Froggy waters

My work schedule has recently changed, leaving me with a big chunk of the week free. Of course, the other part of the week will be more stressful now, but free days linked together is nothing to whine at. And coupled with the good weather, I have spent a good part of it working in the garden.

There is a lot to be done here. With all the moving and renovation projects the last two years, our own home and garden have been some what neglected. There is so frigging much that has to be cleaned, repaired, replaced or relocated. So for the last few days I've been doing some big maintenance on the ponds. I'm becoming concerned Jinx has indeed been actively chasing my frogs, this is rather worrisome but impossible to prevent. The few bits of toad-spawn the ducks didn't destroy have hatched and are now all over the pond. They're soooo cute, but their presence is preventing me from using the bigger filters, since they get sucked into it. This means I have to clean more by hand. Darn it. The hours of sitting and leaning over the pond has made me rather stiff.

I've also been pulling out the ivy that has been growing everywhere while our watch slackened. Especially in the back of the garden where we keep the tree nursery and the compost heap. We've cleaned up a big space that had been overgrown and useless and turned it back into a usable potting space. I've filled two big garbage containers already with ivy, slated for composting. My fingers are also rather sore and some blistered. Ivy is not a plant that surrenders easily....

There are also a number of saplings to be removed and put into pots of their own until they've grown a little bigger before they're relocated to the forest. Unfortunately it's a little too hot for moving saplings right now, and many of the freshly-potted ones look ailing. It's amazing how quickly something as slow-growing as a tree can wilt. There are more than enough saplings through-out the garden, but they'll have wait until cooler weather. I don't want to risk anymore.

But three days of working in the garden also mean sunburn, no matter how thick and often I slathered on the sun-screen. I have a pale skin and it shows. My parents often joke I give enough light on my own to scare away the sun (harhar). And the sunburn iiiiiiiiitches. That is always the one thing that I dislike in gardening. Such torture! If you want me to confess anything, put me in the sun for three days and let me go another three without after-sun creme, who needs water-boarding?

Current Mood: accomplished

Last night I watched the Indiana Jones with the Arc of Convenant. Afterwards, since I wasn't tired and the rest had already gone to sleep, I watched the end of a 60's movie on another net. The preview termed it a horror movie, although as horror movie it was assuringly mild (or I won't have watched it long, I'm a wuss).

Then I went upstairs but when I turned on the light in the corridor, I heard this low, menacing hum. Thinking 'that's one big fly', I turned around. Unfortunately the insect coming to the light bulb was not a fly but one of those bloody big wasps that sometimes end up inside the house. I sighed, yawned, and decided I'd do the catching tomorrow.

So, I entered my room, changed and went to bed. But as I was putting away a book on my nightstand, I heard this soft scratching. Now Jinx has a tendency to scratch at my door at night when he's bored. This sound was far too subtle for Jinx, unless he was drawing one claw slowly over the mat in front of my door. And what ever purpose does that serve?

I was becoming a little bit concerned, wondering whether I should not have seen that horror movie. Sure, it was mild, heck even the melting and exploding nazis from Indiana Jones were far nastier, but I'm a wuss with an overactive imagination. And even a mild movie is enough for my imagination to take a strange noise and run with it until I have a scenario scary enough that Christopher Lee and Boris Karloff spontaneously ask for a role.

Then I hear this short, faint buzz.

It's that damn wasp that's crawling under my door towards the lamp!

I turned off the light, but I could tell from the buzz it was already in the room. Now, there was no way in hell I was going to sleep with a big wasp in the same room. All kind of disasters could be happening then, and all were likely to end with me getting stung. That wasp had to go.

But there was another problem, namely the set-up of my room. I have a high bed, raised on top of my wardrobe. It puts the end of my bed, where the ladder is, underneath the lamps on the ceiling. I could not get off in the dark, because I didn't know where the wasp had landed. If I turned the light on, the wasp would be circling the light and be too close for comfort to my escape route.

So there followed a mad scuffle, involving me turning on the light, doing a lightning-speed check whether the wasp was neither on the bed or on the floor below the ladder and half-jumping and half-climbing off the ladder with a very angry buzz close above my head.

