Saturdays in the Garden - When Science Makes you Cry

OUTSIDE

The weather in Iowa this week was SUPER hot and sunny followed by a butt-load of rain.  This combination caused some pretty intense growth in the garden.  It's sort of amazing to watch the plants respond so quickly to the weather conditions.  They may have also enjoyed some of the organic  fertilizer I put on last week.  The tomatoes in particular shot up and all the garlic scapes made their appearance.

Remember how I said a couple weeks ago that pretty soon everything will start going horribly wrong?  Well it's started.  In the storms this week, the top half of one of my sugar snap pea plants broke off and it was OF COURSE the plant and the part of the plant with the most developing pods and blooms.  I was able to harvest a few ripe pods thankfully and I have a few other plants still producing. 

Okay so you can really tell what's going on here but trust me, it's heart breaking.

LIFE

I spent a few days this week hiking around the Loess Hills of Iowa for work.  This is for the second year of a research project looking for a couple of rare butterfly species.  Despite being super hot, as I mentioned, it was nice to get in the field again though it means the beginning of 3.5 months of stress and anxiety.  It's mostly about the weather.  If you're someone who likes to make a plan and stick to it, field work can be a bitch.  The weather is this constantly changing variable that is impossible to control.

Despite the stress I managed not to cry OR fall in love this week.  If you are completely confused right now, check out the #distractinglysexy hashtag on twitter.  A Nobel Laureate, Tim Hunt, joked at a conference about how annoying it was to have to work in mix gendered labs because the women were all distracting with their crying and falling love with co-workers or making their corworkers fall in love with them. Women scientists responded in the best way possible - snarkily.

WATCHING, READING and BLOGGING

So I am still thoroughly obsessed with Longmire.  I watched through all three available seasons and am on my second watch through the series.  I hope to post a thorough and completely gushy post this week about it so that's all I will say except WATCH it!

Books

Finished this week:

Nothing.  Apparently I'm watching too much TV:).

Currently Reading:

- Shadow Scale by Rachel Hartman:  Getting pretty close to the end of this one!
- Robinson Crusoe by Daniel Defoe: I haven't picked this one up in a couple weeks.  Good thing its not the type of book that will be hard to follow if it takes me a while to pick it up again.
- Murder on Gramercy Park by Victoria Thompson:  Book 3 in the Gaslight Mystery series that focuses on a turn of the 20th century midwife and police detective in New York.
- The Neverending Story by Michael Ende:  This one is on hold because a hold came up at the library...
- Fairest by Marissa Meyer: Levana's story in the awesome Lunar Chronicle's series.

On the BLOG LAST WEEK:

THURSDAY: Tough Traveling - Orphans There are a LOT of orphans in fantasy land.

On the BLOG NEXT WEEK:

This will probably be another loosey goosey week because work will continue to require a bunch of travel etc....  I hope to post something about Longmire and hopefully a book review.
 

Have a good week full of puppy wrestling!