mushrooms

In my last post I had a photo of D taking pictures of a mushroom. I took pictures of the same mushrooms she did next to Candler Lake, and then got some more when I got home.

at Lullwater

also at Lullwater

in my front yard

front yard, again

and, the front yard still

in the larger rose bush pot

and again

lunches at lullwater (and more turtles!)

Lullwater Estate has become the lunch destination a couple times a week for D and me, with or without other friends. It's nice to get out and move since we've typically been sitting for up to 4 hours. I figure we're walking about 1/2 mile each way. The park-like setting is relaxing, and it's pretty and peaceful there. We typically walk along Candler Lake to the dam at the end of it.

path along Candler Lake

dam

tower on far side of dam

D nerding out taking pictures of a mushroom (pictures coming soon)

path heading back to school from the dam

Also, today we saw our turtle-friend Donatello again, with the rest of the crew!

Donatello and Leonardo

1) Michelangelo, 2)Leonardo, 3) Donatello

At the other end of the lake we found Raphael.

If you didn't already know this... you can click on any of the pictures to see a larger image.

gardening update... and another new friend!

I've been here nearly 4 weeks now... my garden has been growing for just under 3.5 weeks.

Here's the update:

tomato plant - 25 june 2011

check out these tomatoes!! - 27 june 2011

zucchini, still no fruit - 27 june 2011

lettuce, looking more lettuce-like - 27 june 2011

mint growing like crazy! - 25 june 2011

The grape arbor outside my door (see it here - "new home")isn't really MY gardening, but it's still cool:

grapes - 27 june 2011

These are probably Muscadine grapes, native to the Southeast of the United States. I'm kind of curious to see how they taste, I guess they won't be ripe until august or maybe late july.

AND I mentioned another new friend! There's a little rabbit hopping around the yard, I first saw it Friday or Saturday on my porch - it was weighing the options of hopping 2 feet down to the lawn below or letting me get closer to it. It chose the 2 foot drop. I've seen it a few more times since, and finally got a picture of it today in the front of the house.

donatello

Move new places, make new friends, no?

D and I walked out to the Lullwater Estate for lunch last week, maybe it was Wednesday. It had rained the night before, so we were searching for a dry(ish) place to sit. Suddenly, I noticed a LARGE turtle sitting under the trees just off the grass.

His shell is probably 14" long. We decided to sit down there and have lunch next to our new friend. D named him Donatello. He's a pretty shy guy, tucked his head in quickly and then all his feet when we got too close. He moved his head out to watch us for a while. But he hung out right next to us the whole time we were there.

Yesterday (Tuesday) we walked out to Lullwater Estate again. As we got near Candler Lake, close to where we sat the previous week, we spotted Donatello again! This time, he was cruising over toward the lake. I didn't know a turtle could move that fast:

(double-click the video to start, i dunno where the "play" button is!)

Today we had lunch at Lullwater again, and sure enough, we saw our buddy! He had parked himself on a rock just out in the lake a bit. He's getting shyer... We were maybe 50 yards away when he slid into the water and swam away. He's got some lungs - we saw bubbles for quite a while before he resurfaced.

If you can't see him in that picture... well, maybe it's because he's not visible. But that's the same water in which he swam. I just aimed the camera wrong.

it's really started!

Today was the third day of class. So far we have had about 19 hours of lecture, 5 hours of Anatomy Lab, and 1.25 hours of a mandatory meeting. To finish off the week, we will have 10 more hours of lab and 2 more hours of lecture. It's exhausting - it is slightly fewer hours than a full-time job, but my last job certainly didn't require sitting in a chair for most of my working hours!

My Anatomy Lab table gave me the "most improved" award since I was actually participating in the dissection today. NOT my favorite thing, I must say. It's very interesting, but I still don't like it.

Right now it's raining - there was thunder and lightning earlier. The beauty of it is that the temperature outside has dropped pretty drastically, making it quite comfortable to have the windows open. For the most part, it's been hot-hot-hot. And humid enough to keep me uncomfortable...

small scale gardening

As I've got a nice outdoor space outside my door, I've started a mini container garden. Here are my efforts so far, all with a start date of 4 June 2011:

Lettuce from seed - 7 June 2011

Lettuce from seed - 13 June 2011

Zucchini - 7 June 2011

Zucchini - 13 June 2011

Tomato - 7 June 2011

Tomato - 8 June 2011

My tomato plant has 2 visible tomatoes so far, and I believe at least one more will make an appearance tomorrow!

Tomato - 13 June 2011

Mint - 7 June 2011

Mint - 13 June 2011

The mint is from my Aunt Kathy - she dug it up from her home in Oklahoma, put it in a pot and then in a couple plastic bags, and we carried it with us!

Chrysanthemum - 13 June 2011

This chrysanthemum was here on the porch when I moved in, all dried up and dead looking. My dad chopped off nearly all the old plant and told me to water it. 9 days later - the new growth is 2" tall!

It's stayed hot and fairly humid here, although I'm told the humidity really hasn't started yet. Oh dear...

I had my first day of classes today, it was long but not bad. Thankfully, the classrooms weren't quite as cold as I expected, but the lab is FREEZING!

new home

Here is the street view of my house:

Once you walk back behind the main house, you can actually see the carriage house I now call home:

grapevine covered porch, skylights, benches...

Once inside the sliding glass doors, to the right is the living area:

continuing around the room is the desk and fireplace:

and then shelves heater, and bedroom door:

once through the bedroom door, you see this:

looking back from the bathroom:

and finally, back into the main room and to the right is the kitchen (and laundry!).

And now I'm off to bed so I can get to orientation bright and early tomorrow morning!

visiting

For those who didn't already know this, I was actually born in Atlanta. Both my parents went to grad school here, so they've got friends still here.

When we arrived, we stayed for a night with a classmate of my father's and his wife. We had a lovely dinner with them later in the week.

We also spent time with a friend from our time in Seaside. She now lives in Atlanta as well.

These visiting times were interspersed with shopping trips to get me settled in my new place - to be seen in the next post.

It has been HOT here... especially so since it has continued to snow in Tahoe and rain in the Bay Area. It's going to take a while to get used to the weather here - I'm already looking forward to the fall!!

last driving leg

On Tuesday, May 31, we drove out of Sand Springs, OK. We saw the cooling towers and plume of a nuclear reactor between Tulsa and Memphis, and then drove across the Mississippi - to those of us from the West Coast, that's a BIG river on a normal day, especially so due to the current flood conditions.

For the Californians, again - check out these Memphis, TN area gas prices!!

We passed briefly through Tennessee and Mississippi, then crossed Alabama. There was some awful tornado devastation on both sides of the highway at the edge of Birmingham, AL - here is an example of just one house out of a path about an eighth of a mile wide:

Finally, after about 13 hours on the road, we reached Atlanta!