Roofers 2.

Today one of the roofers had to come inside and take measurements in our bathroom. The landlord is installing a ventilation system and the roofers needed to know where to drop the vent in. During his time in the bathroom he admired the public service announcement I have posted on the door. What can I say? The craftmanship and creativity that went into this piece makes for an obviously eye-catching door decoration.



My favourite aspects of this installation include the way the paper has weathered with humidity over time, the place where I made a mistake in the word genuine and just wrote over it, and the spot where my pen started to run out of ink.

The sign reads: BEWARE giant house centipedes live here. (artists rendition, to scale though) ALSO, BE GENUINE (everyone can use a little reminder from time to time).

If I were a vegetable

I'd be a radish because I'm only sort of rad.



This tiny item came from my Great Grandfather's 90-something birthday cake. This birthday was celebrated at a family cottage when I was still in elementary school. The cake was garden themed and I ended up with a tiny radish plot. This radish has moved with me eight times and it's about to be packed up once again. I always think about losing it, which is why, I suppose, it's never been lost. Believe it or not, I'm not overly attached to this mini thing. Perhaps that's because it's just always been around. I don't really remember a time without it.

Roofers.

Today there are a bunch of guys on top of our house. First they put a bunch of action items up there. Then I had to get them a cooler 3/4 full of cold water because this house doesn't own a hose. Currently they are ripping up old pieces of roof and throwing them down into the yard. They told me they would be a bit noisy. The destruction/construction noise is completely understandable, but why do they have to play such loud, awful, horrible music?

A day out with the Ignatius CSA Interns.

Last Monday I received a phone call from my good friend Sarah. She was calling to invite me to spend a day with the interns from the Ignatius Community Shared Agriculture (CSA) farm in Guelph. I had been a member of the CSA for the past two years, but was not able to participate this summer since I am leaving town during peak harvest time. Sarah knows that I miss the CSA a lot and had made special arrangements for me to tag along on their fieldtrip. Also, she knew this particular trip would be of special interest to me because the first destination was the Wellington Fibres Mill.

I know a little about the mill and I have knit with several of their yarns. One store carries their yarn and it happens to be my Local Yarn Store (LYS), All Strung Out. Every time I'm at All Strung Out I end up in a conversation about Wellington Fibres. I've been meaning to get up to visit, but Elora is pretty far away when you don't have a vehicle. So, of course I jumped at the opportunity to visit and tour the farm with the interns.

We set out and the drive to Elora was quick. When we first arrived at the farm we met Lorne and Donna. They showed us their Angora goats and the little goats who had all been weened from their mothers last weekend. All of the goats were inside the barn because they don't like being wet at all and it was a bit rainy outside. I learned that the goats are named Angora goats because this is the region of Turkey from which they originated. The Sultan did not let any goats out of the country for a long time. I also learned that Angora goats produce mohair fibre while Angora rabbits produce angora fibre. This was actually something I had been wondering about for awhile. The little goats were all so cute. They were all very curious, but if anyone made a quick movement they would all scatter away. Sarah took some pictures, so I will add one here once she sends them.

After meeting the goats Lorne gave us a tour of the mill. The mill produces small batches of yarns which makes every colourway unique. Donna is the dyer and with many years of experience she has her dye recipes down pat. The mill processes and dyes all of their own mohair, blends it with various amounts of wool, and processes and dyes any special orders for customers. The mill is run on solar power. This is quite amazing considering how much hot water is required in a yarn mill. I took some notes about the process of turning newly shorn mohair into knitting yarn.

First, the fibre needs to be washed. It can't be agitated because it will felt with heat and friction. So, it sits in soaker tubs full of hot water and orange oil based cleaner. The water is changed every 30 minutes until the batch of fibre has soaked 3 or 4 times, depending on the amount of dirt and organic matter that needs to be removed. It then drys on large racks until it is almost dry.

Next, the fibre goes through the picker. This fluffs up all of the fibres and removes any remaining straw. The picker blows the fibre into a little room. It comes out of the picker with the consistency of dandelion fluff and it can be very static-y since most of the natural oils have been removed in the washing process. At this point, the fibre is lubricated with a spray of oils and water.

