My new favorite game August 27, 2008

This past weekend, I met ladder golf.  This is my new favorite game!

Ladder Golf!!

Friday  night we went to a pal’s house to play on his newly built from scratch ladder golf set.  Ladder golf is played with two of the above PVC ladders while opponents throw at them.  The thrown item, as you can see above, is a piece of rope with a golf ball attached at either end.  If you throw and it hits/ties onto the top rung, its 3 points, middle is 2 points, and bottom is 1 point.  The scoring system is cumulative, and each team plays to 21 points.  Best of all, you can play it and a have a beer in one hand.

Chasing Le Nonpareil August 24, 2008

This is the bird I had the pleasure of working with this past week.  The Painted Bunting.  It was possibly the easiest field work I have ever done, I have to admit, though the hours were a bit grueling.

First a little background on this bird: the Eastern population of this bird spends its summers along the coast of the SE US, from about Morehead City down to Florida and around towards Alabama.  The Western population summers in  Louisiana and Texas, I believe.  The Eastern population is under serious pressure from coastal development, and has been the focus of a neat citizen science study in the past few years.  This is a species that uses feeders without hesitation and so homeowners can easily collect the data for this study. In the winter the Eastern birds go to the Caribbean, and the Western birds to Central America.

For the past two seasons a full time technician, Sarah, has spent her summers driving around the coast of NC and SC visiting private residences and various public lands where feeders are set up, and banding the birds that feed there.  Banding is where we give the bird some ankle jewlery;  one silver band with a US fish and wildlife id number, and three colored plastic bands so that each bird can be individually identified.

I don’t want to minimize the work that Sarah has done by saying its very easy,   she lives out of her car and works incredibly long hours (her days frequently involve bird surveys too) in a very hot part of the country and she manages the demands of 4 different supervisors.  Go Sarah, you are amazing and you know it!

Well, this past week Sarah went to visit her family so I got to do a few days of work in the Wilmington NC area.  The schedule was like this: get up at 5, and go to my first site and set up the cage from 6-11am.  Then, take a break and band at a different site from 3-8pm.  The first morning I worked at Carolina Beach State Park and caught about 16 birds, some new, some already had bands.  Well, that doesn’t count the same two birds that I caught about every 20 minutes (I informed them that they were the statistical definition of “trap happy”).  That was the busiest session I had.  On Wednesday I did not catch any birds at all.

The trap works sort of like a lobster trap.  Its a big metal cage that has a feeder hanging in it.  We remove and hide the regular feeder the homeowner has, and then hang up our cage.  It has 4 small entrances.  The birds can get into the cage, but they can’t figure out how to get out.  Once in the cage, they usually just sit and eat seed until I come over and take them out and band them.

Getting up at 5am wasn’t that bad, though I didn’t have a flashlight and its still dark at 6 which made set up a little tricky.  Especially when you go the wrong house like I did one morning!  The fact it was a full moon helped because I could see a bit. I think my favorite part of my work this week was the fact that I got to hang out in such pretty places; the parks were so nice, especially one night where I sat in the shade of a big Live Oak and watched the sunset over the Cape Fear river.  Additionally, all the homeowners I met were so nice!

Sitting and pulling Painted Buntings out of a cage is less strenuous than tromping around doing radio telemetry, I will say that.

Double kick drum by the river in the summer August 12, 2008

I used to be a big music geek (now I am just a plain old geek).   Following music as seriously as I did was practically a full time job…there are SO MANY bands, and so many of them are worth a listen.  Over time, my priorities changed, and now the only new music I listen to is recommended to me (I listen to anything you say, Areseven!) or forced upon me at work in the lab, or found on NPR.  But, despite all this, I have found a new band, a discovered a new appreciation for an old favorite, courtesy of the Wilco and Bon Iver show last Friday in Cary.

