After the grant report was due, we all heaved a sigh of relief but didn’t stop to rest on our laurels. Instead we hit the ground running. Sarah and Jenna pitched in to help me take care of some of the stuff on and around my desk, mostly the ever-growing piles of re-IDs. Thanks goodness for their help…

Am I laughing or crying behind subsample mountain? It could go either way. Oh the humanity! But we finished the grant right? Why is my pile of re-IDs still growing? Pictured below is why.

Art has abandoned the Nart consortium and joined the Shrimp Mafia. He has recruited Sammy DeGrave and Ivan Marin to work with him on shrimp identifying. They will be visiting us for several weeks.

Remember that little trip to Heron Island that Rob, Sea, and François went on? Well those specimens (seven buckets worth) arrived from Australia to make the week more interesting. Since it was so long in transit without ethanol it needed our immediate attention. Jenna did the lion’s share of the unpacking and rehousing.

But I (along with Sarah, not pictured–don’t worry, I make up for it later) totally helped.

There was so much material that we had to make multiple trips to the offsite ethanol storage facility (hereafter known as the Ethanarium) to refill our supply back at the range. Here is Sarah multitasking by refilling our ethanol carboy and getting a tricep workout.

Sarah has also been doing some work in the lab with Jodi, a grad student in Entomology/Nemotology who is doing some land snail work with John. Even though we send much of our DNA work to the Smithsonian, for our more immediate and smaller-scale needs we can still do extractions here. Sarah has been showing her our procedures.

Plus, we also rested on our laurels. In the picture below you can see the celebratory feast we prepared and a portion of the celebrants (from right to left): John, Nat, Gustav, Sarah, Sea, Mika. But what’s that poking out from behind the tree?

Puppies! It was also Mookie’s birthday on Feb 1st. End of grant and puppy birthday, what better reason to feast! Gustav, Sarah, and I all brought our pups: Puka, Motu, and Mookie.

Now back to work!

🙂 Mandy