General Interest

Leaving Lisbon - Cerdeira Village Residency Journal 2

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The second and final day of my stay in Lisbon, I first went to the Estufa Fria.  It's a beautiful greenhouse complex in the Parque Eduardo VII (which I later found out is filled with prostitutes and drug sellers at night... but it was fine in the daytime!).  Though the entrance fee is normally quite cheap anyway, it was actually free for me - I think every Sunday morning the fee is waived.  As I walked in, I was greeted by a pool filled with fish, waterfowl, and turtles.  Then I walked through the main "cold" greenhouse which contains plants that can thrive in the standard Lisbon climate with just a little additional protection, and the two branching greenhouses ("hot," for plants that want a bit warmer and wetter environment like orchids and bananas, and "sweet," for cacti and succulents).  The plants all looked very happy, and I enjoyed seeing some that I keep as houseplants thriving in more natural yet massive plantings.

I then went to the Chiado district, stopped for a quick snack of bread and cheese at a little pop-up market and bought a few local desserts to try.  As I was walking around the area noticed a tall, decorative elevator with a short line of tourists waiting to get on called the Santa Justa Lift.  I decided to get in line; due to my foot, I couldn't handle the hike to the castle which is the more normal touristic look-out point to the city so this was quite an unexpected find!  The line moved relatively quickly, too, and I soon paid the 5.15 euro fare to get aboard.  Once up, I managed with tacit permission from the guard to sneak into a religious ruin and got chased out shortly thereafter by a different guard but not before taking a look and snapping a couple photos!  Then I soaked in the aerial view of the city.

After that, I took Tram 15 to the Belém district and saw the Mosteiro dos Jeronimos cathedral, which is spectacular.  Then I crossed the street as I saw there was a market; it was the first non-touristic shopping opportunity I saw.  All the normal touristic shops sell the same cheap goods for inflated prices (probably manufactured abroad, ironically); especially after traveling enough in a given region, I've found myself to be really not interested in their wares.  This market, though, was geared toward locals (many of the vendors only spoke Portuguese, which is both inconvenient for me but also a strong sign that they are not in it for the tourism angle).  I still actually only bought a couple things - primarily because my luggage was already completely full and I only plan to make more room while in Madrid through using up a lot of what I brought with me (clay, shampoo, lotion, contact solution, etc).  And most of what was being sold was not luggage friendly - vases and other home decor - or was something that I can also pick up in Madrid (scarves and jewelry).  I did buy a little brass dish that caught my fancy, though, and an eighteenth century azulejo tile.  The market was being held next to the annual Lisbon Thai Festival, which was quite random, so I strolled through that, too - it was quite small.

Then I rode the tram to the Torre de Belém, and took a look at it.  I might've decided to go inside, but by the time I got there it had just closed.  According to TripAdvisor, though, I didn't miss much - the outside is the real draw.

Finally, I had dinner at a place literally next door to my AirBnB as all the walking had done a number on my foot already, sampled a caipirinha, and went to bed.

The next day, I packed up my belongings and took taxi to the train station in order to catch my ride to Coimbra B.   I was going to be picked up there by one of the residency staff and driven the rest of the way into Cerdeira Village.  I apparently left the Coimbra B station on the wrong side, so it took a while for the residency staff member to find me, but he eventually did and off we went, driving past the famous University of Coimbra renowned for its medical training en route.  I had also requested we stop to get groceries, and that made the trip long enough that Nuno, the staffer, wanted to get lunch before groceries in Lousã.  He was so kind about my being vegetarian, and we walked to two different restaurants before he settled on a third and basically ordered off menu directly in the kitchen (he knew the waitstaff) for me and even requested they box up my leftovers, which is not even really a thing in Europe.  We also drove past Lousã's castle and a miracle-granting church-on-a-cliff (though really, in this part of the world, everything is on a mountainside or cliff...).

Then we came to Cerdeira Village, where I will be staying for two weeks on a residency.  From May 22nd through May 31st, I will be a normal resident, but from June 1st through June 4th, I will also participate in the Elementos à Solta (Art Meets Nature) Festival.  I was invited to do this residency as one of two sponsored international artists, meaning that Cerdeira Village is letting us stay and use their facilities for free.

