we're finally in sweden!

after much anticipation and much planning, we've finally gotten to stockholm to start our 6-month adventure!  the flight was fine, the luggage arrived with us, and the apartment is petite but lovely.  everyone is starting to physically feel better--the jet lag caught all of us a bit--and overall we're adapting beautifully.  rich needed about three minutes to become fully swedish (gus and sophie needed about ten)--those genes are tenacious.  i've still got some work to do...

near our apartment is the southern coast of kungsholmen, which is an absolutely lovely space.  sophie literally jumped right in to life here.  more later!

like *literally* jumped in!

duck feather and contemplative sophie (with trepidatious gus in the background)

sophie later decided that she wanted to capture a duckling and make it "imprint" (her word) on her--we've had a hard time dissuading her of this idea

she settled for a human friend instead :)

the allen family bermuda triangle: THE ESCAPE!

it has been beyond crazy at our house for all the usual reasons, and then for one really big one--we are moving to sweden in about three weeks! for the next six months, we will have officially escaped the triangle for stockholm (although we are coming back to it in february). i will try to post regularly...however my recent history is not as promising as i would like on that front...but please do check back!

it's miniaNature

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MAMA TURKEY IN THE RAVINE!

click me to see the video!

earlier this week, we saw our most recent resident in the ravine--a wild turkey--with her TWELVE new fluffy babies! today i finally got a video of them. she is down to about eight or nine poults as of this morning (maybe more--it is hard to tell in the video), and we know she lost one to a sharp-shinned hawk yesterday. (about half of the babies should make it to adulthood, according to statistics.)

i'm thrilled at the prospect of having all these wild turkeys in the ravine...i hope they stay. any suggestions on what i could plant to entice them to make this their permanent home would be much appreciated! enjoy.

hello, darwin awards? i'd like to become a member.

it's as if my recent brush with mortality via poison hemlock wasn't enough.  basically, think of the stupidest possible thing you could do that would result in a melted trashcan...and that's what i did.  bear in mind that as a child i didn't play with fire, and thus grew into an incredibly ignorant adult.

we've had a chipmunk explosion in the triangle, and the traps are working overtime--this past week we had almost 20 little furry bastards in the trash.  and, those almost 20 little furry bastards exacted a modicum of retribution by beginning to putrefy...which created a smell from hades itself...which drew flies. flies laid eggs; eggs hatched and became maggots.  even after trash pickup there were still about a million maggots writhing on the bottom of my trashcan.  and still with the smell from hell.

so, in my glorious ingenuity of trying to be ecologically sound and use no poison, i decided to try and kill them by pouring a gallon of vinegar in the can.  it didn't kill them, and now i had vinegar-scented smell from hell.  so, i dumped two pounds of salt in there with it.  nothing.

so...i started looking around the garage...and i see the gas can for the lawnmower...

i figured what the hell:  they're floating, gas floats, i'll just pour a pint or so on top, light it on fire, and burn them off.  seriously, this is exactly what i thought would happen.  what i didn't anticipate was the 20-foot column of fire that shot out of the trashcan and continued to burn (at about a 5-6 foot height then) for the next minute.  i was too stunned to move.

fortunately, i managed to tell gus (yes, he was there) to run inside and get a fire extinguisher.  i put the fire out literally one second before the can collapsed, which fell up against the garage...where the car was parked.

and now i've got a melted trashcan at the end of my driveway waiting for the city of iowa city to come and switch it out tomorrow.  i have no idea what they will charge me.  the shame, however, is free.

 the aftermath.  (the powdered white stuff around it is from the fire extinguisher.)

see?  it doesn't say "no gasoline + matches"

sigh.  i am a dumbass.

pretty, pretty poison

meet conium maculatum, more commonly known as poison hemlock

i can't decide if this is "no good deed goes unpunished," or "a little knowledge is a dangerous thing."  it might be both.

this is the walkway from the back steps to the front door of our sweet, lovely, most-appreciated, little neighborhood elementary.  it's on the upper edge of a ravine, it's lush, and it was populated by the most poisonous plant in north america, poison hemlock.  i saw it last year and mistook it for its less-poisonous cousin, water hemlock, but this year i knew just a little bit more and saw it for what it is/was...which is where my troubles began.

first, i got permission from the school to remove the hemlock ("it only takes .25% of a person's body weight to kill! think socrates! think of the children!"), and then i got permission to dispose of it.  having pulled weeds on public property before, i at least know what questions to ask.  then, i arrived at the school in my official master gardener's garb replete with ID badge, (i'm an expert, damnit!), showed the principal the area i intended to clear, she was sufficiently concerned, and the weeding commenced.

about 15 minutes into it i felt a little...off.   i was having a little trouble breathing, but i chalked it up to allergens and decided to remember to carry my inhaler with me in the future.   i say that a lot. the sky looked threatening, and i really wanted to get this stuff away from where the kids walk, so i pressed on.

