The most troublesome invasive species in my backyard garden is the snail.
Yesterday morning, when I took out the buckets of shower-warning-up and vegetable-rinsing water to feed to my plants, I was horrified to find snails on my carrots, snails on my chard, snails on my potatoes, snails on my garlic, and especially snails on my tender pea plants.
The strawberries that were starting to get nice and red? Shot through with slugs (which are basically snails without the convenient handles).
On top of our wee little lime tree? Snails copulating.
This is not a situation conducive to effective gardening. Thus, the sprogs and I mounted an early (for a Saturday) morning raid on their dewy, shady stomping (sliding?) grounds.
Today’s take: in excess of 500. (We lost count.)
Category Archives: Personal
Update from the department retreat.
We have just stopped for lunch.
Out of ten agenda items, we have covered three.
Kids today.
It is not easy to be a tremendous Luddite parenting 21st century kids.
Currently, the Free-Ride offspring are learning the intricacies of Photoshop.
Maybe she misses her old glasses.
I’ve been poky about getting my eyes checked regularly.
I got my first pair of reading glasses in the last year or so of my time as a chemistry graduate student. About nine years later, shortly before the eldest Free-Ride offspring was born and in the midst of an intensive stretch of writing, I managed to go in for another exam and got my prescription updated. Last month, after a stretch of about ten years, I got my eyes checked again and got another pair of reading glasses.
The very hungry Free-Ride caterpillars.
A few weeks ago, the Free-Ride family welcomed some new members.
About 14 new members (although it can be hard to get an accurate count when they’re squirming around).
Oh really?
In a chat with a colleague today, I learned the following:
Ask a silly question …
Ah, Spring! The time of year when children wear sandals and then admonish their siblings not to pick their toes on the way to pot-luck dinners.
Yesterday’s toe picking prompted me to tweet a question that was mostly facetious:
The Earth Day 2009 resolutions meme.
Mike Dunford initiates a meme for Earth Day 2009:
I’d like you to take a minute or two to come up with three things that you can do to be more environmentally friendly. The first should be something that’s small, and easy to do. The second should be more ambitious – something you’ll try to do, but might not manage to pull off. The third should be something you can do to improve something you’re already doing.
I love this meme! No matter what habits you’ve already cultivated (and we’ve cultivated a few), there’s always room to optimize them. So here are my Earth Day 2009 resolutions:
Just out of curiosity …
I’ve been noticing a little spike in traffic from search engine searches on “Luk Van Parijs” (about whom I have blogged here and here and here and here).
So of course, I wonder: why the sudden spike in interest? Has there been a new development since the Office of Research Integrity “final action” on Van Parijs’s research misconduct? Is he applying for jobs and getting Googled? What’s the story?
A chat with Uncle Fishy about beekeeping.
Frequent commenter, sibling, and bon vivant Uncle Fishy recently set up a backyard beehive, but lately he’s been worried about the bees. This came up in a recent online chat:
Dr. Free-Ride: So, what’s worrisome about your bees?
Uncle Fishy: i dont know if they’ll make it
Dr. Free-Ride: 
Uncle Fishy: there were fewer coming out to sting me last night
Uncle Fishy: maybe it was just past their bedtime
Dr. Free-Ride: Maybe they had better things to do than sting you again