Brinner

Hello, dark fringes of the web,

Sunday began literally with a bang, as we had thunderstorms all throughout the night. Most of us slept pretty well, I think. Still, there were definitely some thunderclaps right over us in Kensington. Despite this, Alex, Amy, Laura and Leah woke up early in the morning to do some field work for independent projects. Leah, Amy and Alex visited some of our Northwest sites to catch pollinators. Unfortunately, the cool weather and wet conditions meant that there were a whopping zero pollinators to be caught for Leah’s project. However, she did get this pretty hilarious picture of a Melissodes (long horned bee) on a stick.

Straight muggin with a bee on a stick.

Amy had better luck, and did style persistence well into the afternoon, despite some scary looking clouds and losing a coveted sharpie.

The rest of us had more relaxed days. Lea made soup with some of our left over vegetables. James recovered from a mystery illness. Laura and I found a large beetle on the porch of Town Hall, which excreted a mystery liquid from its back when poked. It was really funny, but only because I wasn’t the one who touched the beetle. Many of us put finishing touches on our independent project proposals, and we began editing (ahem, peer reviewing) each others’. We finally followed through on our longstanding plans to have brinner ( = breakfast dinner). Amy, Lea, Laura and I made hash (no, not that hash) with onions and spotty yellow kale, an egg scramble with onions, kohlrabi greens, and Napa cabbage, and pancakes with mystery ingredients. Somehow, we still have lots of onions left — if only we put them in the pancakes! Over dinner, we talked about how to survive a tornado (hint: hide in the bathroom), among other things, and tried to convince James that he was having a fever dream. Tomorrow is back to the field for phenology and whatever else the weather allows.

“Fever dreams” by Laura