Lorne likes to blend fibres from different animals in order to combine the favourable traits from each species. This also helps to overcome the less-favourable traits associated with each type of fibre. For example, wool from sheep is very light and lofty and has a very strong 'memory'. No matter what you do to wool it will eventually find its way back to its original state. Wool fibres have barbs that point outward. This prevents colour and light from reflecting back to our eyes so wool will appear matte. Mohair, on the other hand, has fibres that bend inward; light and colour reflect back to our eyes at a higher rate than wool so the fibre appears shiny and vibrant. Mohair is also very heavy. If you make a mohair sweater the sleeves would just continue to grow and nothing you could do would bring the sweater back to its original shape. So, Lorne combines the shiny, vibrant mohair with the light, lofty wool. This makes a nice yarn that drapes well, but also retains the garment's shape.

After the wool has been picked and gathered from the tiny room it is placed on a conveyor belt that moves it through the English-made carding machine. This machine removes all of the short, broken fibres and any remain bits and pieces that don't belong in the final product. Carding lines up the fibres and creates a roving or sliver. Sliver is a new term for me, but both terms refer to a long bundle of fibre that is ready to spin. The special carder that Lorne and Donna have is designed so that they can easily change the colour of fibre coming through the carder and it will not contaminate the next roving. On average, they probably run about three colours through the carder each day. This is an unusual trait for a carding machine, but enables them to work with very small and diverse batches of fibre.

Next the roving runs through the pin drafter three times. Drafting makes the roving uniform and smooths out all of the thick and thin areas. A needle pin combs the fibres and heavy rollers stretch out the roving by about 4.5 times. The pin drafter lays the drafted roving into a canister, forming coils with no twist because the coiler rotates one way and the canister itself rotates in the opposite direction. The yarn that is produced in this mill is worsted meaning that the fibres are combed a lot so that they all run parallel to one another in the final product. If the fibres were not combed as much and the fibres were all higedly pigedly in the roving the final product would be called a woolen yarn.

The coils of roving are very beautiful. Sarah took some pictures and I'll add them as soon as possible. Once everything is straightened out, drafted, and combed, the roving goes onto the spinning frame. This machine is set with a certain draft (length) and twist per inch. Everything is based on very concise mathematics. Lorne knows all of the numbers. For example, lace roving would give about 10 yards of yarn for every half ounce of fibre. This machine spins all of the yarn onto bobbins in single plys.

Once the required amount of roving is spun, the bobbins are transferred onto the plying machine. This is where the different types of wool are made depending on the number of plys, how different plays are put together, and the types of fibre that are plied together. The ply machine has three drive shafts (generally they only have two) and is German made. The extra drive shaft allows Lorne to make some different types of yarn, such as boucle (a yarn that has little loops down its length).

After all of this, the yarn is skeined. It must hang straight in a skein. A straight-hanging skein has the energy of the ply balanced with the energy in the twist and will make nice, straight garments. If either the twist or the ply is stronger than the other any garment produced will turn out crooked (due to the memory of the wool).

There are a few other tricks that Lorne mentioned as well. Wellington Fibres brushes most of their finished yarns. This gives it a beautiful, fluffy, puffy feel. I love that about their yarns. It is so pleasant to work with and to wear. This softens the fibres by locking the barbs of the mohair in. They also make an interesting Lopi wool. Icelandic sheep have thick guard hairs in order to survive the cold, long winters. If this guard hair is not removed, the yarn can be scratchy and heavy. This single ply, low twist yarn is a traditional Lopi wool. It is excellent for making felt or heavy, water-resistant sweaters. Lorne makes a Lopi, but replaces the sheep gaurd hair with a component of the mohair. This makes a nice, low-twist, rugged wool that is still great for felting and sweater knitting.

After all of this, we only had a few quick minutes to check out the shop. The Wellington Fibre Mill shop is bright and open. I would love to take a class there. They have all sorts of looms and spinning wheels as well. Before we headed out on the rest of the trip I managed to purchase two skeins of periwinkle blue (more of a blueberry blue) mohair/wool blend.

This picture does not do the yarn justice:


The next stop on our journey was the Elmira Produce Auction Cooperation. This organization is owned by the farming community in Elmira. It provides an outlet for local farms to sell this produce, rather than traveling to to Ontario Food Terminal in Toronto. This is very important for the rural Mennonite community who may not have the means to make the trip to Toronto each week. The entire auction process is really mind-boggling to me. I suppose participating is something you have to practice a bit. The just moved through the produce and flowers so quickly. I couldn't tell who was buying what, let alone for what price.

After being confused by the auction, we made a quick visit to Diversity Gardens. The garden was beautiful and certainly diverse. There were fat raspberries everywhere. Unfortunately, the amount of rain we have had this year has watered their flavour down a bit. The stop was nice, but the mosquitoes were out. This is something I am not used to at all this year since I've been tucked away, safe and sound, from the outdoors for such a long time. We continued our drive to visit Pfennings Farm.

