Greg and Kat's blog

For the past week I have been at war with a squirrel. I’m pretty sure it’s only one squirrel, but really, for all I know, it could be a small army of them.

Last weekend I went into our aviary and saw that my squirrel nemesis had chewed its way through one of the screen doors into the inner hallway of the aviary. This is where we keep the food, and the trash can, and the logbook. The doors of the flight cages also face into the hallway. The squirrel had also chewed through the lid of the food bucket and ate some of the pellets that we feed the birds. Luckily the doors to the flight cages are made out of sturdy hardware cloth (like nice chicken wire), so it couldn’t get into the actual bird cages. So, I took some of the extra hardware cloth leftover from the building of my funnel traps and patched the hole in the screen door.

I should have known that wasn’t going to work. The next day the squirrel just chewed away the section of the screen door directly adjacent to my patch-job. On day 2 of the war I took all of the hardware cloth that we had and reinforced the door again. Unfortunately there was only enough to cover about 6 feet up the 7.5-8 foot door. However, this did seem to deter the little bugger from chewing through that door. What did it do? It went to the other door and chewed through that one! But, I was smart. On day 1 of the war I had moved the food bucket into the lab. Take that squirrel! So instead, my nemesis chewed the rim of the garbage can, but didn’t get all of the way in. HAH! Luckily we had enough hardware cloth to patch the small hole in the second door.

The next day I come in to find another hole. This time it’s right above the top of the 6 feet of hardware cloth on the original door. GAH!!!!!!! Once inside, the squirrel chewed a hole in the bottom of the garbage can, giving it access to pellets that we had thrown into the garbage. Damn that wily squirrel! We’ve had a lot of rain and heat, and since the can is outside, the garbage in it is pretty nasty. I hope it got a stomach ache!

So, I bought more hardware cloth. A LOT of it! All day yesterday, in the stifling heat and humidity, I reinforced both doors. They’re both totally covered now. I also had to wrestle the nasty, wet, hole-riddled garbage bag out of the can and into the dumpster. Let me just tell you, it was NOT pretty. I reeked of old bird garbage and had all sorts of scratches on my arms and hands from where the excess hardware cloth and pine branches poked out of the bag. Needless to say, I HATE this squirrel.

Today, I go in specifically to check on the squirrel-status of the aviary — and to have lunch with Lisa :). That’s when I saw it. The squirrel was sitting on top of the cages in the outer part of the aviary (that’s fine, that part’s open). I scared it away and went to check on the inner doors, and that’s when I saw this. The damn thing totally ripped up the rest of the door! But, because of my hardware cloth, it wasn’t able to get into the hallway. Take that Mr. Wily Squirrel! You lose, and I win! HAH!

I don’t really understand why he’s still trying to get in there – there’s nothing in there now, and you can clearly see that from the outside. The food bucket is in the lab, and the garbage can is sitting open and empty in the outer hallway of the aviary where the squirrel has free access to it to see that it’s empty. Meh.

I just checked “Science” for this post. Yes, apparently I’ve spent countless years to get my PhD in Animal Physiology to enable me to wage war against a squirrel. If that’s not a terrible life choice, I don’t know what is!

Whatever… %$#&. At least I won.

Update from Greg: If anybody missed the Simpsons reference in that last sentence: “they just make a terrible life choice“.

I’ve made a list of things to do in Vancouver for Lisa and Brian, who are going to visit the city in a couple of weeks (with me along for part of their trip). When I started the list I knew there had to be places to eat, places to shop, outdoors-y things to do, etc. Well, it turns out, since I don’t actually like being outside, that portion of the list is quite lacking, and since I LOVE to eat, eateries make up the majority of the list. Brian suggested that I post the list so that it’s up for everyone to access. This way, people from Vancouver can add to the list too! So, here goes…