The village is a traditional Schist village, which means the houses are made out of thinly stacked and mortared schist rock.  It is also carved into the mountainside; almost nowhere apart from in rooms is flat, and even in the houses there are flights of stairs and you are constantly called to go up or down inclines or stairs to get anywhere.  It is not an ideal site to have a foot injury (!) but luckily, it is not as bad of an injury as it could have been, and upon arrival it was exactly a week old so it already had some time to heal.  Plus, I'd already gotten some of my wanderlust out while in Lisbon so I planned to use the first few days to crank out some studio time.  I met the other sponsored artist, a Finnish woman named Julia, when she arrived a couple hours after I did, and we soon went to bed.  Free accommodations means we're sharing a room, and the room itself can house six people in three bunk beds; we were each set up on the bottom of two of the bunk beds.  I already hit my head on the bottom of the top bunk above me twice, and it took me about an hour of being super self-conscious about making noise while tossing, turning, sneezing, and whatnot next to a stranger trying to sleep, but with my own earplugs and a warm comforter, I eventually fell asleep.

Trump-Era Environmental Damage

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In case you haven't been following along (I do understand the appeal of attempting to ignore that Trump is in charge of the USA), here's a list put together by The New York Times compiling twenty-three environmental laws, regulations, and policies that Trump has overturned in the first hundred days of his presidency.  At least Elon Musk is trying his best to get humanity to Mars, since it seems like it'd be best if we just left Earth to the rest of the species that inhabit it and move to a lifeless planet that won't suffer as much from our short-sighted and morally questionable leadership.

More Cute Lex Photos

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My crested gecko Lex has been posing up a storm lately!  Here are a couple of new snaps of her antics.  If you think she looks significantly yellower in the middle photo than the other two, you're correct - and it's not an illusion due to lighting or camera settings.  The white versions are her "fired down" state, while the yellow is a more active coloration; when she's really intensely "fired up," she can actually even reach a medium brown, but that's relatively rare for her.

Lex Shedding

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Usually animals who are in the process of shedding are quite shy, so I haven't seen Lex shed in quite a while (when she was a baby I saw bits of it as very juvenile crested geckos have a harder time getting their shed off).  But last night, she popped up with a superhero mask and cape of her own dead skin.

I assumed her surprisingly social behavior was a request for more humidity to aid in the detaching and easy consumption of her shed, so after taking her photo I spritzed her and watched as she ate it all within the next half hour.

Human and Animal Lives Colliding

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Did you know that there's a Dead Animal Tales exhibition at the Rotterdam Natural History Museum featuring animals who came into interestingly fatal contact with humanity?  One of the latest additions is a stone marten who got electrocuted while breaching the Large Hadron Collider's substation fence.  The Guardian wrote an article on the exhibition which is worth reading in its entirety, but here's an excerpt:

The stone marten [...] joins a sparrow that was shot after it sabotaged a world record attempt by knocking over 23,000 dominoes; a hedgehog that got fatally stuck in a McDonalds McFlurry pot, and a catfish that fell victim to a group of men in the Netherlands who developed a tradition for drinking vast amounts of beer and swallowing fish from their aquarium. The catfish turned out to be armoured, and on being swallowed raised its spines. The defence did not save the fish, but it put the 28-year-old man who tried to swallow it in intensive care for a week.

It was another unfortunate incident that spurred Moeliker to establish the exhibition in the first place. In 1995, a male duck flew into the glass facade of the museum and died on impact, a fate that did not deter another male duck from raping the corpse for 75 minutes. The incident ruffled feathers in the community but earned Moeliker a much-coveted IgNobel prize when he published his observations . “I was the one and only witness,” Moeliker said. “I’m a trained biologist but what I saw was completely new to me.”

The gay necrophiliac duck sex act is elaborated on here, if you're compelled - as I was - to read more about it.  Apparently there may or may not have been a similar case witnessed between two American squirrels.