Pfennings is a huge operation. Probably the biggest organic operation in Ontario. Before taking a tour we sat and had lunch. The CSA interns take turns preparing lunch each day and the food was fantastic. We ate many veggie from the farm, including roasted peppers, zucchini, and eggplants on bagels, and an incredible summer salad with tomatoes, parsley, so many other delicious ingredients. I brought the dessert: Lindt chocolate from one of my Rav pals and cookies from Saunder's bakery in Rockwood. Andrew and I had checked out my research plots the day before and had a chance to stop by. It's been awhile since I've shopped at Saunder's and it's definitely one of the things I miss about working in the field. Once lunch was finished one of the farm employees, Neville, took us on a driving tour of the five farms Pfennings operates. We saw giant cabbages, onions of every variety, rows upon rows of carrots, and all of the various machinery it takes to prepare the fields, plant, harvest, clean, sort, and package the produce. The entire tour was very impressive.

Once we returned to Ignatius, I had tea with Sarah in the sun room of the intern's house. It was really a great day and I'm so glad that I had the chance to tag along.

These are the three little guys Sarah gave to me from the CSA. They were turned into coleslaw. yum.

Hillside 2009.

Every year in late July the Hillside music festival is held on the island in Guelph Lake Conservation Area. This year marked my fourth year in attendance. Five years ago I went with Bronwen as paying customers. That was the first year Hillside sold out. The next year we returned as volunteers and I washed dishes as Bronwen sold merch. We decided that the benefits that came with volunteering (free camping, food, playing an important role in the Hillside community) completely outweighed the costs (washing tons of dishes with enviro-biodegradable soap in lukewarm water). The following year I was not able to attend as I was a bridesmaid in Ottawa. However, the past two years I have once again volunteered and have ran crafty workshops. Hillside 2008 was a special year because Hillside celebrated it's 25th year running. I've also volunteered in the Hillside office for the first and second annual Hillside Inside events.

This Hillside 2009 was definitely the rainiest, muddiest festival I have ever attended. It didn't really matter though because I also think this was one of the best festivals I have taken part in overall. I found a bunch of new music, my craft workshop was very successful, Nat's tent kept us dry, we ate a ton of Mapleton's Organic (my flavours: maple chunk, ginger, pumpkin, chocolate, and raspberry), friends came up from out-of-town, and we saw some Incredible shows. O, and one of the best parts was that I had completely handed in all of the paperwork, money orders, and copies of my thesis to Graduate Studies at school the morning before it all started.

On Thursday night, Bronwen, Kristen, and Hamish came to our house. They had driven all the way from Ottawa. With one stop for dinner at Hot Belly Mama's for dinner and a few wrong turns the drive had taken them ten hours. We hung out for a bit, then everyone crashed in the livingroom. I had to get up the next day to completely complete the graduation process.

The next morning I got up and headed out. I left those three to find their own breakfasts (which they did well at the Cornerstone). Then I was back and we packed up their rental car and headed up to the Island. Hamish had to be at his volunteer info session and we wanted to set up camp. Check in was quick and simple. I walked Hamish to his meeting. By the time I was back at the causeway the girls had dropped off our HUGE amount of camping gear. Hillside had arranged volunteers with peddle carts and golf carts to transport our belongings up to the campsite. This was greatly appreciated. We found a vacancy in the Volunteer Village and set up the tents.

Setting up tents with ominous clouds in the background:




I always love the colours tent village makes.

Doug, Kent, and Scotty from Kid Coma were playing in the first timeslot so we went to catch a bit of the Acoustically Yours workshop. We were about ready for Hillside beers and Nat met up with us at this point. We quickly set up her tent and then headed back to the mainstage to catch Xavier Rudd. I've seen him perform several times and this time was jsut as good and dance-y as all the others. Next we headed over to see Rock Plaza Central. I had never seen them before and they put on a good show.