Luckily there was a glass jar by my desk. So climbing back on the ladder, precariously hanging on by the elbows, I managed to catch the offending insect rather quickly. It was a bit anti-climatic, but I'm not complaining. Like all recalcitrant insects she was later fed to the rock lizards. Serves 'er right.

Of course I was that worked up by then that sleep was very elusive for a long while.

Other people can blog about having to battle say, wild dogs, persistent cats or amorous moose. I get a wasp. For some people wasps are enough. Besides, I doubt I could feed amorous moose to the rock lizards anyway...

Current Mood: good

Sweet mother of unicorn (still thank you for that expression, Kenna) where did all my free time go?! All my weekends just go *poof* and are planned full all of a sudden. This has never happened.

This weekend too is filled up. Bigsis is moving and every one is mobilised. I can't say I'm particularly looking forward to it. But a sister's got to do what a sister's got to do. And who knows I might cash in on the favour when it's my turn to move in somewhere else. And there may be a party involved. So it can't be that bad.

I just wish I hadn't picked this weekend as well to land some mild stomach bug. Fne.

As this is the Year of the Frog, and as I've named this LJ 'Froggy waters', I think I should talk a little more about well... frogs. So I was thinking of more linking to frog news, and maybe doing some odd frog profiles once in while as writing and research exercises. As much as I like frogs, I will be the first to admit I know far too little about them.

So let's start with this nice news from the blog of the Cleveland Metroparks Zoo. The Panamanian golden frog is (as I might have mentioned earlier in this LJ) one of the many amphibian species threatened by the Chytrid fungus-infection. In fact the situation became that dramatic that the best solution was to collect all these brightly coloured frogs from the wild in an attempt to preserve this species in captivity so that maybe -hopefully- they can be released into the wild again in the future.

But it's nice to see some people are thinking further. Releasing or re-introducing them back into wild will solve nothing if their habitat is still infected with the deadly fungus. So a couple of zoos are looking into breeding frogs that are more resistant to the fungus.

The best bit of this (for me) is that there will be no messing with genetics just yet. They wish to select individual frogs that have a natural, higher production of antimicrobial peptides (AMP), and breed with those. The AMP's are compounds found in the skin of these frogs that also plays a part in their immune response system, so one can see why these could be important. It is hoped that the offspring will have more resistance to the fungal disease.

Of course, they're only in the first stage of the project yet, with identifying AMP-levels in the individual frogs. The rest and whether the project will even succeed is still far off. But it is the best news I've heard in a while.

Current Mood: grateful

( I think it is now official... )

Current Mood: holy librarian, Batman!

I'm home, I'm still a bit overwhelmed so this will be a short post of impressions.

Paris looks like any other city, really. So Brussels.
There is no friggin' Dutch to be found anywhere in Paris. Not even among the gazillion languages folders in the Louvre. There is no way in hell there are more Nepalese people coming to see the Louvre than Dutch-speaking folk. You hear? No Way In Hell.
My feet are killing me. Like, totally.
Am broke. Like, not yet totally, but 20 euros all I have in cash left right now. Still, no regrets.
My French must be very bad. If I ask something in French, people will answer me in English. Come on, guys, give me a chance here. I promise I will understand most of what you say! Most of it, probably, anyway.
Saw the Louvre. Twice. Am in heaven.
Have now unquenchable urge to paint a mushhushhu escaping out of the bas-relief of the Babylonian Ishtar Gate. Them Babylonian dragons is cool.

Current Mood: overwhelmed

The parents went to London last weekend, leaving me for three days into solitary possession of the house and its contents.

PARTY!

Well, not really, the first day was spent cleaning, but since I have found the greatest ecologically friendly (and nice smelling, hmmm lavender and rosemary...) cleaning products, it was okay. The second day was spent agonizing over my cell phone that fell out of my pocket when I was cleaning the pond of dead leaves. Yeah, you can imagine how that went... Miraculously still works. Still, amazing how wet it can get on the inside, considering it was only dunked for less than two seconds. Apparently I have reasonably quick reflexes to grabbing things that go Titanic in the garden pond...

In the evening I had two friends over for a Pirate of the Caribbean marathon viewing of the 2nd and 3rd movie, coupled with pizza. I still haven't quite worked out this friends' dynamic when they all have long-term boyfriends and girlfriends, in one or two cases even promoted to husband or wives. Are you supposed to invite their significant others along? Or open the invitation and leave it to their discretion? I know some people keep their separate friends circles, but some tend to mix them. Not sure how to properly proceed in all that. But the evening was nice, and we decided we should do it again, which is always a good indication.

