Crazy Dreams

So...I have a mouse infestation under my kitchen sink.
!!!!
Don't freak out, it's not that bad.

It's because I keep my garbage and compost under there, and the mousies have discovered how to crawl in through the holes in the cabinet cut around the water pipes and grab a delicious snack.

Luckily, I would MUCH rather have mice than spiders.

Unlike my mother some people, I'm not too freaked out by this, especially because the previous tenant left me a live trap so I don't have to deal with dead/dying rodents (THAT would be unpleasant...)

although I am definitely emptying my compost every night until I get a "real" covered can for it.

The point of this story is that I am starting to have seriously crazy and bad dreams revolving around animals.  3 nights in a row!!!

Like, a chipmunk family got into my pantry, and I accidentally killed the pea-sized fuzzy baby chipmunks while trying to put them outside, and the mother chipmunk started yelling at me and giving me a guilt trip for killing her babies.

???

And an even worse dream about beetles and ants and one of my cats getting smashed into a wall :(

At least I've been motivated to get up these past few dark cold mornings because I am excited to rejoin the real world and am SO relieved my dreams are not true.

I think the cat dream might have been sparked by looking at high school homecoming pictures of my (biological+foreign exchange) brothers on facebook.

I LOVE THIS PICTURE:

(stolen off f.b. from Irina Rinchy)

That is my foreign exchange brother Dime (who I haven't even met yet! living halfway across the country from my fam...) and my snugglefuzz Thijs, a bit shell shocked! HAHAHAHA! Seeing this picture made my day. Even better, someone's caption for it (Help me! I am a man, not a woman!)

Thank you, high school foreign exchange students!

In other news, I obviously survived my crazy Monday, and an almost equally crazy Tuesday.

I don't know where the days are flying off to.

I went for a slow (and chilly) run today after leaving the lab at 5 pm because I just needed to get outside and decompress after spending almost all day revising a map on ArcGIS (aka battling with the system, as those in the know will understand) for an article that's in review to be published (yay, being useful).

I love running around this trail that goes through the woods bordering the school golf courses because it is the perfect blend of grass/trail/up/downhill. I don't know how far it is but probably between 5-6k. I first ran it in 35 minutes and then last week did it in 32 with music motivation (reunited with my iPod and it feels so good!!!)

photo

I go through huge phases of running with music, getting sick of the songs then running without for a few months, etc etc. I believe that it's always safer to be aware of what's going on around you and sometimes more freeing to be able to let your mind wander and get "in tune with nature", but it's pretty amazing how the right song can be so exhilarating and push you harder.

I definitely need music or a magazine to distract me when I'm working out inside or I go crazy on the elliptical/stationary bike.  Not to mention the dreadmill.  I'd rather not even go there, thanks.

Irony: The new giant fitness center at PSU is certified LEED gold for sustainability, but how does that work when you have 100000000 electric machines churning 24/7???

Weekend Re-cap

This weekend went by WAY TOO FAST! Not because I was having oodles of fun and exciting good times, but because I have a test and presentation tomorrow plus gazillions of pages of dry historiogeography to read! (I made up that word...it means, here are the historical theories of the discipline of geography as a social and human science, and the controversial, futile struggles to define what it actally "is" and other existential tangles)

I have been as productive as I can be (regarding mental sanity levels) and I still do not feel prepared for anything!!! Oh well...life will go on.

I also did grocery store therapy (yes going there makes me calm), retail therapy at my favorite time and $$ suckers (Target, Michaels, TJ-Maxxoutyourbankaccount), highway adventures as I got 32 miles lost trying to get to stores that are 8 miles from my house while listening to Lives of the Cowboys (resulting in BREATHTAKING VISTAS of Allegheny fall color explosion), checked out the Lutheran church downtown, Panera-ed it up by myself (I think I am finally getting tired of the Fuji chicken salad !), worked out then worked out WHILE studying, wished I was outside enjoying the gorgeous weather :( , and instead made a honey chamomile tea latte in my new giant happy mug

and continued learning about Structural Marxism, Location Theory, and other such subjects that whiz hundreds of miles in the stratosphere above this poor little physical geographer's head.

I like plants, and trees, because they don't think, and they don't make up complex critiqued controversial theories. And they are prettier.

Blah. I will be much happier after tomorrow is over!

The end.

Vegetation Dynamics Lab Tour!

Since I spend so much time in the Veg Lab for my research assistantship, I thought I would share a little bit of what I do with you!

Welcome to the lab...

We work on projects that deal with vegetation change (mainly forests, and mainly out west), such as how forests react to disturbances like fire and human activity.  Then the research results are used to develop management and restoration programs to return forest structures to their natural state.  Lots of research is also done to figure out what this elusive "natural state" really is, since humans have really screwed things up in the last 150 years!!

Some of the "evidence" we use to figure out this disturbance-restoration cycle are tree rings and fire scars.

Here is an example of a fire-scarred tree trunk:

It's a cross-section; the outside of the trunk is across the top and right side.

All the little bumps and vertical lines across the top dark part are fire scars.

This tree survived multiple fires and we can tell what years the fires occurred by dating the tree's rings!

This is a close up of a tree core that is used to analyze and date rings:

Each ring represents one year of growth. Some rings are bigger and some are smaller, based on how much rain fell in that year or how many other trees and bushes the tree was competing with to grow.

If we know that a particular year had a drought or lots of snow and rain, we can match those years with small and big rings on the core to date the rings and tell how old the tree is!

On the other hand, if a tree has lots of small rings followed by lots of bigger rings, it probably means the tree was stuck under bushes and bigger trees for a few years until it finally broke through to join the canopy and get more light.

We can analyze a set of tree cores to make a historical timeline and tell a story about what happened in the forest hundreds of years back!

Thousands of trees are cored at different sites for each project and the cores are stored in drinking straws:

These are the increment bores that are screwed into the tree trunk to carve out a core (it doesn't hurt the tree because it will just grow around the bore hole and heal itself like it does after a fire):

The orange one is for HUGE TREES and the unopened blue one is for small trees.

Just because a tree is big doesn't mean it is the oldest tree in the forest! They all grow at different rates, which is why the only way to tell the age of the forest stand is to sample and count tree rings. Mmmm lots and lots of work...

Back in the lab, we look at the cores under microscopes and use tools like calipers and rulers to measure growth and assign dates to the rings...

(see the weird marks on the slab of wood under the tree core mount? those are maple syrup tap scars!!)

As you can tell, it is a HUGELY LABOR INTENSIVE field of study!!

Luckily I like trees, so I think it is pretty interesting

I will post a geography lesson on the impacts of fire and Smokey the Bear later :)