The next morning, I was up and went for a swim. I always like to swim in the morning at Hillside. Breakfast was free with volunteer. I liked the orange slices. Unfortunately, my breakfast pita round was chockfull of raisins. My workshop ran first thing that morning. It went well and I managed to squeeze in about 45 crafters. The tent was quite crowded at this point. We ran over to see a few songs from Green Go before we made our return to the craft tent for Bronwen's book binding workshop. The Hillside ladies really loved her craft and everyone's little books turned out very well. Bronwen had put a lot of work into the covers prior to Hillside. Luckily she had found a box of abandoned National Geographic magazines. Their full-page photos make excellent book covers. Once our volunteer hours were complete for the day (we had missed both Bruce Peninsula performances :() we retired to the beer tent to catch the last few songs from the Bahamas. The cover of Purple Rain really got the crowd going. I'm looking forward to seeing them again at Wolfe Island. Emily and Gillian joined us at this point. They had stopped by Sears to pick up some rain gear. Good thing too. Ohbijou was on next. Their set was beautiful, as usual. Then we went to get food. That was good. I stopped by to see bits of Timber Timbre, Attack in Black, and the Guelph Guitar Project. I was feeling a bit down and all of the songs at this point were about sad things and bleh. So, I walked myself through the craft vendors and thought about buying some merch. At 7:00 pm with the first few chords from Hey Rosetta! my mood was completely lifted. The Saturday evening line-up turned out to be one of the best Hillside has ever heard. Hey Rosetta! was followed by Library Voices, Woodhands, and Sunparlour Players (one of my all-time favourite bands. Period.)

Here is a cool video of Woodhands. You can catch Em and I on front row of the picnic table. I'm pointing at a topless crowdsurfer and she laughs:

After the show, we headed over to the merchandise tent. Sunparlour Players made their way over to continue their set and I ran into Pete Kelly, musician photographer extraordinaire (well, in general photographer extraordinaire, but I love (and he loves, I know it) his musician subjects. See his image, entitled Spontaneity, to get a sense of the energy of this band. After the show I went for a dip with Hamish and then we headed over to the drum circle and campfire for a bit. I like to stop by for at least a few minutes every year.

This is the merch I bought:
-Sunparlour Players new CD called Wave North
-Sunparlour Players grey t-shirt with orange and yellow logo
-Patrick Watson grey t-shirt with creepy clapping robot hands
-Dancehall Free For All green ringer t-shirt
-Sunparlour Players preserves: mustard.

On Sunday, I slept in a bit. I really needed a good sleep because I was feeling tired from my crazy week. We had free breakfast again under the dining tent in an attempt to escape the downpours. O, rainy Hillside Sunday, what can I say? It rained a lot and there was a lot of mud. That's about it. My craft workshop went well again. I had another 40 attendees. Then went to see Dancehall Free For All before meeting up with Bronwen for her workshop (we traded workshop assistantships for the weekend. That helped a lot). Once her workshop was over the rain really started to come down and so did the lightning. Bronwen got shocked a bit because she was wearing a toe-ring and standing in a puddle. Scary!

This is what the lightning strike looked like:

Once that all happened, we were free for the rest of the day. We say Clues and Winter Gloves (love). Then we went to pack up. Once we got to the mudpit of a parking lot we decided we needed to move the cars in order to escape come the evening. I had to push Nat's car and that was quite funny. Luckily I did not get very muddy. Well, my feet got very muddy, but the rest of me was clean. The white car we skidded by was not so clean anymore.

Walking back from pushing out the car. Clean feet from a quick dip in the beach:


Traditional ice cream shot:


I had dinner with Andrew, Tyler, Emily, Nat, Kristen, and Bronwen while watching the end of Great Lake Swimmers, Patrick Watson, and Final Fantasy. Fantastic Sunday night line-up, but my feet were so sore and the rain came down hard once again. Bronwen and Kristen went to find a dry spot under the tent and I headed home with Nat. We were wet to the core and freezing cold, but completely content with our weekend at Hillside. I always love getting into a warm car in the middle of the summer when you're freezing cold.

Final Fantasy:

In the morning we got up and went to Eggcetera. It had been a while since I had eaten there and it was a nice way to wrap-up our weekend. The visitors hit the road and I came home to begin the process of packing up my house. Hillside is one of my favourite times of year and I can imagine I will always come back to Guelph to attend.

Finished.

Tomorrow will be my last official day as a grad student at the University of Guelph. I'm handing in everything; every last library book, form, and key. My thesis will be microfilmed or some old-fashioned thing like that and I'll be unemployed and on the road.

I'm reading my thesis one last time. In a last attempt to find any hidden typos. I just made my way through the acknowledgements. I had written them too casually before, so I tightened them up.

Soon Doug and Paul will come in and we'll go to the grad lounge to celebrate our accomplishments and receive fancy mugs for successfully defending our theses. Tomorrow will be the last day I see Uta because she is leaving for her trip and won't return until after I've left for mine.

My throat is sore because I'm happy and sad. That's all I can say right now, though.

Manitoulin Island.

