Challenges of all sorts

The biology textbook required a picture of some sort of common mold. Penicillinum or such. For those uninformed, moldy bread would do. We did discover Wikimedia Commons where one can find all sorts of useful stuff. The need of some nice mold arose a day after the fridge had been cleaned (because of the stink, mind you) so Wiki Commons was dug through and the rest of the internetz as well. There's even a blog about moldy food that seems to welcome contributions from readers so feel free to send them pics of the unidentifiable things at the bottom of the fridge.

Yesterday afternoon I found a nice heel of bread wrapped in plastic and growing its own colony of penicillinum. Since the macro lens was at work, I took it to the office. The mold isn't in the best shape yet so we have moldy bread in a plastic bag on the window sill with a huge sign of Don't throw away on it. Just in case - the cleaners here are neither diligent nor careful but moldy bread isn't usually the cherished thing. I'll be back here on Friday so I suppose that by that time, there will be the blue-green mold but also the white, yellow and black ones. I'll let you know.

To add some more gross factor: the chart of dog fur stinkiness. People spin anything. Although I totally detest the name of chiengora - hey, it's chien and angora stuck together. Dog fur has nothing to do with the angora bunnies. It's dog fur. Chien something (no I don't know how to say fur in French). Apparently, dog spinners have elaborated this. FIY, our huski smells of dogs, neither roses nor stinky cheese. The fur is great. Did I say that I plan to learn to spin?

Is this a tradition?

It's Monday and I'm bloated and overcarbed again. This weekend I didn't have any major carb binge as such but it was my mom cooking so it's rice here, strawberry cake with a ton of sour cream there... To be fair, I have to add that mom generously gave me the probiotics she got with her antibiotics when she had her latest dental issues. The probiotics seem not to work, or not today. They however added to my despair because it was the usual allergy meds, ibuprofen (I know, I know, it's not the right thing for stomach pains but I didn't have anything else and I felt shitty) and then some good microorganisms.
I resorted to a thing that works - simple good ole fasting.

The weekend was exciting. There was the cake. We cleaned the attic - I've been stashing my fave mag since 1996 and as usual, mom threatened with throwing it all away. There's still my dad's notes from the university - compared to him, I'm much less annoying hunter and gatherer. And, you've never seen that many dead wasps. No, nobody collects them, they just get to the attic and die there. Tähti had enormous fun helping. And puking on the clean floor, I had given her the worm meds and they were a bit wild, I guess.

No, no funny story about feeding cats medicine. I tried - the stuff is a paste that comes in a syringe. I had some experience with force-feeding so I thought it would be easy. You lay the cat on your lap, open her mouth and push the thing to her mouth. The only problem is that Siamese are strong, fast and slippery. The result was obvious, I had the worm medicine all over my hand and the cat was sitting under the table complaining and happily licking the remaining paste from her paws. Then she came to beg for more. Why the hell did I bother?

Random link of the day: Do you want to know about the present state of storms in Finland?

gentians

We have something like a cottage in the mountains. I haven't been there for ages so I took two days off (meant to go to work on Sunday anyway but for reasons described below I did not). So, I arrived up there and went for a hike and got totally wasted. And... couldn't resist this. A travelling glove.... to remind the wearer that even things can have their experiences. or something. And in the evening I realized that no-one has sucha big paw si I ripped it whole but for some 38 stitches of the first row... but the yarn has been to that peak. It was not a long hike but it was quite tough and I haven't been anywhere for quite a time.
I'm a city girl, first and mainly of all. I put on a black top because I look thinner in it. Not that I met anyone who would notice it and when one is sweaty and panting for brath, anything may come to mind but certainly not 'good looks'. But at least I don't look like mature cheese on the pic.
Next day I wanted to do some pics of plants. There is a locality.. sort of nature's botanic garden. I'm not giving any names because it's not allowed to go there outside the marked trails.. which I did like every year. It's an avalanche area (in winter) and it's hell of a steep. I climbed the mountain first... well, walked somewhere to the top. From the other side it's just a big hill with flat top. And an alpine meadow well above the timber line, where only some grasses (Festuca sp., mainly) grow and it's lovely to walk there barefoot. [I'll add pics later.. I need to sort them out]. Another reason why i happily walked barefoot was that I produced a nice blister on the soft part of my foot and it felt better without the shoes.
Anyway, descending to the valley was fantastic, at the peak, there're just grasses, some fifty metres lower, blueberries and cranberries start to grow and nearly with every metre the environment changes. In fact, I went there to see whether i can find one of the gentians that grow there (but, basically anything grows in that place), Gentiana verna. It was too late for that one but I discovered another species up on the hill, Gentiana punctuata, which I hadn't hitherto seen. In fact I saw more of them but from distance they look quite ugly, something bleak in the grass.. I don't understand why I like gentians so much...

As I hinted, the terrain is quite steep and under the grass which looks quite even on the surface, many nasty things hide. Holes, sources of water with deep slicky mud.. or there are things that don't bother to hide, stones too hot to step on or anything too steep to step on. I'll upload the pic of my bloody leg later on - it doesn't work. Oddly enough, I didn't notice the wound for quite long. I was interested about the health of my camera because holes in the skin heal by themselves whereas a camera.. I'd have to earn for a year for another one. (And, a second chance in such a short time to see my knees:-)))
I found my way back home, I was tired like hell and I just neded up lying flat in bed. Well, I had a shower first, I was covered by mud and stuff and I'm quite civilized. Although some of the mud had nicely found its way to my skin so I just left it to fall of by itself later, especially around the wound, which showed to be a neat long deep scratch, no real hole. Notice the view into the valley behind the (fat, unshaven and dirty) leg... cool, isn't it?