Work as usual

Nothing to report this week. I wish that I had more interesting things to report but I guess that I would have had to do more to be able to report on more. All I do is go to work and go home to sleep. I am analyzing the data from my Colorado field trip. I am also studying for my qualifying exams (oh what fun!).

Poison oak episode is pretty much finished. I now only have a lot of peeling skin on my arms and legs. The best thing for poison oak poisoning was soaking in a load of baking soda for at least an hour a day. I used up 8 lbs of baking soda in 4 days. (I have never used so much baking soda in my entire life.) I noticed immediate improvement in the condition of my legs.

Stake presidency finally talked to me on Sunday, so now I am officially the branch clerk. I started off my new calling with an financial audit (passed with flying colors). Of course, nothing really changed with my new calling because I was already doing branch clerk duties without the official calling. The good part is that the stake presidency called 2 assistant clerks, too. Now I can actually get everything done without spending my entire Sunday running around. Also I can start attending Sunday school again and more than the first half of priesthood (at least sometimes).

Hiking in the mountains

I have updated my webpage with pictures from Colorado, birds, lizards, mammals, and mushrooms.

One professor on my doctoral committee studies mycorrhizas (fungi symbiotic with plant roots). We have a group each week where read papers on mycorrhizas, and I have become quite interested in fungi lately. While in Colorado I took numerous pictures of fungi. I never realized how pretty mushrooms are. I even ate a few of the edible ones. Colorado had a wet summer, and mushrooms sprouted up everywhere. I have never seen so many mushrooms.

I got to hike in 2 mountain ranges in Colorado and 1 in Idaho. My research took me to northern Colorado to Niwot Ridge. I collected stems, soils, and CO2 from 14 sites from 1700 to 3400 meters. It was a lot of fun to see the mountains after being in south Florida where the highest elevation is 12 m. We also got to see the drastic changes from the plains of eastern Colorado to sagebrush and juniper to ponderosa pine savanna up to the lodgepole pine, Englemans spruce, and subalpine fir to finally to alpine meadow and bare rock. By the end of the trip my colleagues were saying that they wanted to live there in the mountains.

At each site I collected sapwood (inner wood) of stems, soil down to 40 cm, and 3 CO2 samples. The 3 CO2 samples took the longest time because I had to set up the system that would pump CO2 from the soil from the chamber over the soil to the gas analyzer then through scrubbers that removed water and finally into a collection flask. I had to first remove all CO2 from the system before collecting CO2 from the soil. Then I had to start collecting CO2 and wait for the CO2 concentration to reach at least 360ppm. All these steps took time. Also we had to hike into the spots with all our equipment including 3 small 12v batteries and a deep cycle marine battery. The mountains have small layer of soil then underlying granite foundation. Sometimes the soil was only 1 cm deep, so we had to use a pick to dig through granite boulders to collect soil samples to 40cm. Two graduate students help me with the collection, which required working 12+ hours a day. However, I planned for everything to take a long time, so we had an extra day after all the work was done. I was going to add more sites because we had one more day, but I had been working my volunteers for 12+ hours a day for 6 days straight. I figured that I would be kind and give them a day off to hike.

We spent it hiking to a alpine meadow (3500+ m) above Brainard Lake. Once we reached the top of the alpine meadow (300m above timberline), we going to go to another higher point, but it started raining and then hailing. We thought that it was best to get to lower elevation under the protection of trees. I had to move particularly fast because I had nothing to protect my camera. Thank goodness the rain stopped after a 20 minutes.

The next day we had to go home, all of us were sad to leave the mountains, but it was nice to get back to the ocean.

Hiking woes

I am back from my 3 week family reunion/research trip to Utah then Idaho, then Colorado, then to New Mexico, and back to Colorado. The family reunions were awesome and my field work was successful. I have to get into more details later because I do not have time at the moment. I do, however, want to show you what I brought back from CO.



I have already touch poison ivy before but did not have a reaction. I thought that I was party of the 10% minority that do not react. Unfortunately I was wrong. Sensitivity to the toxic oil urushiol, increases with subsequential exposure. I must have developed quite the sensitivity. The sad thing that I did not even see any poison oak poison ivy or poison sumac! (All 3 species are in the same genus Toxidendron.) My forearms are covered with small wart-like blisters that ooze lymph and itch like the dickens.

Below is my right knee. The degree of inflammation is not completely visible. The underside of my knee is so inflamed that it is difficult to bend my knee completely. My foreleg is covered with oozing blisters that itch and hurt at the same time.


Monday morning, I first noticed a few very small breakout on my left arm and leg. They were quite small and only gave minor irritation. By Monday night they were alarmingly larger. By Tuesday afternoon they were covering large sections of my left forearm and leg. By Wednesday morning the right arm and leg were breaking out and the left side of my face broke out. By Thursday morning the leg from the knee down and the left forearm were completely covered. The individual bumps were so close together they formed large inflamed bumps of skin that were raised above the rest of the skin by 5mm.


Breakouts continued on Friday when the small isolated patches on my right leg became nearly as large and grotesque as the left leg. Also affected skin appeared above both knees covering both thighs. My right forearm is now partially covered. Also a few small outbreaks appeared on my stomach and hands.











I am using calamine lotion, which gives some relief, but does not take away the itch and pain completely. I take benedryl to help the itching (does not really work).

At work a visiting professor in Puerto Rico where I may do some field work gave me some ideas to help and even carry some of them out. She put baking soda paste all over my legs and covered my legs with paper towels. It did seem to help, but it sure looked odd. She also told me to put an infusion of chamomile and impatiens flowers on the affected skin. They are helpful as anti-puritic remedies. (Now I just have to find some impatients.) The last suggestion that she gave was a "failsafe" remedy for poison ivy. She said that I need to get some soil and pee on it then paste that all over my legs and arms. I'll look for some impatiens flowers, but I think that I'll pass on her miracle cure for poison ivy. Her suggestion was more a miracle cure for getting rid of people than healing my skin.

I did not know that there was poison ivy/oak in Colorado as the field guides do not states that it exists there. However, it must because it broke out bad on me.

So the moral of the story is watch out for poison ivy!

Entering the blogosphere

Now that I have a webpage, I decided to enter the blogosphere. The next post will have more information on it.