an hour into it, i felt off and shaky, but i kept going because it hadn't rained yet and i was making good progress.   my leather gloves were soaked from pulling the hemlock (it is a watery plant, kinda like jewelweed).   the breathing was still a problem--would definitely bring the inhaler next time.

two hours into it, i was exhausted, not breathing well, was suuuuper thirsty, and definitely not feeling well either.  i figured i was dehydrated and developing asthma.  i had cleared four very full black plastic bags worth of poison hemlock, weighing about 150-200 pounds total.   i got all of it cleared off and away from the sidewalk; i did a good job.   i walked home, took off my clothes as soon as i went in the door, threw my gloves into a plastic bag to wash later, and took a long shower.  my heart was beating like crazy--i must be dehydrated!--then started drinking as much water as i could keep down.

fast-forward three hours: time to get the bunny from school.  still not feeling well, haven't eaten anything, just want to drink water, heart still beating like a hummingbird's, and i'm confused.  not like "i don't get it" confused, more like i'm not able to make a thought.   i walked back to the school, said hi to some friends, got asked a fairly simple question by someone, and could not formulate a response that made sense to anyone including myself.   finally came to the conclusion that there may be a problem, so the bunny and i went home, and i called poison control.

in my possibly misguided quest to save some dumbass kid from themselves, i managed to poison myself with the most lethal plant in america.

poison control was remarkably not condescending or judgmental--they were actually awesome.   they asked me a battery of questions, determined i was probably not going to die, but suggested that i keep drinking water.   it turns out that poison hemlock and nicotiana (tobacco) share an alkaloid that makes you quite unwell after extended physical contact with it...such as by wearing soaked-through leather gloves for two hours.  and, i needed to throw away the gloves as well, as the alkaloid would probably not wash out (they're gone now).  they even called me back after an hour to check on me--seriously, they were great.

i managed to fall asleep by midnight, heartbeat back to normal, still thirsty but not as thirsty, but with a killer hangover-type headache.  the next day i still had some muddiness in my brain, but at this point i think i can manage it.  overall, it was quite the experience.  so there you go--as always, my life seems to exist as a lesson for others...not necessarily in a good way.

FYI: poison control 1 (800) 222-1222.

soccer bunny

:)

cool keys, bro

why oh why oh why don't we make our keys like this anymore? seeing these is just a recipe for happy.

all eyes on me!

rich's desk--he always loves an audience. is this normal?

staycation!

staycation...not what i had intended, but ultimately i think i made it work. rather than sea kayaking i got expensive drinks with rich in the middle of the day; instead of skating i got a couple of wicked cool (faux-)souvenir t-shirt.

i'll try for a southern california sojourn next year!

happy vintage valentine's day!

*sigh*, already did it.

it's that time of year, kittens...happy valentine's day! i love this time of year--i totally get into the red, the pink, the chocolate, the champagne...if my arm wasn't broken i'd be roller skating under a disco ball while "endless love" blared on some ancient speakers in a couple's dance with rich. as it is i am at least rocking a red cast that is soon to be wrapped in paper heart garland.

here's my annual tribute to the valentine's days of yesteryear, a simpler, more wholesome time when you could draw a quiver of arrows draped in front of cupid's leg and not think schlong. enjoy!

and that would be on the ass of san antonio?

this is probably the angriest looking valentine ever

the nonsexual nature of the child just makes this confusing, but i do dig the skates

conversely, the oversexualized cupid makes him look more like a postpartum preteen, but again i dig the skates

holy shit. i think i'm reading cupid's religion. TMI, flyboy.

this poor child has a crush on a very young linda hunt...

ahemmm.

threatening murder is no way to woo a lass

self-centeredness is no way to woo a lass

breaking/entering and stalking are no way to woo a lass.

bondage is no way to woo a lass that you can take home to mom.

assault is no way to woo a lass...although a lollipop might work (i missed that the first 10 times i looked at it)

this year's favorite. absolutely no clue whatsoever what is going on in this card. awesome.

HAPPY VALENTINE'S DAY!

just a minor setback...

when you act like a jackass and skate without your protective gear, then you've got to expect that your venice-boardwalk-skating/la-jolla-cove-sea-kayaking trip to southern california will get cancelled...and it did. the more x-rays i get the more damage is found--yesterday they discovered a big ol' crack down (up?) my radius from my wrist that is currently in place but could break off easily, which would mean surgery. thus, no trip.

i did get a mighty cool cast upgrade. let the staycation begin!

sophie's putting the old cast to good use

my sunday could have been worse...

...i could have been the director of electrical services at the superdome. instead, i just got a cast for a fractured scaphoid. boo.

what're you lookin' at?

if this had a keyhole-shaped frame, it'd be perfect.