Two weekends ago, Nat and I took our second roadtrip to Manitoulin Island. We had visited the Island once last summer and had such a good time we new we wanted to return this year. Last year we had explored the eastern portion of the Island which is more densely populated. This year we planned to see the western point. We took the ferry to the Island, camped out, and drove around to see all the sights. Nat did most of the driving and I recorded our outing on a newspaper map we found at the information desk on the boat. I had done the same thing the previous year and it was really neat to compare our trips.

Here's the rundown:

Day 1 - Friday, July 17
-leave Guelph at 7:15
-arrive in Tobermory at 11:00. Apparently, if you have reservations you're supposed to arrive at the ferry one hour in advance of leaving. We were only 20 minutes early. Their website is really poorly laid out and tricky to understand, so I'm sure they have a lot of people not following the rules.
-land in South Baymouth at 1:15. There is a ton of tourist literature on the ferry and we found out that an island-wide art tour was on this weekend. We decided we would stop at any of the interesting studios as we drove by.
-snack at South Baymouth Gallery (salsa and chips), browse gallery on Given Road.
-Blue Jay Creek Art Farm and no fruit stand. Guest artist Marc Brzustowski.

One of Marc's paintings, not my favourite, but the best I could find online:


The greenhouse at Blue Jay Creek Art Farm. Made from the remains of an old stone barn and abandoned glass windows:


-Lynstudio 5 painters and a potter
-old mill Edward's Studio, post office museum and mini lighthouse



-Ravenseiyre Studio
-Life's Little Pleasures quilting and knitting store
-Twin Bluffs restaurant in Gore Bay for fish dinner
-Twilight Isle Campground. Out tent, cottages, construction workers. Camped out on the tip. Wake up to rain. Ate breakfast on the porch on on of the cottages. Couldn't start stove = PB and Nat's jam sandwiches and brie. Best showers in a looong time; hot water and good pressure, too bad about all the spiders.



Day 2 - Saturday, July 18
-Mindemoya farmer's market, lots of interesting handcrafts, lots of not-so-interesting handcrafts, no fresh produce. We need to come a little later in the season for this sort of thing on Manitoulin.
-There was a community fair down the street from the market. I bought the book, Birds of Manitoulin for a quarter. We tried to find pie, but there was none so we settled for rhubarb cake. Yum. Good alternative.
-Wool'n'things
-Roadside pseudo-alvars with huge cracks, campanula
-Luc Lachance studio, he paints on black canvas and had about 20 Art Tour signs leading to his house from all different directions. He almost drew us in twice.
-Hawberry farms, samples and preserves. I bought raspberry honey, asparagus spread, and onion chutney.
-We saw Sandhill Cranes in a field. Nat was really looking forward to this and she spotted them right away.



-Farquhar's butter and ice cream snack in Evansville
-Set up camp at the Mississagi lighthouse campground. We had a beachfront site on an alvar. It's so nice to sleep with Lake Huron crashing against the rocks in the background.



-We snacked then headed out in an attempt to find the Queen Mother Provincial Park indicated on the Ontario roadmap.
-On the road out to the main highway we found Lakeside Daisy and Coreopsis in flower on the roadside and a tiny patch of mini wild strawberries.



-Drive to find provincial park, found creepy town of Burnt Island instead. Park not functioning? Big fishery, chicken farm? Hiked into alvar with Indian Paintbrush.
-Tried to see world's largest drum, peace pipe, and dream catcher. They apparently exist only on the billboards.



-Back at the park, we visited the lighthouse museum, campfire cooked times two. Veggies and sausage for dinner. French toast and hashbrowns for breakfast.

Admiring my annual breakfast smore:



An old crochet-covered bottle in the lighthouse museum. All of the artifacts belonged to the families that lived in the house over the years:


Day 3 - Sunday, July 19
-We got up, packed up, hiked along the shoreline, then visited the town of Meldrum Bay. Cute town. Checked out the Netshed Museum, had a tour from a 17 year old local, stopped by his aunt's thriftstore (some promise, no good finds this day), snacked on popsicles and icecream at the general store (Dukes of Meldrum Bay).



-Visited Misery Bay alvars. Had a good chat with the volunteer on duty. He confirmed that the provinical park is not operating. Their interpretive centre is great. I love this place. I bought a Friends of Misery Bay membership and a Misery loves company patch for $15. This morning I received my first e-mail update. We hiked to the shoreline.



-Drove back to catch the boat at 5:40 and made it home by midnight.

