And what, you wonder, does The Son do there?

Ahhh yes, what is The Son doing at MBL. It really has nothing to do with Marine life, but everything to do with biology. He's in a lab studying ants. Not ants exactly, but some bacteria which live inside of the cells of ants. And not really the bacteria so much as the DNA of those bacteria.

As I understand it - and I don't really - living inside the other cells makes the DNA of these bacteria interesting.Because it's inside the cell, there are certain ways it changes. For one thing, it is protected by the cell. Not because the cell is helping it, the cell is only protecting itself, but that inadvertently protects the bacteria. So the part of the DNA that would affect protection, isn't there. And there are other ways in which living in the cell makes the bacteria's DNA different, but I forget what they are. I seem to remember (though I could be wrong here) that the DNA chain is short. Or something.

But the point is, this is really basic science research, not with a specific goal in mind other than the accumulation of knowledge about DNA. And even though I don't understand it, I can see that it is quite interesting.

Snow, Beautiful Snow

We awoke this morning to a beautiful, proper snow storm. Son of COG tried to go skiing but announced, coming back into the house, that it was too windy to ski. There are wonderful big drifts around fences and walls and big trees. The Bride, reveling in memories of the wonderful snowstorms of her Northern childhood, feels quite cheerful and is humming winter songs.


The COG, on the other hand, is walking around the house, peering out of windows and muttering under his breath about when to get up the snow. For, as it so often does here, near the ocean, the snow is already turning to rain. Clearing the drive too soon will result in a drive coated with ice. Too late, and the snow will have an impermeable crust of ice - too heavy for the snowblower. At exactly the right moment, the snow will have been a sponge, holding the frozen rain so that after snowblowing, the drive will be washed clean by rain.

Ohmmmmmmm the Buddha Speaks

Son of COG just told us a Buddhist joke.

Q. What did the Buddhist say to the hot dog vendor?
A. Make me one with everything.

Radishes?

These weird vegetables were part of this week's share. They were labelled 'storage radishes' and they taste like radishes. I put a teaspoon next to them to show their size. I'm not quite sure what to do with them. When I showed them to the Son of COG and he said they looked like something from Blackadder.

Owl Update

Son of COG spent some time observing the owls last night and he told me that the owl blob I saw wsas actually one of the parents. The baby owl was a different owl-shaped blob slightly lower in the same tree.

He had a bit of excitement when one of the parents flew right over him - close above and went to feed the Owlet. He said that he knew owls make no noise flying, but it startled him all the same that the one flying over him was completely silent. No soft whoosh of wings or anything.

I found a link online where you can hear the sound we've been hearing, just click on the option for 'Owlet calling for food.'

http://www.owlpages.com/owls.php?genus=Bubo&species=virginianus

I love living here in the wild kingdom.

Great Horned Owl

For a couple of months we've had a strange bird sound outside at night. It's a kind of little shriek that repeats every 30 seconds or so, for long periods during the night. James has identified it as a Great Horned Owl - a young one, who is asking its parents for food. Tonight James actually found it. It's at the top of a tree in the marsh across the street from the house, not far from the road. I've just been out to look at it. It's just an owl shaped thickening at the top of the tree -- but the shriek is definitely coming from there. Even though you really can't see anything, it's exciting to see the blob, when all we've had is the sound for months. I downloaded this picture, but I haven't found a loop of the sound that I can copy. I'll work on that. We have a program that has the sounds of all the native birds, maybe I can copy it off of that.

Gomez: The Cat of The Bride of The COG (for Amy)

Dogs are new to me, but I have loved cats as long as I remember. We only have Gomez these days, so it was fun to be around all the cats in Oregon.

Gomez has started sleeping with us every night since we got back from Oregon. Ninja always slept at our feet and it has taken me months to not feel her still sleeping there. So it has been a little odd to get used to it again. Odd but nice.

He has also become very affectionate to me of late. I think he is missing Son of COG, who is working full time, plus taking a math class at Salem State, plus bird banding etc. This morning he stretched across the keyboard of my computer while I was trying to type. Shoved along, he stretched out right next to me, purring loudly and sweetly touched the side of my hand with his paw.

There are a couple of times of day when he has scheduled affection in his cat day timer. Dinner time, of course, but even when his dinner is put out, he still wants to cuddle for a while before he eats. Then, mid-way through the day he usually tracks me down for a brief cuddle. When he has had enough, he disappears.

Since it's warm here today, he is outside in the shade having a mid-afternoon nap. However, he allowed me to take his picture.

He's a mellow cat. Sociable, but not very demonstrative. He's also a one-person cat, or one and a half. James is his primary person, but I am his emergency back-up person. It's little difficult for him to get to me, with Sheba guarding me all the time. Like an overly interfering secretary, Sheba feels it's her mission to keep my time uninterrupted by others. Or perhaps it's Sheba's deeply buried herding instincts, trying to herd her away from me. Or her not deeply buried enough 'kill all cats' gene.