... right...so little Timmy and his mother carry on with their morning stroll in which they always get a sweet tea and a blueberry scone, walk along the river and point out different birds they see, and dispose of their wrappers in a responsible fashion and then BAM...they are faced a symbol of their mortality in the form of a dead mouse...(In all reality a feral cat, rabid squirrel, or desperate crow would have found that thing and devoured it post haste).
..but in any case, Dan valiantly takes a plastic bag and pushes the rodent into its final resting place ..."thump"...
we get back into the car and drive home at 11:30pm on a Wednesday night after disposing of a body down by the river which we offed with a shop vac (now nicknamed "The Widow Maker" according to Dan)...
..sigh...I need to be writing my thesis right now...
xo
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