We had a fantastic time and we'll definitely be going back. Perhaps we will try driving up and around through Espanola. Several of the locals told us that was the way to go; just as quick as the ferry and much less expensive. There are a few things we didn't get to this year and have on the list of things to do during our next trip:
-at the interpretive centre at Misery Bay the volunteer told us to check out the west shore of Misery Bay. You need to hike across the water to get there and we didn't have time this year.
-walk up to the base of the windtowers. They are completely massive from the road and seeing them up close would be really interesting.

A very merry unbirthday!

Today I turn twenty-six and one half. Generally, I wouldn't even notice the date, or consider it to be special, but this year is a little different.

I noticed the date last night when I purchased our online tickets for Harry Potter and the Half-blood Prince. Emily, Andrew, and I will be in attendance at the late night showing this evening. My ticket was free because I collect Scene points with my sparkly Scene debit card from Scotiabank. We are all Exceptionally Excited to see this movie. It's going to be a good one. I can't wait to see all the new Harry Potter knits. I don't really remember all of the details of the book because I read it two years ago, so this is going to be a good refresher.

This year is also special because we celebrated my actual birthday with an Alice in Winter Wonderland Miniature Tea Party. It was a fantastic evening including out-of-town guests, delightful party foods, hand-crafted suits of cards sugar cubes, a perfect music list, gin in fancy tea cups, and I think almost every character from the movie was played by one of my nearest and dearest friends. This was one of my best birthdays ever. I love looking through these pictures from time to time.

I was Alice (of course.):



Nat made the best miniest candied apples:



Andrew was my Mad Hatter:



Emily the white rabbit:



Don't bother asking me about the March Hare, however ;)

Cover-ups.

1. Tiny Cities Made of Ashes

We're goin' down the road towards tiny cities made of ashes
Gonna hit you on the face gonna punch you in your
glasses. Oh no!
I just got a message that said "Yeah hell is freezin' over"
I Got a phone call from the Lord sayin' "Hey boy get a
sweater. Right now"
So we're drinkin' drinkin' drinkin' drinkin' coca-coca-cola
I can feel it rollin' right on down
Oh right on down my throat
And as we're headed down the road towards tiny cities
made of ashes
I'm gonna get dressed up in plastic gonna shake hands
with the masses. Oh no!
Does anybody know a way that a body could get away
Does anybody know a way
Were goin' down the road towards tiny cities made of ashes
I'm goin' to hit you on the face I'm goin' to punch you in your
glasses. Oh no!
I'm wearin' myself a t-shirt that says "The world is my ashtray"
Our hearts pump dust and our hairs all grey
And I just got a message sayin' that hell has frozen over
Got a phone call from the Lord sayin' "Hey boy get a
sweater. Right now!"
Does anybody know a way that a body could get away
Does anybody know a way
Were drinkin' drinkin' drinkin' drinkin' coca-coca-cola
I can feel it rollin' right on down oh right on down my throat
And as we're headed down the road towards tiny cities
made of ashes
I'm gonna lay down in the spa where they coat you
in molasses. Oh no!
Does anybody know a way that a body could get away
Does anybody know a way

-From Tiny Cities by Sun Kil Moon

2. Dark Center Of The Universe

I might disintegrate into the thin air if you'd like
I'm not the dark center of the universe like you thought [x2]
Well, it took a lot of work to be the ass that I am
And I'm real damn sure that anyone can, equally easily work you over
Well, died sayin' something, but didn't mean it
Everyone's life ends, but no one ever completes it
Dry or wet ice, they both melt and you're equally cheated
Well, it took a lot of work to be the ass that I am
And I'm really damn sure that anyone can, equally easily work you over
Well, an endless ocean landin' on an endless desert
Well, its funny as hell, but no one laughs when they get there
If you can't see the thin air than why the hell should you care?
Well, it took a lot of work to be the ass that I am
And I'm really damn sure that anyone can, equally easily work you over
Well, I'm sure you'd tell me you got nothing to say
But our voices shook hands the other day
If you can't see the thin air what the hell is in the way?
[repeated lyrics]
Well, God sayin' somethin', but he didn't mean it
Everyone's life ends, but no one ever completes it
Dry or wet ice, they both melt and you're equally cheated
Well, it took a lot of work to be the ass that I am
And I'm really damn sure that anyone can, equally easily work you over
I'm sure you'll tell me you got nothin' to say
But our voices shook hands the other day
If you can't see the thin air then what the hells in your way?

-From Pickin' on Modest Mouse by Iron Horse

Mini.

Etsy rundown.