Sunday I did absolutely nothing, except relay the trains and busses to the returning London travelers and make dinner. Got some souvenirs too, including two DVDs I've been hunting for for aaaages. (Dear DVD producing company, please update your website, you've been misinforming me that this DVD series was only released in region 1 and region 4. Now, I'm holding DVDs in my hand that have been released last year and are clearly region 2. You suck.)

This weekend, it's my time to go abroad. I'm finally, finally, being the last of the family to do so, going to see the Louvre. To this I say: "About time." and "WOOOOHOOOO!"

See you next week.

PS: Dear parents, stop worrying I am 26, I speak French to a resonable degree, I am travelling with my sister and her boyfriend. Paris is not far away from Belgium. We're only gone for three days. I think I can manage this without getting into too much trouble, really.

Current Mood: bouncy

Spring-ing in
I was sitting at the computer earlier this day when my dad came upstairs holding out his handkerchief at the edges. Something is clearly inside it. "You'll love this," he says as he hands me the handkerchief.

"Is it alive?" I ask, perhaps stupidly, but it can never hurt to know whether you can flip the contents of the handkerchief carelessly on the table, whether it's better to have a careful peek inside or whether you should run like hell.

"It's lucky to still be so, I nearly ran it over," dad says. "I got it from under the car."

So gingerly separating the edges of the fabric, I peer down into two lovely bulging frog-eyes. First frog of Spring! And it is a very nice frog. A European common brown frog and looks in prime condition. Pretty feisty too. It looks a bit smaller than our resident common brown frog, who has very lovely distinctive marbled markings, so I at first thought it might be a yearling. But then again our resident marbled frog is a bit on the large side, so it might just be sexual dimorphism. Females are often larger.

"But... but... the pond isn't ready yet!" I say distraught.

Dad just smiles sardonically. He likes this way too much.

So we put our new frog in the pond. I don't know whether it'll stay here, or move on to a pond more to its liking, but it'd be cool if it hung around.

And if the marbled one is a female, maybe he'll get lucky if he sticks around for a while.

And it'd better be decent weather tomorrow because I still have to do some major cleaning on those ponds...

Current Mood: content

Leap Day!
Today is Leap Day, not just any Leap Day but Leap Day in the Year of the Frog.

I take it you can guess today's topic. ;)

Frogs, as you will know, are not just some of my favourite animals, but are in a bit of a tight spot this day and age. They suffer from habitat loss, pollution, a deadly fungus infection sweeping the globe and then some. To cut a long story short, a frightful number of them is facing extinction within our lifetime. A good deal of them have already croaked their last. (I have to say, despite this topic being rather grim, there are quite a number of puns available when writing about frog extinction...)

So 2008 has been named Year of the Frog by conservation organisations to highlight the frog crisis before they all gone off towards the Big Pond in the Sky. The numbers are dire: About 3000 frog species are threatened with extinction and that's about half of all known frog species today. 165 frog species believed to be extinct already. (numbers from Amphibian Ark website) For the Panamanian golden frog this is already a reality. Every frog they could find has been lifted from the wild, and put together in a holding facility while their own territory is over-run by a deadly Chytrid fungus.

So, this is my bit to spread the word.

Check out the website of Amphibian Ark. It's the organisation that aims at setting up breeding centers to maintain endangered frog population in captivity, in the event of their disapearance in the wild. (The logo from the site is also damn cute.) The Year of the Frog project is also supported by sir David Attenborough, a man I admire much and whose documentary series Life in Cold Blood about amphibians and reptiles is airing right now on BBC. Catch it if you can, it's breathtakingly good.

The Amphibian Ark website also has a petition to call for more action for the frogs. Please consider signing it, it costs nothing and it can do much good. Also, there's a blog aptly called Frog Matters that keeps up with the project.

So one of the cats attacked me today.

I'm still pretty miffed about it.

I had caught Jinx doing something he shouldn't. So I was sitting on my haunches and holding Jinx by the scruff of his neck, telling him what's what. Jinx, naturally, doesn't like being admonished (he's a cat) or being held by the scruff of his neck, so he was meowing and hissing and generally making a scene.

