My beef with wildflowers.

I never really liked flowers. Call me crazy, but it's true.  For the longest time, I thought I simply disliked them in a dating sense- as in a don't-ever-get-me-flowers-because-anything-that-dies-within-a-couple-days-isn't-worth the money type of way. But I've found (especially after having spent the past 2 weeks observing and attempting to identify them) that it's not just that.

I just don't like 'em.

The truth is: they all look so damn frail. Their true identity is always a, "maybe it's this, but it could be.." And half the time they don't smell too great.

The truth: all three of those qualities bug me. 

For starters, I like to look at something sturdy - not something that's missing petals because the wind blew too hard.  I guess you could say that the way I feel about botany is the way I feel about most all things in life: I like firm handshakes, well-grounded people, strong coffee, black tea, waterproof mascara and non-wilted petals. I just do. I feel like all the flowers we saw at the LLL were either missing half their petals or looked like a sorority girl the morning after senior formal. And then she ran a marathon. Like I said, I don't like it.

And then there's the whole identity crisis thing. Dr. T told us that sometimes she'll come out to the LLL with her botanist friends and they'll get into these long arguments about species identification.  Long arguments? In the biology classes I grew up in, we presented our points and then someone conceded. As in there was a right answer, and if it wasn't wholly evident, then the species was probably a hybrid. But nevertheless, there were no maybes. It was this or this: end of story.  Our class went back and forth arguing about whether a flower was a scarlet mallow or an orange mallow.  Naturally I look towards the professor for her final judgment.. You can imagine how horrified I was when she said something along the lines of the answer being arguable. Arguable? Yeah no, that word is associated with grey in my mind, and I'm more of a black and white typa girl.

A flower whose name I never figured out:

Don't judge me on this last point (although I know it's superficial), but when I smell a wildflower, I expect a happy scent. That was not the case with the flowers. You can blame my generation for my false expectations and superficiality.. We've been raised on Bath & Body Works. We expect a juniper breeze or white fresh cotton linen or floral tropical breeze scents when we put a flower to our noses... the ones that sound as pretty (albeit cheesy) as they smell.  You can imagine my surprise when I was trying to identify a member of the Aster family and the description was, "bitterly aromatic." For some reason I don't feel like that's a scent BBW covers... call me superficial, but skunks are meant to smell bad --- flowers are meant to smell like... well.. flowers.

a scarlet mallow... or was it an orange mallow?

backstage passes at the museum.

Two Wednesdays ago, our class met at the backdoor of the Ranching Heritage Center for a tour of the bird collection led by Dr. McIntyre (the bird curator/biology professor). She started by showing us through a room filled with all kinds of mice specimens, and then led us to the beetle room. 

Yes, beetle room.

I have an intense fear of clusters of little things (a cluster of beetles would be a great example), but thanks to Dr. Hamilton's forensic entomology* class, the beetle collection wasn't a surprise to me.  We had learned in her class that museums use dermestids (skin beetles) in order to clean skeletons of any remaining gunk or soft tissue.  To see, however, her lesson on the skin beetle's usage up close and personal was another lesson of its own. The room was guarded by a double door, smelled terrible, and I have never seen so many damn clusters of beetles in my life. Yuck. Cool, but yuck.  Apparently, if a couple of the dermestids get free into the museum, they can wipe out whole collections with their insatiable hunger. So that was interesting.

Another interesting part of the tour was Dr. McIntyre's explanation of the museum's genetic library.  I had known that the biology department at Texas Tech has a library of herps* and tarantulas, but I didn't know that it went any further than that.  Apparently, the museum also has a genetic library for birds and rodents as well.  Genetic libraries are useful for species identification through looking at the specific sequence of DNA each specimen has and comparing it to other members of the species on record.  Neat stuff.

**forensic entomology: the use of insects to solve crimes --- most often in cases of murder. One of my favorite classes in undergrad.  

**herps: herpetology: the study of reptiles and amphibians.  If you take the course, you shout, "HERP!" anytime you spot like a frog or lizard or snake.... and then you go catch it if it's a friend of jack. 

Bird Skinning.

Either I've been behind in the educational part of this blog, or I've just gotten a lot of education in the past couple weeks. Maybe a combination.

A couple weeks ago,  Dr. Nancy McIntyre was kind enough to open her lab to us to watch her teach her students how to skin and stuff birds.  As the bird curator for the Ranching Heritage Center, Dr. McIntyre skins birds to put on collection at the museum for educational purposes.

All of the birds, of course, have died of natural or unjust causes and are given to Dr. McIntyre to use for the bird collections.  So, one Friday after my organic evolution class, a fellow biology student and I headed up to her lab to check it out. When we showed up to her lab, she was directing a group of students in skinning all different owls from the area (barn, great-horned, burrowing, etc).  