Places to eat a meal

• Lumiere
• West
• C
• Nu
• Tojo’s
• Wild Rice
• Feenie’s
• Pear Tree
• Moderne Burger
• Sun Sui Wah
• Pink Pearl
• Golden Ocean
• Hon’s
• Schezuan Chong King
• Bo Kong
• Toyotomi
• Koko
• Vij’s
• Bombay Bhel
• Thai Cafe
• Cioppino’
• DaMario’s
• Domenico’s
• Provence Marinaside

Places to go for a snack

• La Casa Gelato
• Pearl Drops Teahouse
• True Confections
• Terra Breads
• Senses
• Tim’s
• Thomas Haas Chocolates
• I Fly for Pie – Chiliwack Airport Coffee Shop

Places to shop or site-see

• Granville Island
• Stanley Park
• Chinatown
• SFU
• UBC
• Farmer’s Market
• Robson Street
• Commercial Drive
• West 4th
• Fireworks on English Bay
• Museum of Anthropology at UBC
• Vancouver Art Gallery
• Metropolis at Metrotown
• Coquitlam Kwik-E Mart

Outdoors-y stuff (Summer)

• Grouse Grind
• Kayaking
• The Chief
• Mountain bike riding
• Grizzly bear centre on Grouse Mountain
• Hiking
• Climbing in Squamish
• Reiffel bird sanctuary
• QE rose garden

Any other ideas?

Specifically, my family always does Dim Sum at Sun Sui Wah in Richmond… anywhere else that’s good?

… and so is my floor. In the span of a week I have somehow spilled not 1, not 2, but 3 sticky things onto my floor and myself.

1. I cooked pork chops for dinner and while eating I put some water in the pan so that it would be easier to wash later. Well, I forgot that there was pork water in the pan, and when I went to clean it, I sloshed the nasty pork water all over myself and my floor. I’ve been having issues with mice (well, 1 mouse that is no more) and cockroaches (it’s the South – they’re everywhere). So I freaked and did a huge clean-up of the kitchen.

2. I dropped a can of Pepsi on the floor and of course it developed a pin-hole leak and sprayed Pepsi all over my clean floor and my jeans. I hate to clean, and so having to clean the kitchen floor for the second time in one week was too much.

3. I went to do laundry and usually take just the cap-ful of detergent down to the washing machine with me. When I openned the door to go out, the door somehow hit my laudry hamper, which then jostled my hand, and then there was laudry detergent everywhere. At least this stuff was self-cleaning given that it’s soap!

So yeah, sticky… picture Fes from That 70’s Show eating candy… that’s me… I’m sticky… and I’m tired of cleaning the floor. Meh.

Summer bite count total: 17

I’m having a pretty good week o’ science.

Last week I ran a procedure called immunocytochemistry (ICC) where tissue sections are stained for the presence of specific compounds – in our case an enzyme that converts dopamine to norepinephrine. This is the second time I’ve run this assay on my own, and sometimes even though you follow every step of the protocol, it doesn’t work. Apparently in those situations the appropriate sacrifice to the science gods wasn’t made, and you’ve wasted a week of your life and valuable tissue samples. Today, after 3 hours on the microscope I found out that my ICC worked! Yippee!

Yesterday I made a happy discovery. I was going to move my House Finches out of the aviary so that Buddy could move his Lincoln Sparrows out there. However, since I have “breeding pairs” in each of the 5 cages, I figured I should double check the trees that we have in there in case they had nests that I had missed. Sure enough I found a nest that I hadn’t previously known about, and inside it was this little guy (or girl). I think he’s probably somewhere around 10 days old. I have another nest with 4 chicks in it, but they’re still really small, so I’m not going to get my hopes up just yet. But, YAY for the little one!

And, on Saturday morning I caught 4 new HOFIs – two juveniles, a male and a female.

Bite count 2007: 13

Today was the lab’s first annual “No Pants Day”. (Paul, I definitely thought of you!) So a couple of weeks ago we got new lab coats with the lab name embroidered on them. Quite spiffy. We each have our own coat and can tell them apart by the color of the embroidery. Buddy put his on right away and mentioned that it was long enough that he wouldn’t have to wear pants to the lab anymore. This prompted Keith to make a “Pants are NOT optional” lab rule which we are all glad for.

