December

There is too much to do in December. It is going to be very physically, mentally and emotionally consuming. I need to get my plans organized to get things done.

First, a very happy birthday to my mom! I have a gift for you, but I think I will carry it up to Seattle when I fly up on Dec. 23.

Next, plans:
Today/this week: re-house a bunch of the lab colonies in preparation for my last major experiment, write my presentation for next week's conference in San Diego, more erging, revise Diss Chap 1 and send to committee member, come up with a list of potential postdoc projects to send to committee member.

Next week (12/12-12/15): conference in San Diego.

After that, from 12/16-12/22: work on writing postdoc proposals (probably 2 of them), revising Diss Chap 1 and another manuscript, make sure that experimental colonies are happy/doing well. Finish out the Holiday Challenge.

12/23-1/6: Seattle, time for visiting with family and friends, probably some more writing squeezed in there as well, as needed, for postdoc proposals (due Jan 15).

1/7 onward: run the last experiment, keep writing.

Recent Activities: Tour de Coops

Yesterday was the second annual Tour de Coops, an event organized and put on by the Phoenix Permaculture Guild, and we were one of the coops on the tour. Altogether, it made for an exhausting day - I'd estimate that at least 100 people came by to check out the coop and ask questions about it. One woman said that another coop on the tour (there were around 20 coops total) had people sign in when they arrived, and by the time she got there, over 250 people had signed in! I don't think my numbers were quite that high, but still, that's a lot of people. Many thanks to scrottie and DM for being present and helping out on the big day, and to trifold_flame for helping me with supply pick-up. And also to the three other volunteers who came by to help out. I think I spent a solid 7 hours talking to people about the coop, and learned a whole lot from all of the visitors. Whew. I decided that my overall role in the Tour was to show people that they don't have to make something fancy to house their chickens. A couple of the visitors told me about that one coop, which had electricity and plumbing and was designed by an architect (boy, I wish I could have seen it!). That sort of thing is clearly not possible for someone like me, so it's also good for people to know they don't have to have special skills to keep chickens happy. Another cool part of the Tour was that most of the people who participated were already chicken owners! So they had a lot of awesome stories to share with me, in addition to getting to hear some of the cool stories about our coop. Anyway, here are a few photos from the big day, ( behind the cut... )

A few other culinary adventures...

Since I'm just getting around to uploading and posting photos, I think I'm going to just summarize this one. I've been on a cake-baking bender recently. Two of the recent cakes are pictured below, along with a dish that will probably get its own entry in a day or so, Peanut-Topped Greens. You can click on the photos to go to the gallery and see the rest.

	Apple Cake
	Banana cake with caramel sauce
	Peanut-topped greens