20% of a PhD
So, my first year is over. Summer doesn't count; it's just a strange and busy break between the "real" semesters. I am taking a seminar this summer in population genetics, and doing some field collecting. The collecting has me all tied in knots. I know now pretty much which species I want to look for, but where to find them? No clue. I'm going to try to go to Kettle Moraine soon, and have found a guy there who might be able to tell me exactly where the plants are. It's a start. This is interesting: a person who was an administrator at Alma when I was there, and a bio professor before that, actually studied the same kinds of things I'm looking at. I found some of his articles from the 1970s. Makes me wonder too if the Alma field station has anything worthwhile for me to collect.

I have finally relandscaped the front of the house and I think it looks pretty nice! Still need to edge it with bricks, else we'll have a mudflow onto the sidewalk. We used a lilac and a Japanese maple 'Sango-Kaku' on either side of the porch, and then a row of spiraea, potentilla 'Gold Drop', another spiraea, and a white azalea. This fall I will plant lots of bulbs and the neighbors will ooh and ahh whenever they walk by. Speaking of the house, we also just got the garage sided in vinyl, and had the crumbling foundation shored up. Doing so really took a toll on the native garden, and I had some difficult moments when I surveyed the damage, but I managed to regrade the soil and save most of the plants. Yesterday I ordered some replacements and I think it'll be nice again by the end of the summer.

Headline in The Onion today: Millions Of Plants Sent From Nation's Garden Departments To Their Deaths.

Poor little juniors!

Star Wars III tomorrow morning at 9:15. I can't WAIT!
- posted by Diane @ 9:55 AM