The next thing I know, two sets of claws are simultaneously planted in my backside. A very low place to attack, if you ask me. If only I had had the time to finish dressing. It wouldn't have made quite such an impact if I had been wearing my jeans. Just my luck, I guess.

I turn around and Smaug is looking at me like she want a piece of me. I did quite a double take there. Smaug is an ex-traumatised kitten. It took us two years before we could stroke her and she still doesn't like being held. And she attacked me, without warning, from behind. The little vermin. Would you believe it.

Needless to say, both of them got away scotch-free and I got to clean up the mess while nursing both my hurt bottom and a grudge.

They'll think again come feeding time, though.

And why is it that the rest of the family finds this oh-so-hilarious?!

Fne.

Current Mood: annoyed

Not my brightest moment
This story happened already a while ago, but I just remembered it and thought it might give some of you a laugh.

So I visited the music store a while ago to look for a certain CD. They were renovating the shop but stayed open at the same time, so half the store kind of resembled a building site. Some of the ceiling was laid bare, and here and there there were electric cables hanging down.

I located the shelves where I had to be, navigated the wood of loose electric wires and started flipping through the CD's. But the cables distracted me and I found myself looking at the nearest one, wondering if there was still electricity on it.

Hmm, I though, how do I find out whether they're still connected? That's easy, my brain said, just grab the end of exposed wire and you'll know. Luckily for me, my sense of self-preservation kicked it at that moment with a loud: "Noooo! Idiot!"

Yes, for a second there I was convinced the best way to see if the electricity was on, was to grab the cable with my bare hands. And to think I've been working with electricity cables several times the months before...

Current Mood: amused

Happy Darwin Day!

And now back to installing kitchens...

Current Mood: bouncy

I just received a message that a friend of mine from high school just became mother. Great news! But the fact that I didn't even know she was expecting really shows we haven't been keeping contact as well as we used to. Ah well, off to the train tomorrow for a visit after hitting the baby clothes-shop!

Other than that it kinda brought home the message that I haven't done much with life since graduating. I've not been doing enough with my life in the last two years, barely achieving anything worthwhile. I could plead certain circumstances, but the deal is I've been lazy, much too lazy. And that's got to change.

So before this month is out, that driving license is going to get it! Or rather, I'm going to get it, before this gets too ridiculous.

I'm going to utter the phrase that's probably going to damn me for the rest of eternity but:

How hard could it be?

Most curious
I've got a post in my journal in which I complained about a certain computer game. For some reason it attracks spam. Every two months or so I have to delete spam-post in the replies. Considering it only even happens to that post and considering the post itself is already more than a year old, I'm rather intrigued rather than annoyed by the whole thing...

I'm getting kind of worried over my fostership of Icholta, my 'orphan' elephant in the Tsavo reserve. Admittedly, I may not have thought things entirely through when I stepped into the project in 2000. I knew male elephants leave, or get kicked out of the herd when they're old enough. Females generally stay in the herd throughout their life. So I had sort of assumed Icholta would always remain in the herd at the re-introduction center in Voi, run by Dame Daphne Sheldrick.

I suppose part of it was wishful thinking, I would have liked her to stay in contact with the human caretakers so I would get news of her doings often. I didn't quite reckon with the fact that she might actually, fully return to the wild, which -let's face it- was the whole point of the exercise anyway: that orphaned elephants could be raised in a surrogate herd so they could be re-integrated into the wild population again. I always told myself I'd remain fostering her well into her sixties when she'd be a matriarch in her own right. I may have to re-think that now.

Dad's foster elephant Imenti has been in the wild for a few years now, and news of him is parse. The Belgian-Dutch agency through which we fostered therefore pulled Imenti out of the fostership packet, although we managed to pursuade them to let dad keep Imenti's fostership. We may not get news of him anytime soon, and they can't send us a picture every year anymore, but dad said he got attached to Imenti and would like to remain fosterparent if only in title.

Now that Icholta, and many of her age mates have made the big jump into the wild, I may find myself faced with a similar situation. In fact, Icholta has already been removed from the list of foster elephants on the website, so I'm kind of worried. On top of that, I didn't get any communication from the foster-agency when my membership expired. It didn't help that at the same time the Belgian part of the agency ceased to exist. Exactly why is unclear, but there seemed to have been some trouble between the Belgian side and the Dutch side at the bottom of it, since all notification we've got is that the Belgian vice-president of the agency quit suddenly and that all communication had to go through the Dutch office, instead of the Belgian one.

