KWMR and the Pencil Sharpener August 31, 2013

I was already of big fan of KWMR before the pencil sharpener came on the scene.  At Almost Pi, I am off the grid of communication mostly by intention – no phone, no internet, no TV – and a bit by serendipity – no cellphone service, yet I never feel lonely because KWMR is always with me.  I owe my avidity to my sister Mary and her husband who, troubled over the prospect of Pi’s isolation during an earthquake, presented me one Christmas with a bright red, hand-crank LLBean radio.  Now, on Saturday nights when I’m cooking after a long hike, I’m at Rick’s Jazz Café; while gardening on Sunday mornings, I’m in the cathedral of Sacred Music; other times I’m slipping imaginary coins into the Silver Dollar Jukebox or relaxing in the speakeasy of Happy Days.  KWMR’s kaleidoscope of music connects me to its broadcast booth, only a ten-minute walk away, and I can almost feel the pull of its electromagnetism over the quiet pasture.

Several months ago, the KWMR weekly e-letter sported a drawing of a pencil sharpener and soon thereafter, another e-letter posted the question – I paraphrase – “What is it with the pencil sharpener, anyway?”  “Indeed!” I wondered.  

Apparently, the station staff, after some debate, decided to mount its new pencil sharpener on a post supporting the covered landing just outside their office.  An ardent user of the wooden-clad graphite myself, I gathered up all my stubby pencils and headed down to Mesa Street to give the sharpener a whirl.  The manual X-ACTO, much like the one my dad had down in his basement shop, shaved beautiful points.  There was also a little bucket of brand new, bright yellow Dixon Ticonderogas, stamped with “KWMR” in red letters, for the taking, and I added one to my collection.  Now, I look forward to my weekly sharpening outings, and soon, I’ll get up the gumption to knock on the door and say, “Thank you.”  Or maybe even, “Can I volunteer here?”

The Hawk and the Hammock August 26, 2013

It was the perfect afternoon for a read and a snooze on the hammock: warm with a slight breeze and fluffy clouds drifting by.  I grabbed my book, donned my sunglasses, and gathered up Annie’s comforter and pillow, and in bare feet I tiptoed past the horse poop through the mown hay to curl up for an hour or two.  Out in the field, I could see back behind the house to the eucalyptus trees lining Route 1 and to the cypress trees delineating the pasture boundaries.  The intense greens of these trees, the blue of the sky, and the white of the clouds found homes in my little nest formed by the white cotton rope of the hammock and the pulsating blue and green squares of Annie’s linen, as though the palette in the enormous dome of my surroundings had distilled itself down unto me.  

And there above the eucalyptuses was the red-tailed hawk.  I often hear his screeches and sometimes spy him perching on the fence.  But these trees are his home, his jumping off point, and every time I am the hammock, I see him resting there.  Clearly, I need to spend more time in this special spot, looking upward.

The Fabulous Fox August 25, 2013

It had been a little while since I’d seen the bobcat, and no egrets, herons, badgers or coyotes have shown up lately.  I was beginning to despair of the lack of local wildlife.  Yet while I was catching up on my journal at midday, a quickly darting animal caught my eye.  A fabulous fox swiftly ran toward me, his luxurious white-tipped black tail outstretched behind him.  Without slowing down a bit, the fox darted under one fence and then quickly leapt over the lowest rung of another. 

“The quick brown fox jumped over the lazy dog.”  What a specimen! 

White Poppies at Pi August 11, 2013

Last summer, a sector of white poppies shot up among the orange California poppies in my flowerbed.  A mutation had sported before my very eyes, and as a geneticist (albeit one who works exclusively on humans), I was delighted.  I saved their seed pods, hoping to sow a line of pure white “pi” poppies after the next winter’s big rain.

In the spring, when the seeds gave rise to both white and orange poppies, I knew I needed to learn something about poppy color genetics and breeding.  A quick literature search indicated that a group in New Zealand was on the case, performing genetic studies on a variety of orange, yellow, and white isolates to delineate genes involved in the biogenesis of its color pigments, called “carotenoids” (think “carrots”).  I began a correspondence with the paper’s primary author, Philippa Barrell, located at the New Zealand Institute for Plant and Food Research in Christchurch.  From her I learned that poppies have self-fertilization incompatibility, in fact for a variety of underlying genetic reasons, and that I’d have to get a lot more serious about poppy breeding if I wanted to sort this out.  We’re talking procedures involving anthers and calyx, tweezers and alcohol.  Perhaps an excuse for a small greenhouse?

As it happens, I will be on the South Island during this coming winter’s holidays, and I suggested to Philippa that I visit her in Christchurch and bring along some white pi poppy seeds to incorporate into her studies, to which she rapidly responded that bringing in these seeds could result in either a heavy fine or possibly imprisonment!   Perhaps just a visit, then.  In the meantime, I’ll keep enjoying the white poppies, now all intermingled with their orange kin, and who, for the time being, hold their genetic secrets deep inside.