June Evening

The sun, dragging light ever so slowly away.  Leaves and flower blossoms unwilling to let go of today. 

The warm light takes hours to finally wane, and all of nature’s treats bask in color, their edges soaked in orange light. 

Above, gently roving blue clouds, clinging to their own edges of pink, steadily giving way to shades of grey, becoming blue mirrors to the sky. 

Bobbing flowers reflect their spectrum of the sun to the last, but there is no sadness in the coming dark.  It seems as if all living things are breathing slowly, deeply, getting in all of what there is to offer in these,

the longest days of the year. Even in dusk, with the sunlight faded, there is a glow and those bright flowers, those deeply green trees still show.

There is so much life in a summer night.  And June is the best of it.  The air full of flowers and cookouts, the breeze that never chills, the concerts in the park, Frisbees flying.  The gardens that were planted in May become confident now, the plants growing faster, their blossoms showing full.  They have optimism and they must.  It’s now or never.  Enjoy.

Massawippi, Quebec

Summer Fun

Well, our fantastic summer weather brought on a completely unintentional blog hiatus!  Oops!  That, and my incredible need for a summer vacation seems to be sapping all the creative life right out of me.  But, it will happen soon enough! 

Scientists out there, do you ever tire of talking science?  At the moment, I’m so burned out from molecular markers, protein expression, and various physiological parameters that I can barely begin to think about writing more science in my blog.  And this was supposed to be a science blog.  And I was supposed to be a scientist.  Oh, dear. 

So, until I get freshened up, I hope you’ll roll with me.  Maybe after my vacation I’ll feel fresh enough to delve back into science and what’s special about being a part of it.  But in the meantime, in this heady June air, I have been rather busy delving back into life itself. 

One thing I know for sure:  definitely one should always begin the summer with a camping trip.  I learned this the first weekend in June.  Do it right off the bat.  Black flies, be damned!  Although I came back looking like I had a bad case of the chicken pox, I’d still take black flies over those whiny, awful mosquitoes any day of the year.  Camping was a fantastic way to start things off and let that summer greenness ooze right into your pores, as well as copious quantities of SPF 45 and DEET.  And we went canoe camping, at that!  One of my new favorite things in life is canoe camping.  Lakes are not as fun as rivers, and headwinds are never fun at all, but there’s something special about being out on the water, powered by your own newly mastered J-stroke.  We visited Lac Mauricie National Park and while, generally, there was a lot of that lovely peace and quiet that is only found in the woods, including that wild and crazy call of the loon, we also had the pleasure of listening to a bachelor party about a kilometer off, over the water.  Turns out, they had brought a Chewbacca suit for someone to wear in the night and scare the pants off of the lucky groom-to-be.  This explains a lot of the ridiculous noises we heard, and makes me glad my friends never pulled such a trick on me. J

view from the campsite.

Charlie Murphy Says

Charlie Murphy says, "You should always try to help out.  I help with the laundry."