All things considered, the prospects don't look good... But I'd really hate to lose Icholta. With luck, though, I might be able to foster her directly through the David Sheldrick wildlife trust, but it will be a lot more complicated than through the local agency. We shall see what the Dutch head-office replies to my mail.

Current Mood: anxious

I was going over my last posts in January last year, just to see what I was talking about again a year ago. I was kind of pleased to see I didn't make any new year's resolutions in 2007. God knows, none of them would have been fulfilled anyhow.

But I did notice that my very short resume of 2006 could easily fit 2007 as well:

the world wriggled and shook from time to time (yes, still did in 2007 and probably will in 2008, there seems to be a period of heigtened seismic activity laterly);
people threw bombs at one another, only now in a few new places (no news there);
Cassini is still happily zooming around Saturn (still is, my precious, and who gave us some tasty photographs this year too, yes, my darling little Cassini);
the weather went wonky, or even wonkier than last year;
there was internet drama, by the loads (actually this was a little mellower than last year);
Kim Gevaert and Tia Hellebaut nabbed European Gold (yes, again!),
the seas got even more depleted (no surprise there);
there were incidents and accidents and many misbehaved;
our digital book database actually still works (still does! We've passed the 4500 books record and my bookcase is oh-so-cramped-full);
Flanders was independent for 90 minutes (Not quite this year though, but man did we get a fall-out out of that incident! Six months after the election the politicians still couldn't form a government, they had to settle for an interim government for three months. So we're not out of the woods yet.) ;
and the Chinese River Dolphin died out. (Now officially declared as 'critically endangered, possibly extinct. Douglas Adams was right to name his book "Last Chance to see". Too late now.)

What else happened in 2007 that didn't in 2006?

Bigsis got her own house, damn her;
Hubble's upgrade is confirmed! The most important instrument in modern astronomy, a.k.a. the Hubble Space Telescope will be repaired once again to serve another 10 years to improve our understanding of the universe;
A cure for the deadly fungal chytrid infection was found! Sadly, we're still a long way from implementing it on large and longer scales. The very last Panamanian golden frog was collected out of the wild only months ago in a desperate attempt to save the species from the approaching infection and extinction.

What I will be looking forward in 2008:

Life in Cold Blood, the last (sniffsniff) documentary series of one of my heroes Sir David Attenborough;
Columbus, the ESA space lab addition ot the ISS being finally launched;
Hubble being repaired and upgraded;
The Olympics in China;
Maybe finally some rest on the renovation, building and moving side of life;
2008 has been named Year of the Frog by several conservation agencies;
and good health, satisfaction and fun for all.

Current Mood: contemplative

Stan's the man!
So I was reading an article about the Institute for Natural Sciences in Brussels. It's one of my favourite museums although it's been years I've actually been there. They house the famous Iguanodon collection from Bernissart. (Largest collection of same species dinosaurs in the world)

They're quite magnificent, mind you, but they're the only large dinosaurs we've got. This may not sound too exiting to the people on the other side of the ocean who've got museums filled with Tyrannosaurs, Allosaurs, Triceratopses or sauropods. (I still think it is very mean of God to put Hell Creek in Dakota.) But hey, you go with what you've got, and admittedly the Iguanodon collection is spectacular enough. Even though they're mounted very old-fashionedly upright.

Recently, the museum has finished a long renovation of the Dinosaur Gallery and upped the collection. In the first weekend of the opening people were queuing out into the street. I haven't been able to see them myself yet, although I plan to, but the images I've seen on TV are promising indeed.

The Iguanodons are still mounted upright, because they've been like that for over a century and repositioning them could cause damage. But there's supposed to be a replica of a skeleton that is moved in the more scientifically correct position. It is also said to be in the progress of breaking out of it's display case. Hm, sounds promising.

I nearly went through the roof when I saw they now also have a Triceratops. I don't know whether it's on loan or a cast, but it looks smashing. I first saw one for real in the Dig a Dino exhibition a few years back, when several skeletons from American museums went on tour. Very impressive, let me tell you that.