Man, there are so many talented, creative people out there. You can find pretty much anything you desire, handmade or vintage, at etsy.com. I've been stockpiling a few of my favourite items and stores and thought I'd share them here.

First off, I'm probably going to buy this t-shirt at Xenotee's shop once I'm finished this post. The swirl is made up of all of the collective animal terms, such as "an unkindness of ravens", a "knot of toads", or a "romp of otters":



All of the hewn resin and silver jewellry at Quercus Silver's shop is very cool. I also enjoy the use of the latin name for oak species:



The wax and oil paintings at Landfall are all completely beautiful. I like sets of paintings and landscapes a lot. Once I have a wall to hang them on, one of these will be mine:




Cardboard Safari is a shop full of quirky things. These remind me of the collection of 2D to 3D animal and dinosaur puzzle toys I had as a child. There's just something really appealing to me about mounting fake animal heads on a wall:




Anatomy of a Skirt makes robot pouches in theme sets. Collect them all! Then fill them with your items! Go from an original robot to a bedtime bot to a spider bot in no time at all! There's a bot for everyone:







And I can't make an etsy post without mentioning the potters. Michelle Swafford Pottery has all kinds of vessels, dishes, and jewellry too:

Ace.

Last Friday, July 10, 2009, I successfully defended my Masters Thesis.

I had been SO nervous for about two weeks up until the day before my defence. That day I practiced one last time for Uta in the room I would be giving my presentation in. I made some minor changes to colours so that the images would show up better on the projector screen. Then I headed home, cleaned up the backyard for the gathering the next day, showered and crashed. I ended up sleeping from about 6:30 till 9:00 pm. I was just so exhausted from being nervous. When I woke up at 9:00 I knew I wouldn't be able to get back to sleep at a decent time so I went into the kitchen and started cooking for lunch the next day. I went to bed around midnight and only had a bit of trouble falling asleep.

On Friday, I wasn't feeling as nervous. I knew everything was going to go well. A lot of friends sent me little notes and things wishing me good luck. I saved them so that I can print them out and stick them in the cover of my thesis once it's been bound. I went into the lab around 10:30 in order to set up and get ready for my 12:30 presentation time. I ran through my results one last time by myself. This was the hardest part to present clearly. My Nana and Papa showed up first. We chatted for a bit and then Dr. Woo (the department chair) and Doug came down to the room. Shortly after that everyone else showed up and it was time to roll.

My presentation went really well. I was relaxed and all of the words came out smoothly. The slides looked really nice too. I have to thank Emily who helped me on the design side of things back when I was preparing my presentation for CSEE. Several people from around the department came to see my talk. There were also a few from across the street, students I had TA'ed, one of my field assistants, Leandra, the only one still in town,, family, and friends, Nat, Andrew, Emily, Andrea, and Pete.

This is me near the end of the presentation. Jayme, my sister, is wearing the zebra print directly in front of the camera.



After the presentation everyone said I did a really great job. I still had to make it through my 2.5 hour oral exam, though. The exam went quite well. To be honest I had so much adrenaline going through me I can't completely remember the exam. Luckily the committee made a lot of notes for me and I'll be able to make changes to my thesis over the next few weeks before I have it bound. Once I had answered all of their questions I had to step outside while the committee chatted about whether I had passed. Jonathan Newman was also in the hallway. We talked about what I was up to next. I honestly don't know what I'll be doing once I return from my trip. I just feel like I need a break from school, but I also want to keep working in restoration ecology.

After everything was wrapped up, the exam committee told me I had passed. Uta and I drove back over to my house where family and friends were preparing lunch. Mom and Dad had also brought the pups all the way from Peterborough for my big day. They were happy playing with so many people and having so many treats. The food and drinks were great. We had (this is a very important part):

-sandwiches with big chiabatta buns, ham or turkey, egg salad, lettuce, cheese, tomato, mustard and mayo
-feta and peppers with pita chips I had baked the night before
-Andrew's coleslaw with raisins
-pickles and olives
-candy...sour patch kids, macaroons, and wine gums
-veggies and hummus
-gin punch I had made with Ontario cherries boiled in simple syrup, organic lemonade, and tonic water
-a mini keg Dad brought

Dessert was insane and it deserves it's own section.

-Emily made a strawberry pie and a raspberry custard tart with shortbread crust. For some reason I didn't have any pie on Friday, but there was some left so I sampled it last night and both were delicious.
-Mom and Dad brought a HUGE carrot cake that said Congratulations Cassandra and had a rainbow that was an inch thick with frosting.