The EPA Was Just Frozen by the New US Administration

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The Environmental Protection Agency was just frozen, "temporarily halt[ing] all contracts, grants and interagency agreements."  It's also been placed under a media blackout.  I cannot emphasize enough how problematic this is not only for its immediate effect but also for the implications this action has in conjunction with other decisions and promises - including sharply increasing drilling and mining operations in previously protected land - already made by Trump and his team.  This will lead to short-term financial profit at the short-, middle-, and long-term expense of catastrophic environmental mismanagement.  It's not a unique decision, unfortunately, but it is still a deeply wrong one to make.

Anacampseros Rufescens Seedlings

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And speaking of seeds - my Anacampseros rufescens has bloomed repeatedly for me, and due to its self-fertile nature, it's produced seed pods at least twice that I've noticed.  I also suspect it's a monocarpic plant (though googling has only led me to one other person willing to make that statement, so who knows for sure) as each branch that blooms severely dies back.  Over time, this has meant my plant has become smaller and smaller.  So when I spotted another seed pod in late September that still had seeds in it, I pounced.  I grabbed it and then massaged it over the mother plant such that the tiny little seeds sprinkled into the same pot.  I wasn't sure that would do anything, but I figured it was worth a shot.  Several months later and... we have seedlings!  Adorable little Anacampseros rufescens seedlings, some of which are even sprouting telltale white hairs!  Take a peek - there are at least sixteen visible by my count and that's just one corner of the pot:

Seed Pods

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Speaking of the new year and new beginnings - something managed to pollinate my Aloe aristata (or potentially itself an Alworthia cross or a Haworthia spp. lookalike like Haworthia decipiens), and now I have seeds!  I've never bothered to try to pollinate any of my Haworthia/Gasteria/Aloe flowers due to their long, thin throats, so this is a first for me.  I plan to sow the seeds once all the pods have burst open.  I slit a plastic cup in such a way that I fit it around the flower stem and covered it with saran wrap (with air holes) to try to catch the seeds, as the pods apparently explode with some force in order to scatter their goods far and wide. As you can see, one pod has already opened! 

December Houseplant Blooms

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Happy New Year!  Here are my houseplant blooms from December, minus my Senecio jacobsenii which rebloomed but is currently in my office and therefore I kept forgetting to bring my camera in.  From left to right and top to bottom: Gasteria liliputana, Gymnocalycium bruchii, Haworthia cuspidata, Haworthia fasciata, Mammillaria bocasana, Pachyphytum oviferum (a little misleadingly as its bloom stalk is leaning past the trunk of my Uncarina roeoesliana), Phalaenopsis spp., Rhipsalis mesembryanthemoides, Sansevieria phillipsiae, Ibervillea lindheimeri, Euphorbia flanaganii, and Faucaria tigrina.

Favorite Houseplants

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Someone asked me the other day what my favorite, presently owned plant is.  I honestly don't know.  I imagine most people who have reached the stage where they own over a hundred plants would have a very difficult time answering this question; that's part of the reason why they own over a hundred plants!  I can narrow down my favorites into an only moderately long list, though.  This is in no particular order, other than me thinking about wandering through my house, porches, and office and what's in each of those spaces.

  • Polypodium formosanum 'Cristatum' "E. T. Fern"
    This plant is my favorite fern.  Hands down.  It's surprising, because I don't know that I can categorize other types this broadly - I don't have a definitive favorite cactus, for instance - but ferns are tricky for me to keep properly.  I'm too lazy to provide the proper care requirements (constant watering and higher humidity being the main problems) and while in my care ferns often are either in a state of slow (or quick) decline.  Not E. T. Fern, however!  This plant is the only fern I've ever kept that puts up with my drier conditions and still stays lush.  It is the most easy-going fern I've met, which is lucky, as I've only ever seen the one plant (that I own) for sale so if I killed it I'd be hard pressed to find another.  (I also briefly saw a smaller plant for sale on eBay and my mother snapped it up and when I idly looked again some time later there were no others available.)  It's also a footed fern, which is an aesthetic I really enjoy in a fern, and the fronds are very soft and have a pleasing form.  This is also probably my favorite of all the plants that spend year-round indoors with me.
     
