Doses & Mimosas

To be honest, not much has happened since my last post but I'll update everyone. 

The title, I take great pride in every one of my post titles, is a shout out to my future farming buddy Wynn Tan. She has an outstanding taste in music. Speaking of music, I've never listened to this much music in my life. Everyday I'll open my Spotify and listen to a new playlist. Thankfully Wynn and Abby have also been giving me songs and bands to look into. Both have yet to let me down! (Pressures on)

Over the past week at work, I have been entering data into Excel. It has been tedious but it is important and necessary work. I've made the observation that science is 30 percent experiment and 60 percent excel and 10 percent "Dear God I hope this works." The scores Gul, Amer and I took about the crown rot and my scans of the roots were all entered into their corresponding files. Eighty-nine pages of numbers from one to five and four and a half pages of seven root parameters--quite tiresome. Luckily while I was working I got to listen to music (see above) and NPR (Terry Gross never disappoints). 

In my free time I've been writing, reading, running and watching Sherlock. The writing has surprised me. I've been able to freely write my thoughts and ideas. It is a very freeing feeling to clear your head and see your mind on paper. I am about half-way through the Agatha Christie murder mystery (I think it is the sister-in-law). Since I can't lift weights around here I have to settle for running. It has been freeing to run on the roads that lead into and encircle the fields of wheat. I can start to feel cooped up after a couple days. However, it is down hill at the start and up hill at the end with the wind constantly in your face. "Oh Adam, the wind constantly in your face? surely that is not possible!" You are all wrong because it surely is. 

As for today, I woke up around seven o'clock, as per usual, to find that there was no running water, as per unusual. So, no shower today...yet. 

Here are some of the pictures I promised! 

Elfinesh, Cui and I made a type of fried chicken with potatoes. It was a culinary experiment. We were just going to bake it with the olive oil, onion, garlic and curry sauce but I suggested we bread it. It was unbelievably good. 

Since I know not everyone has Snapchat, here is the selfie I took at the cafe after I got my hair cut. 

Here I am filling 250 grams of soil into dishes. The soil will then be washed to collect and count the number of Cereal Cyst Nematodes in each sample. Notice the unruly hair!

100 grams of soil and five roots from wheat are soaked in water through filter paper here for 72 hours. The water will then be collected and used to count the number of Root Lesion Nematodes in each sample. Amer informed me that in Florida, the University extension charges $25 for each plate to do this test. I set up 160 plates.

As an update to Elfinesh's work, she has found out which strain is most aggressive and is happy with her results! On to the next one!