However, as a result, the lab’s “No Pants Day” was born. Danielle, our lab’s technician, came up with the idea. Everyone had to wear either shorts or a skirt AND a lab coat, so that it would look as though we weren’t wearing any pants. Not surprisingly, Buddy looked the most pantless out of all of us. He should be proud. As part of the festivities we took weird pictures using the camera that is embedded in one of the lab’s Mac’s and then had pizza for dinner.

It’s that time of year again – the mosquitos are out, and so I must start my annual bite count. I went to a farewell party tonight at Lisa and Brian’s for Ted and Angie who are headed off to the University of Northern Arizona. We had tasty burgers that Lisa made and REALLY yummy baklava that Buddy made. I love that everyone here seems to like food as much as everyone at home! But, there was some sacrifice to be made:

Bite count 2007: 8

But, strangely enough they aren’t that itchy. Heh, now that I’ve typed that, they’re starting to itch.

Anyways, I also caught 5 birds this weekend. 3 adult males, an adult female, and my first juvie of the year. YAY! I also almost caught a woodpecker, but it was too big to fit into the trap. It did, however, stick it’s head into the trap to eat some of the seeds. Not sure what kind of woodpecker it was though – quick Oli, what is this?

Only 4.5 more days until Greg gets here! YAY!

So for the past month I’ve been on a mission. I have several adult House Finches that I caught last year in our aviary. Since I need a small army of juvenile House Finches this year for my research, I thought that I should try to breed the adults that I have. Now, I spent the entire time that I was in Vancouver breeding Zebra Finches, but that’s easy. They’re pet shop birds that breed readily in cages. But, I figured it was worth a shot with these birds.

So I set out to try to breed my House Finches. I’ve seen a couple of birds nesting on man-made platform-type structures: under awnings, in light fixtures around campus, and of course in trees. Well, each of our flight cages within our aviary has an old Christmas tree in it, but I wasn’t sure they’d nest in those. So I built 1’x1′ platforms for them and hung them from the ceiling of each flight cage. I also provided them with hay in these small open wire cages hoping that maybe they’d use them as nestboxes.

After 2-3 weeks, I was starting to get discouraged. They’re totally ignoring my beautiful platforms, and only 1 of the 5 pairs built a nest cup in the small open wire cages. Then I noticed that in all of the cages, the hay level was WAY lower than it was when I first put the hay in. Hmmmm…. where the heck did the hay go?

Go figure, they’re nesting in the trees! Heh. I think I’ve worked on Zebra Finches for too long. So I have 1 nest with 5 eggs and another nest cup, but no eggs yet. That makes 2 nest cups and 1 full nest! I haven’t been able to find the nests in the other 2 cages, but those Christmas trees are pretty dense, so they could be in there somewhere!

So yes, I am an avian matchmaker! 🙂

I realize that I haven’t blogged in a while. Sadly, that’s because I live an extremely boring life. I’ve started to blog numerous times over the past couple of months, and couldn’t really think of anything to say. But, just so everyone knows what I’ve been doing the last couple of months, here’s a brief synopsis of my life:

I’ve started catching House Finches already. Last year Greg and I got here in the beginning of May and immediately started building traps. But, I didn’t really get started seriously catching until the end of May. This year I started about a month ago, and have already caught 7 adult males and 2 adult females. I’ve actually taken a short break from catching now because I think the females have started laying, and I don’t want to break up any happy couples.

I’m attepting to breed my adult House Finches in our aviary. With the help of Buddy and our new tech, Danielle, I built these wooden platforms that I was hoping they’d nest in. So far, no luck. I also put hay into wire boxes for them. I think a pair of them MAY be starting to nest, but the others… not so much. So we’ll see. If I get any eggs, I’ll take pictures.
I’m still trying to make the damn HPLC work properly. We’re changing out one of the major components (the detector), so hopefully that’ll improve the system, and I can get my samples run – only a year after I started this project that was only supposed to take a couple of months. Whatever… just want it to be done!