  • Sansevieria masoniana "Whale Fin" or "Mason's Congo"
    My Sansevieria masoniana is the largest plant I own.  It's beautiful in a way I didn't know Sansevieria could be due to the off-putting oversaturation of S. trifasciata laurentii (though I now also have a number of other Sansevieria species that I enjoy aesthetically like S. cylindrica).  I've read that this species typically takes a really long time to send off new leaves; this is completely untrue of my plant.  I have had to cut pots off of mine because it sent off new leaves faster than I'd planned for and warped the pot around its rootball.  Repeatedly.  But there's something pleasing about such a happy houseplant and its mottled, red bordered leaves are really gorgeous.  I love my other Sansevieria, but this is my favorite of the genus.
     
  • Senecio jacobsenii "Trailing Jade"
    I do not get along with actual Crassula ovata jade plants (I know, I know, even black thumbs seem to get along with them) or a lot of other species within the Crassula genus, which is perhaps why I like Senecio jacobsenii so much.  We jive.  I also genuinely aesthetically prefer the trailing habit to the bushy style of Crassula ovata so it feels like I'm extra winning.
     
  • Sedum morganianum "Burro's Tail"
    My affection for this sedum in part stems from the fact that my beautiful, lush plant grew entirely from one small stem segment I picked up off the floor almost ten years ago in a grocery store in Queens and which was given to me for free by the cashier.  Slowly, slowly, slowly, slowly, slowly, then all of a sudden quickly, this little stem grew into a truly enviable specimen.  I also have the rarer version that has pointed leaf tips as opposed to rounded ones.  I aesthetically prefer the points, and I also like knowing it's a rarer form because I'm petty that way.
     
  • Selenicereus chrysocardium "Fern Leaf Cactus"
    This plant was also one that I grew out; I bought an unrooted cutting from a man at an antiques store, and it took ages to grow into something attractive.  In fact, it was only this year that it came into its own.  Nevertheless, it finally has and I think it's really lovely.  I have a couple Epiphyllum spp. cacti that occupy a similar visual (and functional) niche, but of the flattened cactus-reverted-to-tropical genre, this is the most spectacular.
     
  • xNeophytum sp. (possibly 'Firecracker')
    I am enamored of this plant.  Its bright red coloration year-round is spectacular and it's relatively easy-going to boot.  I think this is my favorite bromeliad (and I have a number of bromeliads).
     
  • Copiapoa hypogaea
    This is just a very aesthetically appealing little cactus to me.  It also seems to enjoy living with me, which it demonstrates by flowering and not rotting or etoliating or catching any pests or fungal infections.
     
  • Ariocarpus retusus var. furfuraceus
    I haven't owned this plant for overly long, so I suppose I may change my mind, but I'm currently really into it.  I enjoy its form as is, but it's a real stunner when in flower, and unlike some cacti (ahem, Echinopsis subdenudata 'Domino', I'm looking at you), the flowers last long enough to really appreciate them.
     
  • Ibervillea lindheimeri
    This is a lovely caudiciform as it's also a vine, so it grows rapidly yet in a relatively unobstructive way toward light and is therefore probably my most flexible houseplant in terms of indoor positioning.

It's hard to call out only one species of these genera, so the whole genus will have to do:

  • Mammillaria spp.
    While I've rotted out a number of Mamms in my time, we seem to have struck an accord of late and I'm a sucker for silken-haired cacti like M. hahniana or M. plumosa.
     
  • Pachypodium spp.
    Combining the best aesthetic aspects of cacti and palm trees, these plants are like miniature oases in and of themselves.
     
  • Euphorbia spp.
    Despite the toxic sap, I enjoy the alien yet varied forms these plants take on.
     
  • Stapeliad spp.
    I'm actually more reactive to their sap than Euphorbia sap, but I've been getting really into these lately.  I think part of it is that due to my anosmia I feel an affinity for stink flowers since scent never enhances or detracts from my opinion of plants anyway, while another part is that species like Caralluma look so soft and squidgy in the best of ways.
     
