Student gifts, and (surprise!) food photos and (more surprise!!) doggy photos

One of my K12 outreach activities involves kidwind, which is a classroom activity during which you have students design wind turbine blades on card stock, mount them onto a hub on a generator, and hold the assembly in front of a fan. When you connect the generator to a volt meter, you can see how much "power" the blades produced. This one team of 4th graders made their blades bunnies:

My favorite is the grumpy little bastard on the left. He sure looks like a real bunny!

And one day, I came into my lecture hall and found this dinosaur on the podium:


OK now more food photos!

Pork loin cooked in verde sauce! Mmmmmmmm, it was fork-tender:


Stuff for another stir-fry:


Stuff for pasta salad:


Mmmm, pasta salad!


Salmon cooked in teryaki sauce, with soy sauce sesame oil noodles and greens:


The ladies in the sunshine!


"What's out there??"


Cricket iz comfy:


Rrrrrrooooooo, oooohhhhhh RRRRrrrrrroooooooo...

Lab puppy!! !!!!!

This is Juneau, the latest trainee for Paws for Purple Hearts:


I met him as he was doing demonstrations of his skills at Pet Awareness Day, which is a fundraiser for Starbuck-a-Roo's therapy dog organization.


He is still THAT little but knows how to open and close cabinet doors, and how to help you put on and take off a coat. He'll even pull the zipper for you!


And he is steenking cute! <3

Good eats and good snuggles, and some miscellany

I recently upgraded to a larger cutting board, so have been amusing myself with Very Pretty Prepwork. When I finish this part, I take a photo and say to DL, "Yan can cook, and so can you! This is the part at which he stir-fries everything together and shows how you can 'make dinner in ten minutes', not accounting for his army of sous-chefs doing all of the prepwork." :)


Mmmmm nooooooooodles!


Stir-fried veggies:


Stuff for stir-fry another night:




And fly lice!


This week, I decided to foist my pasty legs onto Fairbanks. I hope everyone has their sunglasses at the ready!


Look! An albino beaver! This is a taxidermy specimen in the Anchorage airport:


Cricket! She has spring fever and is bouncing everywhere!


Oh Roo, my beautiful Roooooooo...


Cricket gettin' her ree-laxin' on:


She can do it with her ears up, too!


Roo lets me hold her sooooffffty gummybear marshmallow paws:


Look! They snuggle!


The family that cleans its fangs together snuggles together!

Starbuckaroo likes this sign!

This sign is posted in the hallway in the Denali Center:


Roo sez, "Animal companionship! That's me!"


Apparently, it is from the The Ten Principles of The Eden Alternative.

:)

Wham-bam, it's spring!

It seems one weekend we were skiing, the next, it was 70 degrees F. Now the birches are budding. Here is a photo of my buds, and some buds:


Catkins is now they reproduce. Apparently, birches are dioecious and both produce both male and female catkins. The internet is unclear on whether they can self-fertilize:


Roo, and her paws, and her tongue:


Ohhhh... I guess we are stuck here again. Stuck in a snuggle spiral!


Would you ladies like... (ears perk up)...

Would you laaaaaadies liiiiiiike.... (they run over)...

APPLES?? (they sit nicely like good girls!)



YESPLEASEWEWOULDLIKEAPPLIES!!!


Mmmmm croissanwiches for breakfast, thanks to Marlo's, who makes croissants from scratch. In the interest of not giving us coronaries, I have decided I can only go to Marlo's if I happen to be driving by anyway. I am not allowed to make a special trip to Marlo's. Sounds reasonable, right??


Alaskan spot shrimp showed up at Freddie's! I sautéed them with garlic, carrots, bell peppers, tomatoes, and asparagus, and put it over pasta:

Good eats and good snuggles

Every San Franciscan knows what this means:


Tomato-beef chow mein!


My sister's favorite!


The other day, Starbuck had a shift to do her theroopy dog thing for Finals Week, so I brought Cricket along to the office so she wouldn't be alone all day. She got pretty comfy! (Then when we went to the library for Roo to do her thing, Cricket got to take a walk with a friend!)


The same as Roo does!


Would these two ladies like...


... some of my APPLE?

(answer: YESPLEASEWELOVEAPPLES!!)

Look, they snuggle with me, too! I just have fewer of these photos since DL is not as quick with the camera as I am!


CORN, and 'MERICA!!


BUTTER, Y'ALL!!


OK I think gluttony photos are funny, but to be honest I'm actually a pretty "healthy" eater and always pile on the veggies:


I've even figured out this clever way to steam broccoli. I cut the florets very tall and narrow, with uniform-length parts of stem attached. Then I stand them up in a tiny bit of water, cover it, and put it on high heat. The stems get boiled, while the tender florets get steamed!


Look! They cuddle!!!!!!! Awwww!!! <3 <3 <3

DL's Extremely Tidy and Extremely Organized wiring gets me all hot and bothered. :)