There were also a few presents at the party. Nat brought me $40 Aussie dollars. Their money is very pretty. It's also waterproof because they spend so much time at the ocean. And I don't think you can rip it. It's made of some sort of very fine plastic, I think. Doug brought me Gleason and Cronquist, probably the best flora of the northeastern United States and our part of Canada. He also included the illustrated companion. We made good use of those books during our grad degrees and I hope I need them a lot in the future. He also gave me a really beautiful bowl made by Goldie Sherman, a local potter. It will fit right in at my house because I'm trying to collect an entire set of handmade pottery. Nana and Papa brought me $100 and a sweet card that said not to forget them while I travel. Paul made a little album of some of our favourite pictures from the past 4 years and a bunch of new ones he had taken of my plots this year. I haven't even had a chance to go out and see them, but I'll be doing that in the next few days. He burned me a copy of the entire series of The Wire. I've never seen this show, but his TV recommendations are always the best. Jayme gave me a picture frame and I put one of my grad photos in it. She also stuck in a hilarious fake graduation tattoo.

Emily, myself, Nat, Mike, Kelsey, and Andrew...just after everyone had left and I was getting ready to go:



By the end of all this I was absolutely exhausted. I drove home to Warsaw for the weekend with Mom, Dad, and the pups. The pups slept the whole way home. Here's Missy ready to go:



And Sammy:



Now I'm back in the lab and about to start making edits to my thesis. Once all this is finished I'll have them bound and I'm off on my adventure. So much to do in only five weeks!

Soon.

I will be defending my thesis 38 minutes from now. At the moment, I'm at the front of the presentation room attempting to slow my beating heart. Writing here is helping a bit. I wish my hands weren't so clammy.

Buy this pattern at craftyalien and make me feel better:

A fine piece of writing.

This excerpt is from one of the important papers regarding the maintenance of species richness in plant communities. My favourite part is the final statement.

"Four component niches have to be recognized in a complete definition
of a plant’s niche.

(i) The habitat niche, i.e. the physical and chemical limits tolerated by the mature
plant in nature. The definition should include an expression of the kinds of fluctuations
from the mean climatic conditions which favour the plant’s vegetative development.

(ii) The life-form niche, including an expression of size and annual productivity as
well as three-dimensional pattern.

(iii) The phenological niche, i.e. the pattern of seasonal development.

(iv) The regeneration niche, i.e. an expression of the requirements for a high chance
of success in the replacement of one mature individual by a new mature individual of
the next generation, concerning all the processes and characters indicated in Table 2.

The habitat niche is the plant’s address. The life-form and phenological niches are
the plant’s profession. The regeneration niche includes elements of both address and
profession."

Grubb, P.J. 1977. The maintenance of species richness in plant communities: the importance of the regeneration niche. Biological Reviews 52: 107-145.

Lukebaby.

My tiny Texan cousin and his first baseball cap.

It's here!

And the short list for the 2009 Polaris Prize has arrived! I've added the album covers for my top picks.

The 10 nominees are, in alphabetical order:

Elliott BROOD – Mountain Meadows
(Toronto, ON)

Fucked Up – The Chemistry Of Common Life
(Toronto, ON)

Great Lake Swimmers – Lost Channels
(Toronto, ON)



Hey Rosetta! – Into Your Lungs (and around in your heart and on through your blood)
(St. John’s, NF)



K’NAAN – Troubadour
(Toronto, ON)

Malajube – Labyrinthes
(Montréal, QC)



Metric – Fantasies
(Toronto, ON)

Joel Plaskett – Three
(Halifax, NS)

Chad VanGaalen – Soft Airplane
(Calgary, AB)

Patrick Watson – Wooden Arms
(Montréal, QC)

I have to admit I'm a tiny but saddened that Bruce Peninsula did not make the top 10. I am very excited to check out Patrick Watson however, who has a chance at his second Polaris.

Annnd...I had almost forgotten to add this (thanks for the reminder!), but here's the wall-hanging I made for the Phd student who recently graduated from my lab. This present was not only to say congratulations, but also to say thank-you. He hired me on when I first came to join the lab and has been very supportive throughout my time working here. This wall hanging represents one of the plots he restored with alvar plants on an abandoned Southern Ontario quarry. All of the fabrics are reclaimed from abandoned items around my house. Good thing I squirrel away every little bead, ribbon, and sparkly bit that crosses my path.



A close-up of some of the flowers:



O, and a close-up of my tiny couched signature because I like the way it turned out.