Does anyone else find this a bit ridiculous?

A photo from the parking lot where I do a lot of grocery shopping: 

I’ve been negligent

It suddenly occurs to me that I never shared the big news with ya’ll.  At first I waited to get some good photos, then school got crazy, as it always does, and apparently it slipped my mind.

Anyway.  Drum roll please:

No, you aren’t seeing double.

Leif adopted a new dog a few weeks ago.  Now he has a brace of white German shepherds.

Say hello to Vince:

He’s about 18 months and a total sweetheart.  Who doesn’t love a new dog?

Vera is in black, Vince in orange.  His previous owner had to move out of state and couldn’t bring him with.  Sad for them, but happy for Vince, ’cause now he gets to live the farm life.  And, he has a live in girlfriend.

“Um, Dog-dad.  There is a boy lying on my living room rug.  What is he doing here?  Surely you’re not going to let him stay?”

All joking aside, they seem to make a happy pack.  Apparently they play all day.  They run, frolic, wrestle, and constantly try to one up each other for prime sofa and bed acreage and monopolize the petting.  Poor old Rupert, he’d never get a single pet if Leif didn’t toss the two young whippersnappers out by themselves once and a while so Rupert can get some love in peace.

So Vince is settling in pretty well at the farm.  He has decided that Rupert means business when he doesn’t want to play.  He’s learning to respect the chickens as pack members and not chew toys and has a morning chat with the rabbits every day where they stand nose to nose at the bars of the rabbit hutches.  It also seems he has made friends with Duncan the cat, they even share dinner:

So, all’s well at the farm.  Now if only bones would rain from the sky.

 

Constellations in my Borrelia

So, do any of you ever wonder what I do when I’m in my Lyme Studies lab?

I know, you have been dying to know!

Mostly I count Borrelia burgdorferi, the primary bacteria responsible for Lyme disease in the U.S.  There are other Borrelia species that also cause Lyme disease, but most are not found in my neck of the woods.

In general Borrelia are thin spiral shaped bacteria that swim about independently.  However, they do also form clusters of varying size.  I don’t know why for sure, and I don’t know if anyone else does either.  They might and I just haven’t stumbled on that information yet.

Anyway, I am responsible for a strain that has been genetically engineered to express a green fluorescent protein that makes it glow green.  This has many practical applications, it makes them much easier to see for sure, it also makes it easier to tell if the bacteria is alive as dead bacteria don’t make glowing green protein, they don’t make anything if they are dead.

So every week I gaze into a microscope and check for itsy-bitsy green lines on a field of black.  A healthy bacteria culture has millions or even billions of the little critters all swirling about doing their little bacteria thing.  Often there are so many it looks like the depths of outer space, if the stars, planets, galaxies and nebulae were all fluorescent green anyway.  To see them well it is best to turn off the lights in the lab to reduce the ambient light which can interfere with catching a glimpse of the faint green glow, so it really does often feel like star gazing through binoculars.  The other day it so strongly put me in mind of star gazing that I started looking for shapes in the “constellations” of bacteria.

Lo an behold I found Ursa Major!

I think I just discovered the evolution of Bear-relia!

Random dog picture

Because the fall weather yesterday was amazing, and as I sat in a sunbeam doing my homework a heavenly breeze was wafting in, this is really all I wanted to do:

 

Happy Monday, ya’ll

Tuesday Titters, courtesy of the Spud

We saw this VW bug parked by our friend Peggy’s house the other day.  The Spud thought it was cutie.

Then she told me this joke:

What part of your car is made out of snakes?

The windshield vipers.

Umm…

I down loaded photos from my phone.  I have no idea what I was taking a photo of here:

I *think* it might be a thorn.  Guess I need to start putting notes in my phone about what I’m taking photos of….

More Vacation Photos!

Another day at the beach, but the beach in town at the historic home where I give tours: