Christmas Plans

Our plans are set, the flights are booked, we've told our families when we're arriving - we're going to both Fredericton, New Brunswick and Durham, North Carolina. I am beyond excited - I cannot wait! Two weeks of family time for the holidays. Trooper dog is coming to Fredericton with us, but we're putting him in boarding while we are in North Carolina - maybe next time we'll attempt to get him on a plane, but for now he'll have to make do at the Barking Dog. It's a very nice place with heated floors and fancy food and daily playtimes with the staff and baths and daycare where they play with other dogs. I doubt he's going to cry himself to sleep at night missing us... The Barking Dog is also where we take him for his obedience classes.

I have planned our vacation so that we are in Fredericton on a Saturday for the Farmer's Market - a crucial requirement for me. I need those veggie samosas and german sausages and breads and the delicious almond chocolate triangles...If you don't know what I'm talking about you can check out this link: Boyce Farmer's Market

Trooper

This is our puppy, the day I brought him out to Fort Foster to help with fieldwork. We spent the day out on the end of the pier with periodic breaks to go for walks on the beach or in the park or trails. When he wasn't sniffing at the people wandering out onto the pier, he spent the afternoon lying out in the warm october sun on a blanket that I'd brought along for him.

Finally, a new blog post...

It's been so long since I've posted anything. I'm pretty sure that no one even checks anymore, assuming of course that people checked it out before. John has been reminding me for weeks to put up a post. So here it is, finally. A lot has happened since my last post (which was on September 3rd by the way) - John returned from Africa mid September, I went to a conference in Vancouver at the end of September, we collected data for my thesis for two weeks in October, and then we got married on November 9th. :)

Durham Landing

Another photo from a morning walk with Trooper. This is overlooking Durham landing from the walking bridge.

Buoy-tastic

Here it is - attempt # 2 to make a weight that is hand-deployable, yet heavy enough to stay in one spot on the bottom. tricky, very tricky. Good thing it doesn't have to be hand-deployable by me. I can hardly lift the frame of this thing, let alone half of 150 pounds. Those gigantor chain links are HEAVY! Luckily, Tom and Ben C. could get it into the water with the help of the pulley on the A-frame - and it seemed to stay in place! Excellent. That was at Adam's Point though, several kilometres upriver from our actual research area. We'll find out soon if it'll hold out in Portsmouth Harbour...And yes, this is about as exciting as it gets for me. In fact, I think that the last post about a bag-o-milk was more interesting.

Bag o' milk

I found this picture online on the first page of a google image search for milk bags (hence the mystery child in the background). This looks like the same kind of milk bag container that we always had at our house, except maybe in a different color. I've posted this basically so that my American friends know what a 'milk bag' is - and because I miss being able to buy milk in a bag.

Doe Farm, by the Lamprey River

I worry too much about this dog - does he look sick to you? Me neither. He looks a little bit crazy actually. He doesn't usually do this, but he had a little spaz attack for no apparent reason.