I recently lost the most awesome umbrella ever – short when folded up, but large and sturdy when open – so I currently only have this golf umbrella my dad lent me. It’s a nice enough umbrella except for one thing: it really never stops being large and sturdy and even folded is approximately half my height. So I spent all day Tuesday carrying this ridiculously large umbrella everywhere I went in anticipation of rain. It didn’t rain. And it didn’t rain. And finally I got to my lab at the end of the day, completely exhausted, propped my umbrella against the wall and promptly left it there. Of course, when I got downstairs it was raining. I seriously considered going back for it, but I was just too ready to be home. Luckily the rain wasn’t too bad, so I when I showed up at cheese club later that evening I at least didn’t look like a drowned rat on top of showing up by my self. Continue reading
Tag Archives: project
Iowa Bird Watching
As I mentioned in my Monday Musings, I’ve already started to have birds show up on my balcony! In hopes of attracting more I’ve decided to prioritize getting a feeder up, although I don’t know if it will get much use until I have some plants out there to provide shelter for more cautious birds. This week’s book, Iowa Bird Watching, was a great introductory resource for a beginning Iowa bird-watcher or for someone like me who is mostly hoping to watch birds from home. The book includes lists of the best places to go birding and of the top ten must-see birds in Iowa. In addition, there are beautiful pictures provided for the 100 most common birds in Iowa. The sections I found most helpful were the bits on what to feed different birds and a list of bird-friendly plants. Continue reading
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Filed under Nature, non-fiction
A Great Wildlife-Friendly Gardening Book
This week I’ve been reading Welcoming Wildlife to the Garden and I can’t wait for warm weather so I can try some of their suggestions on my balcony! The first thing I noticed about this book was that it had a lot more in common with A Spring Without Bees than I expected, even knowing they’re neighbors in the dewey decimal system, because this book was incredibly eco-friendly. The authors counsel against using pesticides, suggest Integrated Pest management (using natural predators to get rid of unwanted bugs, as suggested in A Spring Without Bees), and clearly love all animals – even the creepy crawly ones. Personally, I’ve always loved all animals and even think flies are cute when they wash their faces with their legs, kind of the way cats do. So finding a book which seemed to see the best in all animals was like finding a kindred spirit. They even explain how to attract snakes and spiders, which I think a lot of people really wouldn’t go for. I was ready to draw the line when they started talking about Crocodilians, but fortunately the authors didn’t suggest attracting crocodiles and alligators to your yard! Instead they observed that if these animals visit your backyard “that may be wildlife enough”, which made me laugh 
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Filed under Nature, non-fiction
A Spring Without Bees
This weekend, I finally finished A Spring Without Bees. This was definitely not a book which took a while because I wasn’t into it, but because I was busy. Plus I had to restrain myself from stopping every few sentences to write down interesting facts about bees! Did you know, bees travel approximately 7 million miles per gallon of honey they produce? All I can say is that if people did that much work for a gallon of honey, it would probably be worth its weight in gold. Continue reading
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Filed under non-fiction, Science
Photography Friday
This week I stayed a little closer to home for my photography and finally got the perfect lighting to take a picture of this interesting shadow created by my balcony rail. The Ames Camera Club abstract photography competition is coming up next week and I think I may enter this picture as well (everyone may enter up to 3), so wish me luck! I hope everyone is having a great weekend
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The Cheese Experiment
First, a few brief blog updates. For subscribes who haven’t stopped by the blog in a while, there is now a description of my rating system and a blog roll available in the side bar. I’ve also started using Twitter for the first time after reading a post by Kelly at Call Me Bookish about why she finds tweeting worthwhile, so you can now find me there as well. And finally, I also received a Pintrest invite from Gretchen at The Happiness Project and I would be happy to pass on the favor, so if you’d like an invitation just e-mail me at kxw116 [at] gmail.com. Alright now… on to the cheese! Continue reading
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A Preview
This morning, I finished the last book from the Percy Jackson series, and I must say, I loved the ending! Although I expected a twist, I wasn’t able to anticipate what actually happened, which was nice. As Jen at The Introverted Reader pointed out, character development was a strong point of these books and it was a lot of fun to see where everyone ended up. So, having finished the series, I would still highly recommend them
Looking forward, I’ve gotten my next few books for reading through the Dewey Decimal system from the library and I’m pretty excited about them! I’ve also decided to participate in my first meme, Musing Mondays, where book bloggers ponder thoughtful questions from Should Be Reading, the meme’s host. Today’s question is: How far along are you in your current read before you start thinking about what you’ll read next? As you can see from this post, I usually know what I’m reading pretty far in advance, just because I can’t help picking up large stacks of books every time I go to the library. Fortunately, I don’t usually bring a tote bag, so I’m limited by the number I can carry! But I typically still pick out my next fiction series and a chunk of non-fiction on the same or similar topics to read next. So, without further ado, the next few books in my Dewey Decimal Challenge:
638 - A Spring Without Bees - According to wikipedia, a section on “insect culture”, which at my library meant a section on bees. Since I don’t think I’m up to the challenge of raising my own bees, I chose this environmental novel over a how-to book. It seems a little over-dramatic but also gives an interesting view of the ways our food industry depends on bees.
639 – This section was something of a hodge-podge, with books on owning a variety of non-mammalian pets to books on conservation and home gardening. I was tempted to get one of the books on pets, since I’ve always liked animals, but I’m pretty sure if I did I’d be tempted to get a fish, turtle, or bearded dragon – for science. So to avoid the temptation, I instead picked up two books about environmental activists: Nature’s Second Chance: Restoring the Ecology of Stone Prairie Farm and The Eye of the Elephant: An Epic Adventure in the African Wilderness. The subtitles summarize them pretty well And finally, I picked up a book called Welcoming Wildlife To the Garden: Creating Backyard and Balcony Habitats for Wildlife. Although I don’t have a backyard, the section on tips for attracting wildlife to a balcony sold me on this one. I’m sure my cat and I would both love to watch birds and butterflies if I can make a suitable habitat on my balcony.
So here’s to a week of good reading! Feel free to post your own thoughts on the Monday Musings question in the comments or on your own blog.
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Filed under Monday Musings