Bon Iver (pronounced Bon eve-air, not Bon eye-ver, like we kept calling it) is a mellow, musically stripped down band featuring a guy who sings partially in falsetto.  The music has a vaguely folksy sound to it but more like rock than bluegrass.  Its great stuff, and I highly recommend it.  Skinny Love is a great song.  Bon Iver is not particularly far removed from my other favorite band, The Bowerbirds.

Wilco; what can I say? I go way back with this band, though I had never seen them live, and my music apathy had led me to mostly ignore every album since “Yankee Hotel Foxtrot”.   The show played into my nostalgia by playing a lot of older stuff, which was so great to hear.  It was sort of like a visit with old friends.

I went hoping to hear some of 1997’s album “Being There” and amazingly, this was the case.  “Being There” is a particularly evocative album for me; I listened to it almost exclusively when I worked in Texas one summer and hearing it now brings me back to the very flat gulf coast of Texas.   When the horn section came out I thought “oh wow, they could really play ‘Monday’ up right!”  and when they played it it did sound just amazing.  I think they played about half of that entire album.  Other highlights of the show for me included  two joint Billy Bragg/Woody Guthrie/Wilco ventures”Remember the Mountain Bed” (most romantic song ever), and the goofy “Hoodoo Voodoo.”  I enjoyed the songs off of “Yankee Hotel Foxtrot”, too.   The whole show made me want to dive back into Wilco, and go get a bunch of the albums I am missing.

Finally, a word about the venue:  Koka Booth Ampitheatre is a really beautiful and acoustically great setting.  Set on a lake, the gently sloping lawn is surrounded by pine trees.  A large deck across the back and the artistic stage finish the scene.  They even have free parking!  Makes up for the fact its in Cary!

A few of my favorite (food) things… August 4, 2008

Since I got back I have been enjoying cooking, and I wanted to share some of the tastier things I have made.  My absolute favorite recipes these days are coming from one of two sources:  Smitten Kitchen (see that little link in the upper right corner of the page? Yup, that’s it) or from Sarah Foster, who I wrote about a few weeks back.   For my favorite Smitten Kitchen recipes, I am just going to link to them; Deb is a much better and more entertaining writer than I so you should get it from the horse’s mouth, but I will write out Sarah Foster’s recipes.

*Zucchini Sauteed with almonds.  This is so good, easy, light and flavorful!  Pretty much what it says but check it out for yourself. Plus right now there is an abundance of zucchini, like, everywhere.

*Chocolate Idiot Cake.  Do you have a party to go too?  Or know someone with a serious chocolate love?  Do you like to receive compliments galore on your cooking?  Make this cake! Its very easy and the name comes from the idea that it is so easy, only an idiot could mess it up.  (FYI the first time I made it, I, uh, well you can probably guess).  It is actually David Lebovitz but I found it via Smitten Kitchen.

*RIBS!!  Sarah Foster’s ribs are the best!!  Here is the secret: slice and onion thinly and put it in the bottom of a 9 x 13 pan.  Then throw your ribs on there.  Cover with a bottle of beer (cheap is ok, and who wants to waste the good stuff cooking) and seal it up tight with aluminum foil.  Bake for 2 hours at 325 degrees.  Then throw them on the grill just long enough to caramelize your favorite barbeque sauce or rib rub or whatever.

*Arugula salad, also from Sarah Foster.  My brother just went to Italy and brought me back some real deal Holifield parmesan cheese.  Take a big bunch of arugula and wash and tear into a salad bowl.  Add to that 2 heads of endive, chopped.  Get out the parmesan and use your vegetable peeler to put about 3 ounces in there.  This part is actually sort of fun. Anway, then sprinkle on salt and pepper (use the good stuff, from the grinder).  Toss with this dressing:  1/4 cup olive oil and 2 tablespoons white wine vinegar.

*Blueberry Crumb Bars. I have made tons of blueberry buckle this year, so I wanted something different to bake using the blueberries so abundant right now.  These are easy and tasty!

Bon Appetit!