So I really wanted to go and see, but wanted to wait until the number of visitors lessens a bit. I don't quite like crowded museums. But now that I've read this last article, I don't only still want to go, I just have to go. Why?

They've got a cast of Stan!

Stan, if you're not familiar with him, is one of the most complete Tyrannosaur rex skeletons ever found, the second most complete if I'm not mistaken, he comes only after Sue, like, the most famous T. rex evar. The real skeleton is displayed in the Black Hill Institute, in South-Dakota. You can see how that is just a little out of my way...

I cannot NOT go and see Stan. I don't care if it's a cast only, it's a friggin T. rex! Wheee!

Somebody up there really likes me.

Current Mood: excited

I 'aven't got much to say. Christmas was nice in general.

We watched Pirates of the Caribbean 1 and 2 on Christmas Eve. Originally we were only going to see the second one which none of us had seen yet (blame our busy lives). But by accident they were showing the first one on BBC and we sort of started watching and didn't stop. So it was 23.30h when we put on the second movie. Mom had to be poked awake at some points. It was not bad, but I think I prefer the first one, some of the scenes were just... too absurd.

God only knows when we'll ever get to see the third one, although I did get the DVD as a present.

Normally my grandparents would have come over, but because granddad has a nasty cold, we decided to move their visit to Old Year's Eve. But so we ended up with too much food, which means we'll have fondue for the next few days at least. Not that I particularly mind...

Bigsis and boyfriend came over for Christmas. I got a lovely cat calendar and a cute turkish box. We had to speed-wrap a gift for mom because we had forgot. Sis' boyfriend is now contemplating my murder because I got Bigsis a disney movie she loved from when she was little and still can quote in full. Sis' boyfriend is developing hatred for said lyrics. Maybe the middle-east archaeology book I got him will be enough as peace-offering.

Current Mood: normal

So I did get sick.

It took a week of walking around in blankets, heavy heads and doping up to go to work before the cold started to succumb. I started to entertain mental images of said cold being trampled by hordes and hordes of white blood-cells. It clearly deserved getting that beating as it made me pretty much worthless for a week.

Then I spent a week of trying to convince myself I wasn't sick anymore. See? No more blankets, no more zombie looks and no more hurting heads. I'm cured! Healed! I can walk again, er wait no, I could do that before as well...

But then I immediately had to spoil it by coughing deeply with noises you usually hear on TV and in video games, coming from people dying a very slow death. You know the death throes when you hear it. I also went through the handkerchiefs at the rate of 6 a day.

Curses.

My mother would look at me and silently pass me the coughing syrup.

But that was last week. I'm cured now.

Really.

Current Mood: fooling myself

Kill the incubator!
Sis came home for a visit the weekend before last. I can't quite imagine why she came in the first place as she left again early Sunday morning because they had to go elsewhere. Now I'm thinking she came home only to infect us.

See, sis had either a cold or a developing flu. Mom caught it and incubated the bastard-germs within days. Cue coughing, sniffling, shivering and a generally not-so-bright temper. She's having trouble getting rid of it, since now, ten days later, she's still not showing signs of improving.

Worse than that, she's spreading the damn bug. Dad and I started to have an itchy throat and now we're well on our way to getting sick on our own. You can escape catching a bug from a sick person on one day, but you can't if you're living with a sick person an entire week, who makes your food for a good part of the week and fails to label her water bottle from which she drinks directly.

In short, we were doomed from the start.

It's... annoying, feeling the starting symptoms of a cold and knowing you can't do nothin' but wait until it breaks and you're down with at least a weak of coughing, sore throats, thick head, cold and warm periods and generally grumpy moods. In my case, I'm sure add a never-ending trail of wet handkerchiefs and no voice to the bundle of fun.

And we're at the start of the busiest time of the year, you know, pretty much the only period (minus those fours weeks of the summer holidays) that you really can't afford to go down with something. After next week we're supposed to be on a seven-days-a-week work schedule. And after that comes the sales period and the mandatory inventory.

And when I accused my sister of infecting us all, she just laughed. Cruel woman. I hope that coughing syrup of hers taste as nasty as she claims it does.

I'm probably being very childish, because nobody really wants to be sick or be responsible for somebody else falling sick, but damnit, couldn't she have stayed home for one lousy weekend?

Fne.