Not a bad day for a field trip aboard the Appollonia on the Hudson

I happened upon this traffic stop of an Amazon van and the weinermobile yesterday. Hot dog! I relished the laughter as I became Meyer-ed in pun(ch) likes the rest of the day.

Lots of news stories to cry over today. But not this one. Because...err.

Tmw, your kid goes on a juneteenth hike and keeps texting you four letter bird codes all day. And this is the less obsessive of my two birder kids!

The story about passenger pigeons was the laugh I needed today. www.theguardian.com/us-news/2025...

Tmw you procrastinate rehearsing the horn parts for Easter Sunday and realize the anthem is sustained exposed stuff at the top of your range. Gonna be a (w)holly moly week of finding time to practice.

TFW the city sends a tree crew while your super avid birder kid is at school and they trim the branch that is reliably where hawks perch and woodpeckers feast. I think they can feel the glare from my attic office.

If you have a federal grant, I *highly* recommend going to this Friday's webinar on responding to grant terminations. Lisa Brown, former general counsel at Dept of Ed, will present along with other lawyers. Friday, March 21, 2-3 pm. More info & register here: www.linkedin.com/pulse/regist...

So this week in Hist of Childhood, we talked about how much infant mortality dropped 1880-1930 with milk pasteurization, diphtheria innoculation. This, in a week with a raw milk, antivax nominee for health sec.

How fun is it to watch my kids run? So fun that today their gym teacher--seeing that their mile times made the school leaderboard, called the younger kid out of class so that the Howard bros could race head-to-head. Bets were taken. Older kid, also a foot taller, prevailed.

GA has lots of counties, doesn't it.

Brought a few classic toys to my hist of childhood class today. Like jacks, which, shockingly, none of my students knew how to play. TMW you casually throw up a bouncy ball, gather all 10 jacks, and catch the ball with one hand **with a room of students watching.**🔥🔥🔥

Tmw your kid's birding obsession spills over into your teaching and you find yourself posting images of every bird mentioned the in the Hamlin Garland excerpt you assigned.

Teacher people: if you once used the recently departed flipgrid for students to post videos and comment on classmates' work, what are you turning to now?

How confident is my 84-year old dad in UPS and the superiority of his homegrown Midwestern tomatoes? Confident enough to send >2 dozen across the nation. (1 of 2).

A character in the novel I'm reading is about to take a tragic turn, based on foreshadowing. I am now afraid to to flip another page as it somehow brings the bad thing into being... I'm so close to meeting the @albanypubliclibrary summer reading challenge, but not sure if I can bear to go on.

elementary kid used his mp3 player to bootleg bird calls from Merlin this morning so he could quiz his friend at lunch. All kinds of winning.🐦🤓

anybody able to lead me to good histories about the origins of life-cycle assessment? Thanks!

new paragraph describes superabsorbent polymer manufacture pollution with the same words often used to discuss diapering: loaded, blowout, soak, spray, saturate. Too gross? IDK.

Turkey, roasted. Cranberries, pickled. Birthday cake, baked. Rec letter, submitted. Still have a cake to frost, pie to make, and paragraph to write, but progress.

Not enough fanfare on this: DOE grants to stoke heat pump manufacturing dropped this week. Albany friends, did you know Energy Catalyst got $10M this week to retrofit a building in Watervliet, train youth, and hire 50 people? Lower emissions, more affordable energy, local jobs? Yes please!

this chapter is becoming a monster. I know it will be sliced and diced, but I can't dismember until I decide which pieces are vital, which means assembling it all first. Sigh.

In a rehearsal with >90 musicians at the moment. Quite certain it's been about 20 years since I played in such a big gig: choir, strings, winds.

tmw you load up a folder in a database with about 100+ different references and send it to your e-mail thinking the list will come in a single, aggregated note, but instead, you get one e-mail per reference. 😬

is there a database to track RCRA violations for the period 1986-1990? EPA's ECHO seems to pick up only after the early 1990s (or enforcement was lax -totally possible).

Dad is determined that his garden bounty reaches me, no matter how many miles separate us and how delicate the goods.

🚨 We are looking for research director for Pew's Science & Society program. Open to academics, journalists & policy folks with experience using surveys to write about debates surrounding climate change, energy, vaccines, trust in scientists, etc. 🧪 pewtrusts.wd5.myworkdayjobs.com/en-US/Center...

anyone have an electric heat pump dryer? How's it working for you? Dryer just went kaput, and would like a lower-carbon replacement. Clothesline & drying racks are great, but given family laundry loads from sweaty athletes, not ready to forgo a dryer altogether.

Rainy day. Good weather for Rising Waters.

this week has had its ups and downs. But I am claiming victory in having finally found the source of the rotting orange peel scent that has been bedeviling me all week: side pocket of hiking backpack, smooshed against the Sibley bird guide. Book may be a casualty.

tmw you're volunteering at the neighborhood street fair, and figure out the person you're volunteering with wrote a BA thesis with your PhD advisor, albeit separated by about 20 years and at two different institutions. Wacky!

It's that time of year again when my super creative, naturalist kid selects an obscure species he wants to be for Halloween, and my head explodes as I try to figure out how to execute.

it's been 10 years this week since I trekked across the country to deliver a eulogy at my undergraduate advisor's memorial service (with a newborn in tow). I still really miss him. With gentle playfulness and conviction, Jim Farrell asked students to imagine a better world and to dare to make it.

The one day I plan to run and shower before the plumber comes and shuts off the water is of course is the one day the kid misses the bus (so I needed to take him), and the one day a plumber arrives early.

Fave things to do with a dozen not-great peaches? (Not spoiled yet, just bad texture). Sauce? Crisp? Chutney? Hit me up.

Not just WV. The news from northern NYS. www.northcountrypublicradio.org/news/story/4...

the upside of still bearing visible scars from my July wild parsnip encounter? 10-year-old wrote a killer paragraph about a "plant that can hurt you" when prompted to write about a living species.

still pretty stoked that the burgeoning generation around these parts, when given a choice, skipped Saturday soccer to get up at 5:45 on a Saturday morning for a birding blitz. Didn't get good ids on the warblers, but a merlin posed for us.