More work photos!

A few more photos from work.  Most of these are from the week of packing that happens at this time of year.  The seedlings are sorted, boxed up and conditioned for the winter for us and other companies to plant out in the spring.  The sorting is the most confusing as there are hundreds of different seed zones, progenies and clones to keep separate.

Kiln Room. aka soon-to-be-also-humidity-&-dry-room. So for cones like Black Spruce, Western Larch, White Spruce etc. we let them dry at ambient in an attempt to open them. Then to open them further, they are soaked in buckets of water, popped into screen trays and kilned at 60°C for about 7 hours. This forces them open a bit more and it's done 3 times with tumbling in between. This is standard for forestry but I'm taking samples from this kilning to see if the quality of the seed decreases as well.

  

Western Larch ready to be kilned. These cones produced about a handful of seed! We are on the range limit for Western Larch and it's not uncommon that they don't set seed properly.

And this is my newest toy!  The Dinolite isn't as good as Wolfy's setup obviously but it's still pretty cool!  :)

updating...

OK, I know I've been shite at updating this.  But in my defence, no one ever comments and everyone seems to forget to check this anyway!  But I'll put up some photos for you anyway.

This is my 'new' couch!  Picked it up for $15 from around the corner :)  I know it's ugly but it's in good condition and i'll get a cover for it.

Some more photos from the Iron Horse Trail...

Oktoberfest potluck dinner at work.....woohoo!

Pear crumble pie (made with the best red pears I've ever tasted - from BC of course!)

My stuff finally arrived!  Still living a bit like a student and since my flat is so much bigger, the stuff I had just kinda disappeared.

Oscar was so happy that his tree arrived!  Of course true to form, the only place it fits is right smack in the middle of the living room :P

My spare bedroom is all set up!  Who's going to be the first guest at chez Lindsay??

BLueberry corn muffins!  Once my stuff got here I settled into old routines and got back to cooking and baking after nearly a 3 month hiatus.

I've woken up a few times now to HUNDREDS of Bohemian Waxwings in the wild cherry tree outside my window.  They are noisy but awesome!

My little Blackcapped Chickadee has finally found my bird feeder :)  I know it's a type of tit but here we call the chickadees because that's the sound they make!

Made some of my famous bread & butter pickles too :)  Eat your heart out Wolfy!  No time for pickles with little bambinos...

It finally properly snowed on Friday night!!!  So beautiful.  Still here of course because it's never gone above zero since.  Highs of about -5 to -10C this week but tomorrow.... a high of -16C.  WOOHOO!

Balcony view...

Oscar being not so impressed with the snow.  Typical whoosy brit, he wouldn't go outside for more than 15 minutes at a time.

Went skating for the first time in 12 years on Sunday.  My feet HURT.  But it will get better.  Picked up a used pair of skates for about £3.  And skating is free.  How cool is that?  By 3 circuits I was at least skating without holding the sides and by the end I was at least looking better than most of the anklebiters swarming around me :)

Sunday afternoon I had a go at making ravioli for the second time - it worked infinitely better this time.

And what's better to come home to after skating than a plate of homemade ravioli and a glass of madeira?  Nothing!  I've given away all the ravioli now, so I'll make more this weekend.  It's fun!

So you are up to date now I think.  Hopefully more snow tomorrow and I'll be able to get my skiis out for the first time this weekend!!!!

Stay warm!

Pincher Creek!!

OK.  Finally got the photos sorted from cone collecting at Pincher Creek!  These seeds are like gold.  The trees are endangered in Alberta and we have to 'cage' the branches earlier in the season because we are competing with birds, squirrels and bears for the seeds!

It was bloody cold.  I had to borrow kit from people and even with 6 layers on, I was only just warm enough when we were working.  The 1 hour we had to wait for the pilot to come back was frickin awful!  

http://www.facebook.com/media/set/?set=a.223624251034458.58685.100001606539120&type=1&l=9f688e662d

HAPPY THANKSGIVING EVERYONE!

"It isn't what we own or buy that signifies our wealth;
It's the special gifts that have no price: our family, friends and health."

 

 

23rd Annual Great White North Pumpkin Festival!!

So AWESOME!

Link to the photos on FB:

http://www.facebook.com/media/set/?set=a.219213764808840.57578.100001606539120&l=99b5e7c7c2&type=1

Smoky Lake Pumpkin Festival!!

In less than 24 hours over 5000 people will decend on our little town for a weekend of mayhem. Woohoo!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dUuZDNgdn1I&NR=1 

You can shake your head if you want, but you know you wish you could see it this weekend!!

 http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4YpNhFWn1gs&noredirect=1

 The fun starts tomorrow evening with an art show and wine tasting next door in the Ukanian Hall!  

Work photos!

i finally got around to taking some photos at work on Friday too.  I'll take more next week, as I'm on a one hour lunch.

 This is the processing room.  All the cones come here first until we decide what's happening with them.  Some collections are for industrial use (oil/mining companies can request or buy them for reclamation), some collections are just for our conservation collections (I'm in charge of this now) and some get split into both.  Some are from our breeding orchards for research.  Some have enough cones that we can send them to the industrial nursery next door (> 1 hectalitre) and the smaller ones we clean ourselves.

 These are the Black Spruce (Picea mariana) cones I counted last week.  They are from one of our clone breeding orchards.  There are a few clones and many trees for each clone.  We monitor the number of cones, height, growth rate etc of the trees.  Don't get excited about the clones.  I did at first but it's not as bad as it sounds.  It's a long explanation though.

 And these are Red Pine (Pinus resinosa) that I counted last week as well.  And yes, they are VERY sticky!  Geez, I thought we dressed down at the MSB.  You have no idea...

 And these are some of the Black Spruce waiting for me to count them.

 We are keeping a few of the Black Spruce cones out of the bulk collection because we don't have much separate seed from these ones for research.

 These are Limber Pine (Pinus flexilis) that arrived in my first week.  These were picked early because we need to beat the birds and squirrels.  But some species can be harvested a little early and matured, as long as the embryo is more than 50% of the entire seed length.

 And this is the DC room where we  mature the seeds.  We also use it later in the year for the seedlings, hence the name 'dormancy conditioner'.  It's kept at 15C and the humidity is constantly trying to come down to 65%, although with all the new cones coming in, it's been near 100% lately.  We don't have a dry room because we don't need it!  Happily, once the cones are picked and matured if needed, they dry down to ambient (around 40% RH) and over the course of seed cleaning the ambient drops to about 20% RH near Christmas.  Perfect!  In fact last year they were a little slow because they were shorthanded and the last few seeds they cleaned after Xmas were possibly a little TOO dry at around 4%MC.  Eczema here I come.

 This is one of the 5 glasshouses belonging to us.  Not used right now obviously but soon.

 Just to show the 14 glasshouses belonging to the commercial nursery next door.  It used to all be government but in their infinite wisdom, they privatised some of it about 10 years ago.

And this is the view of the admin building from my building.  There are around 10 people in this building, including my bosses.  

My building.  Called the tech building by us.  6 of us work here but Karen and I are the only two that work in the labs.  The rest are pickers, glasshouse keepers and database...people. 

Anyway, I'm off to make pumpkin cookies for my NEW colleagues.  Eat your heart out!  Have a good week.