Non-Monkey Rodent

The delay in D.C. caused us to cut out our trip with Happy Cricket to the beach. After delays in Miami, several aborted landing runs over Quito and an unexpected night in Guayaquil, we abandoned our plan of visiting Isla de la Plata and seeing the boobies because we just weren't up for a 12 hour bus trip after the airports and airplanes. So we arrived in Quito and headed almost immediately to Mindo (immediately the next day after visiting some churches, an art museum, the botanic gardens, an internet cafe, two bars . . .).

The small town of Mindo sits in the cloud forest

but that didn't stop the children marching down the main road for well over an hour from looking parched and about to pass out. We did not discover the reason for the festivities, but we did pick out a school for Ewaldina (our fictitious future child) if we should live on the Western Andean slopes near the equator.

Our second day in Mindo we went bird watching. It was a fabulous excursion, filled with tanagers, wrens, a helpful tucanette and eleven species of hummingbirds.

While watching the hummingbirds, I became excited by a loud rustling in the trees: a monkey! Or at least my first wild rodent in South America.

The Best Laid Schemes . . .

The Mister and I had modest plans for our recent trip to Ecuador. When my dear friend Janet (aka Happy Cricket), a Peace Corp volunteer in Ecuador asked us what we wanted to do while there, our list was fairly straight-forward:

1. see boobies-- both red and blue footed


2. spend time by the ocean


3. admire volcanoes


4. take a crazy train ride through the Andes


5. hang out with Janet in the cloud forest

We successfully completed #3.

I'll be posting about our adventures as the photos and thoughts become organized, but I'll start with the extra fun prairie dog had in Washington D.C.
Prairie Dog spent a few days in the George Washington University Hospital re-assuring Janet that her surgery would be fine. Janet, you see, broke her leg badly just before we were set to arrive in Ecuador. She was medically evacuated from Quito to D.C. late Sunday night. We were set to fly early Monday morning from D.C. to Quito. Miraculously, we had e-mailed her the phone number of Bee Sorter, who we were spending Sunday night with, we managed to change our tickets without penalty, we had good friends to spend time with in D.C., and the constantly changing plans were communicated even though nobody actually spoke with another person until late on Monday.

In the end, we were able to hang out with Janet in D.C. as they put her ankle back together and Janet's and my beach-ready toes were for naught (Follow the "Happy Cricket" link to see photos of Janet's post-surgery green toes and new ankle hardware).

The best laid schemes o' mice an men gang aft agley.
Robert Burns "To a Mouse"

I think I'll avoid both Burns and Steinbeck this year, but there are some nice mouse references currently unexplored.

Food for the Rodents

In an attempt to make better habitat to attract the local marmot to our yard, in the last week the mister and I have planted 4 vegetable beds, 1 butterfly garden, a small herb garden and a new flower border.
We are now off to sample the rodents in the southern hemisphere.

Vivre!

To celebrate completing the end of classes, the Mister and I drank a bottle of Vivre California Sparkling wine last Friday. It was nice. The kind of pale, fine, sparkling wine to add ameretto to to make sparkling almond. The wine was nice. It was even nicer to be done with classes.

JanKris Sparkling Almond

I recently mentioned to the Mister that we need to drink our sparkling almond, a statement which immediately evoked disbelief, "We don't have a bottle of sparkling almond," and then curiosity, "Why do we have a bottle of sparkling almond?"

We have a bottle of sparkling almond because we bought a case of unusual sparkling wines while we were in Colorado, and sparkling almond was something that we had not tried before. We have now. If you want to replicate the experience and JanKris Sparkling Almond is not locally available, (on-line I found only four purveyors, 2 in Colorado, 1 in Delaware and one somewhere else. It is not listed on the winery's current web site,) take a fine, pale, inexpensive sparkling wine and add a dash of amaretto (clear amaretto if such a thing exists). There is nothing wrong with a slightly sweet sparkling wine that smells like almond flavoring, and I imagine it is probably a much better accompaniant for wedding cake or many brunch items than finer champagnes, but pork and lentils are a bit much for it.

Fox Squirrel Habitat

The fat Fox Squirrels probably live in the Core Arboretum because of the arboretum's density and diversity of oak, beech and walnut, but the squirrels surely enjoy galloping among the bluebells, larkspur and trillium each spring.

RIP Nibbles

A rodent with whom I interacted on a near daily basis died yesterday. Nibbles was a geriatric guinea pig living the good life in the basement wet lab absolutely pampered by our custodian. Nibbles was years and years old when she came to my co-worker years and years ago. Not surprisingly, Nibbles never endeared herself to me, because, well, Nibbles was an old guinea pig in a cage. Rodents that bite as pets in cages really don't do anything for me. Still, I am sad that Nibbles died before I had a chance to take her picture for the blog.

My colleague asked if we should have a memorial service and burial for Nibbles. I consented with the caveat I would unlikely keep a straight face.