The lab was pretty neat--- like nothing I've seen before in my 4 years of biology at Tech.  Everyone had their own bird, and Dr. M would just walk around the room teaching and guiding her students. It was fun to watch them learn --- especially since most of them were first time skinners. To give you a glimpse of the procedure: she takes out all of the soft organs*, leaves the muscles in the wings, and fills them with what looked like corn meal.  Compared to other dissections I've seen, the whole process looked relatively not-messy.  

I like the idea of her involving students in helping fix up the birds to be put on collection.  While I sadly can't say that I've ever gotten to take one of Dr. McIntyre's classes, I recognize her teaching style-- and it's one that I like.  She uses hands on projects to teach the students, and her projects involve students with something bigger than the class: the project is not only useful to the course, but to the community as well.  You see, if done right, the birds can last for more than a hundred years. If you think about it, that's 100 years of education using the very bird that one of the students in her classroom preserved. I enjoy the idea that Dr. McIntyre's lesson I got to witness that Friday in lab will continue for many years to come.

the librarian goes scandalous.

A couple months ago, a friend of mine, Elizabeth, asked if I would be willing to give her my dimensions for a fly-fishing outfit -- since I'm a fly-fisherwoman and all (novice though I may be).  She needed to make the outfit for her senior project, and so I agreed to help.  So, over the course of the semester I stopped by her house to stand there awkwardly while she took measurements of regions I didn't know existed. Soon enough - her beautiful outfit came together.  At one point, she asked me if I would be willing to wear the outfit on the runway for her spring-senior fashion show. I agreed.

I already found it humorous that anyone would ask me - a whopping 5 feet and 3 (and a half) inches tall, weighing in at a good 3 twinkies over what I should - to walk on a runway, but I obliged.  So, this week I happily attended the first "fitting" for the show.

I was the shortest "model" there.

Definitely had eaten the most twinkies out of any of them.

AND I felt like a garden gnome. In a valley. Between very tall mountains.

But, I was okay.  While most of the models strutted around half-naked in between the multiple outfits they were asked to wear, I sneaked into a yarn closet to change into the fly fishing gear.  I wasn't upset that I was the only model in the room without visible collar bones, and I was honestly kind of grateful for it --- I mean I didn't have to worry about being asked to model anyone's outfits. I mean I'd get to leave early.

And then it happened. 

A girl came up to me and asked me if I was a model.  I think my reply was something along the lines of, "mrrrrrnooooooshyessssskindofffbutnotreally."  She asked me if I would try on a dress she had designed.  I couldn't say no.. I mean, leave early or not leave early: I was flattered, and I was interested to know what type of dress she would need me for.  I was curious. Maybe something for a plus-sized model.

But I was Wrong: it's a pleather, "rocker", halter top, skin tight cocktail dress.  I went into the closet (of course) to try it on, and I was quite positive that it wasn't going to fit over my junk, and I was right.  My chest looked like 5 pounds of sugar stuffed into a one pound sack.  After vocalizing the issue, another modest model who was in the closet with me piped in, "maybe you should take your bra off."  Wait. What? Surely not. Oh no. We wear bras with cardigans. We wear bras in public. It's only right, right? If you're thinking, "yes," then I appreciate your conservative values.  However, those conservative values are now in the trash - because I unhooked the damn thing, watched the cups of my conservativeness fall to floor and zipped up the dress.

Now I'm no prude--- I've worn my fair share of risque things. Granted, that was in high school. But, as time has gone by, I guess you could say that I've made progress that's opposite to what's normal for a college student: I've gotten conservative (in terms of clothing at least).  I do not wear heels (unless they're an inch high and closed toe), I wear cardigans with everything, and I've received comments ranging anywhere from "you look like a Sunday school teacher," to "I've never seen you without 4 layers of clothing on," to "college librarians wear less."  There are exceptions, but for the most part: I keep my "goodies" covered. I leave a lot of room for the imagination.

Anywho, I walked out of the closet in the dress.  The designer loved it, and the professor approved.  There was talk of me wearing a blue wig, carrying a guitar, and black knee-high high heeled boots with smoky eye-shadow.  I couldn't help but laugh to myself---- the day before my roommate had asked if I had a Cosmo to borrow, and then conceded she'd have more luck asking Chewy for one ---- and now these people were talking about me wearing sex-appeal. 

I guess we can chalk this experience down as that liberal transition thing every college girl undergos before she graduates.  Granted, I always that those experiences included tongue piercings or tattoos or other things I do not wish to say aloud (or type), but whatever. This counts.

So now, this Saturday, I will be walking the runway twice: once in fly-fishing gear and Chacos, the next in a black pleather glove with 4 inch heels. See you there.

The before:

Elizabeth McKnight's wonderfully comfortable fly fishing gear (don't you love the pastels?!) Thanks to Catherine for taking this!