In an attempt to get into shape (or at least not to get any chubbier than I already am! Damn thesis weight!), I’ve been going to yoga and spin classes with my friend Lisa. They’ve actually been a lot of fun. I think we’re going to try to go to more yoga classes during the summer – when there aren’t seminars, or journal clubs, or lab meetings to go to.

Buddy and I have unofficially moved our office to Friends Cafe, the coffee shop that’s down the street from the Biology building, but is still on campus. It has windows (which our actual office lacks), and is steps away from coffee and pastries. And surprisingly, we get a lot of work done there, even with all of the people that stop by and join us for coffee.

That’s about it. Like I said, I live a boring life. Highlight of my week – shopping at Target, and at the American versions of Winners – TJ Max, Ross and Marshalls. I got new Teva’s for $11, Reef flip flops for $10, and a nice little ultra-suede reading chair! 🙂 This week I have to take my car in to get the temperature switch fixed so that Rusty stops blowing hot air at me. Not good for the upcoming summer!

These are the “highlights” of the past 2 weeks.

1. I posted the pictures of the snow we had in January.
2. I went to yoga and spin class. We had a substitute instructor in spin class. I literally almost died within the first 20 minutes. I thought I was going to have a heart attack. And, to make it worse, the only two bikes available were right in front. I survived the class, but I think if I see that sub again, I’m going to turn around and walk out of the gym. No need to tempt fate. Next time might actually be the time I keel over.
3. I bought a rolling duffle bag! I’ve wanted one for a long time – you know, like a hockey bag, but with wheels at one end and a retractable handle at the other end. Anyways, it was the highlight of the day.
4. I spent $40 on cabinet hardware for Suyoko. Restoration Hardware was having a inventory clearance sale. It was a challenge to find matching stuff, but I was able to find Suyoko 20 of 1 kind, 10 of another, and 8 of another. Ah… the thrill of the shopping hunt…
5. I got one of my manuscripts accepted last week and sent in the proofs for another one. 2 down, too many to go…
6. I couldnt’ go out to dinner on Friday night with my friends because I had a stomach ache – probably brought on by a bad lunch choice.
7. I bought cake at the grocery store yesterday.

It’s official. I have the most boring life ever.

Luckily next week life starts to get exciting. Suyoko and Kelly fly in on Monday, Feb 19 for BBQfest 2007! Then Greg flies in on Friday, Feb 23. Just have to hang on until then!

The fact that I feel this way probably means that I really need to exercise! My friend Lisa and I have started going to the gym. We’re starting off slow – two days a week. On Mondays we have a yoga class and on Thursdays we have a spinning (cycling) class.

We started last Thursday. I didn’t really know what to expect from the spin class. For everyone that’s never taken one, it’s done on stationary bikes that have tension control. The instructor yells out stuff to do, and it’s like your riding a regular bike. You go up hills by increasing the tension, do sprints by pedalling as fast as you can, stand up and pedal, and pedal with no hands. It’s freakin’ hard, especially if you haven’t done any exercise in years. When the instructor yelled out that we were half-way through, I thought I was going to die – I thought we were almost done with the hour-long class. But, I stuck it out, and Lisa and I walked back to Biology on wobbly legs. Surprisingly my legs weren’t really sore the next day. However, my butt was bruised from the seat. This weekend I bought one of those jelly seat covers in the hopes of easing the pain.

Yesterday was my first ever yoga class. I was really surprised how out of breath and sweaty you can get doing yoga. The instructor did say that we were going to do some more strenuous stuff, so I hope I was supposed to be sweaty and out of breath. If not, I may just be REALLY out of shape. There’s also a lot of balance involved. I fell over a couple of times. Lisa and other people in the class did too, so I don’t feel so bad about that. And today, I’m sore. I think that’s a good thing though.

I also resisted the urge to buy fries from Wendy’s on my way home yesterday. Instead I had a veggie burger for dinner. I think it would have been better with the fries.