war dogs, and turtles

Captain D. Michaelson with Tim the turtle, the mascot of the 2/2nd Battalion, WWII

A is for Animals, at the Australian War Memorial

out & about

For my work with international students, we sometimes take them for activities outside the classroom, or what we refer to as Out & About. Yesterday, two students and I visited the Lawrence Arts Center. One of them brought her young son along-- his English was so good he was translating for us some of the time.

Not even I had been to the arts center, even though it is just downtown. Unfortunately, they were in the process of changing out their gallery spaces, so our trip was shorter than planned, but we toured all of the workshops. We still got to see some enormous horoscope symbols made from only cardboard and zip ties hanging in the entrance. I loved the fish, of course:

some ceramics

 This is a giant mosaic in the stairwell. I've always wanted to do one of these!

 

the reception desk

There were other studios of stained glass making, classes of little girls doing ballet -too cute!- and also drawing and jewelry making. Winter is my creative season of painting and drawing, when it's too cold and/or dark  to be outside. I'm sort of looking forward to it now.

Wordless Wednesday

Ban-i-Amir, Afghanistan's first national park

mystery in the strawberry pot

My fennel sprouts have finally grown enough to transfer to their own container. Since I had not expected them to grow, they had been overcrowding each other in the strawberry pot I had thrown them into. I readied a new planter full of soil, and decided to experiment with moving about half, just in case they didn't survive.

I dug my finger underneath the roots of a few sprouts and tried to pull them out as gently as I could, but they would not come. I tried again a few times harder, and then realized it was not soil I was hooking with my finger. IT WAS ALIVE! I had been jabbing the side of some poor toad who was burrowed in there! I never actually saw its face, and not even a leg, but I'm sure that's what it was. I felt terrible. I pulled the fennel off the top, dribbled some water in his burrow and re-soiled it again so he could nap in peace. I went out later this evening and he was gone, probably off to a new home.

barbeque season!?

That's what I thought when I checked my blog list this last week and saw "barbeque season" in one of the headings. I quickly realized this was from an Australian food blog I read, and it is almost BBQ season (summer) for them. Still, it inspired me to make a BBQ tofu pizza for dinner last night.

Yesterday, I escaped the football madness in Lawrence (as I do most home game days in the fall) and went to Kansas City. I stopped by City Market for produce and listened to a cowboy sing that was reminiscent of a drive through the Grand Canyon this summer where my mom and I bought a CD titled "Cowboy Songs" (at this point in the drive, my mother had resorted to trying her hand at Tuvan throat singing, which the acoustics of an enclosed vehicle are simply not good for, even if you know what you're doing).

For a study break today, I went to sit at the lake to enjoy the weather, and the insects.

The sludgy mud doesn't have quite the same effect as the beach, but the water was surprisingly warm!

On the upside, there were plenty of butterflies out.