Rebecca's lovely dress. (Thanks to Catherine for taking this)

bathtub psychics

I guess I realized that I was a practical psychic in the bathtub a couple years ago.  I didn't have any plans, but something told me I should shave my legs anyway... Naturally being the heathen I am, I didn't listen to my inkling -- only to get a phone call later in the day demanding that I showed up somewhere in a dress.  I kicked myself in the pants for not listening, and swore to myself I would never go out in public with stubble if it were avoidable again.

The inkling still comes back from time to time... but it's always been reserved for similar situations: I'll get the inkling, shave my legs, and then something happens like the bipolarity that is Lubbock weather will take a turn the next morning --- and it'll be just warm enough for me to wear shorts.   I originally thought my psychic ability was only reserved for embarrassing leg stubble... until this weekend.

I had spent all Friday stressing about these damn medical forms that were due Saturday, April 10.  Come Saturday, I finally finished them - but my job was only half done -- they still were not in the hands of the medical school.  I decided that my best bet would be to deliver them to the school personally, so I stapled the forms, and headed off toward the door.  And then I had an inkling.  Something in me demanded that I go back and grab an envelope. I thought to myself, "oh of course - maybe the secretary won't want loose forms and she'll ask me to put them in something." So, I grabbed an envelope, and headed to the door again.  Just as I was turning the knob, the inkling came back. I felt urged to go back to my office and grab a stamp.  I agreed to myself, "oh sure, might as well put some stamps in my satchel just in case I need them one day."     So that's what I did, and I headed off toward the medical school.

When I got there, after having spent 30 minutes walking through the med school labyrinth, I found the office I needed.  It was locked. No way in, no how, no whatever. Feeling a little panicked, I left the building.  I decided that I would instead go to the post office and have the letter over-nighted.  I figured they probably wouldn't get it until Monday, but they would see that I made an earnest attempt to get it in on time.  I high-fived myself for the good idea and drove over to the post office.  I understand if you're currently thinking to yourself something along the lines of, "idiot, the post office is closed Saturday." Because yeah, I walked up to the building to find the doors locked.

My innate response to situations like this is to call my mother and ask her what to do.  I flipped through my purse for my phone, and EUREKA! There was the envelope and stamp that my bathtub psychic ability told me to grab!  I shoved everything in there, labeled it, stamped it, went to the post office box to find that my letter could still be mailed locally that day, and sent the forms off.  I was a little shocked at how perfectly it all worked out.

So now I'm thinking that my psychic ability has begun to stop prejudicing against everything except for embarrassing leg hair warnings.  While I don't plan on joining any psychic hotlines anytime soon (although I'm sure their abilities are about as juvenile as mine are), I think I'll start listening to my little inklings more often. 

Disclaimer: this is not to say that my legs are always shaved in shorts.  Even bath tub psychics get lazy... judge me. 

i think this makes us tree huggers...

The past two weeks, my fieldcraft class had the pleasure of doing a little community service for the LLL*. Our job was to plant native species of trees in designated areas all over the site. Now I've used a shovel before, but I've certainly never planted a real tree ---- I was right in guessing that it would be an interesting first experience.

Within minutes of beginning planting, I could already tell that the day might be a battle of the sexes. For starters, the learning tree --- the one the class all helped to bury, was actually planted by all of the men in the class.  As it is at a cocktail party, the women congregated off to one side, and the men to another (in this case: the side where dirt was being hardily shoveled). But the women-sitting-around-chatting while the men showed off their testosterone with fire-rakes and shovels was quickly dissolved.  We split off into groups, and it was every student for themselves after that.

My tree planting group was the self-named, "Girls Team" and we were a pretty efficient bunch of diggers and buriers.  Our mascot, Nic, tilled up the soil for us, we dug in, he tilled a little more, we dug again, fit the tree in, covered it up, made a dirt halo surrounding it, and then watered the hell out of our new Hack or Soapberry tree.  We were a pretty mean group of tree planters for a Girls Team.. and Nic. Our efficiency, however, would not have been possible without sarcasm, "That's What She Said" jokes, and Nic's angelic serenading abilities for fuel.  We worked hard and played hard.

On another note, I would just like to say how much I enjoyed one of our professor's reasons for why we should be enthusiastic about planting trees for the LLL.  She brought up the point that one day many years from now we could come back with our children and show them the trees we planted.  I like this idea.  Mainly because I kind of like the sound of having a family and raising children in this area.  Planting the trees was almost symbolic in a way of getting used to the idea of raising a family here ---- I like the idea of putting roots into the soil of west Texas... of planting myself here and growing.  I wouldn't mind coming back to the LLL one day to introduce my family to where my roots were first planted.

** LLL - Lubbock Lake Landmark