  • Gymnocalycium spp.
    Gymnos are so easy that they can be almost overly unchallenging, but man, it's hard to gripe at cacti that regularly flower, don't rot, and don't quickly etoliate.  These were the first cacti I had real success with and are probably to be credited with deepening my interest in keeping cacti early on when I didn't have access to the best light conditions.
     
  • Aloe spp., Gasteria spp., Haworthia spp.
    Honestly, all three of these (and their numerous crosses), hit the same sweet spot for me in terms of care requirements and aesthetics.
     
  • Agave spp.
    To me, these are like aloe with a bit more metal in them.
     
  • Rhipsalis spp.
    Soft cacti that straddle the line between tropical and succulent speak my language.

So there it is.  For someone who has as many plants as I do, that's actually quite a narrowing down!  I left off perfectly good species and genera that I keep and enjoy like Homalomena 'Emerald Gem', Phalaenopsis "Moth Orchids", Aglaonema "Chinese Evergreens", Saintpaulia "African Violets", Paphiopedilum "Lady Slipper Orchids", Echeveria, Tillandsia "Air Plants", Hoya, Philodendron, Ledebouria, Mesembs, Anacampseros, Sempervivum, and so many more (including a ton of cactus species), so don't tell me I didn't winnow.

I can also tell you the plants are on my never-again list: Opuntia spp. and all other glochid-bearing cacti.  I fervently hate glochids.  I will take firm spines or toxic sap any day over hundreds of nearly invisible, easily detached, reverse-barbed stabby hairs.  It's like the difference between bees and wasps - bees are defensive stingers; wasps are aggressive jerks that seek out trouble.  Glochids are the wasps of the cactus world and I will not invite them into my home no matter how aesthetically pleasing the plant that carries them is.

Though they aren't necessarily perma-banned like glochid-bearing cacti, I also tend to avoid Selaginella spp. due to its rabid desire for water, Crassula and Kalanchoe spp. (with a couple tentative exceptions) and annuals due to my own disinterest in plants that die no matter what I do, and larger plants like many Ficus spp. pretty much solely due to my limited and already overtaxed space.  It may also be of note that since one factor in my favorites and not-favorites depends on what thrives for me which changes due to local climate, some plants I enjoyed more in Baton Rouge aren't on the list now that I'm in Leavenworth.  That's the thing about favorites, though - they come and go depending both on historical performance as well as present conditions, and can also be usurped by a relative newcomer who nevertheless outperforms admirably!  So when I make this list again in a few years, it'll be interesting to see what stays, what goes, and what takes the place of the jettisoned.

November Houseplant Blooms

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Here are some of my November blooms!  I've excluded a few from display due to hard-to-photograph-well-for-various-reasons flowers (a couple of my ever blooming Phalaenopsis and Saintpaulia spp.), but there are more than enough that were accessible.  We've got a range of plants here; in order from top to bottom and left to right, they are: Episcia spp., Rhipsalis pilocarpa, Pleiospilos nelii, Mammillaria plumosa, Schlumbergera truncata, Quaqua incarnata, Mammillaria gracilis var. fragilis, Gasteria glomerata, Haworthia spp., and Faucaria tigrina.  I was particularly excited about the Quaqua incarnata blooms, as I've never had a Stapeliad bloom for me before; but I've also never had a Faucaria tigrina flower either and it's the Mammillaria gracilis var. fragilis' first time as well.  Admittedly some of the photos aren't when the flower was in full bloom; I'm quite busy and I'm not always around when they're at their prime.  That'll give me something to look forward to for future blooms, though!

Arilus Cristatus, The Wheel Bug

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Hey, hey, I finally got to see another beneficial insect on my porch right before hauling my plants in for the winter!  This time, it was Arilus cristatus, the wheel bug.  As their ridged back portends, they are a type of assassin bug which in both its larval and adult stages preys upon aphids, caterpillars, and beetles - including my very common fall pest, the stink bug.  If manhandled, they can bite painfully but they are not aggressive and this fellow somewhat unwillingly posed for me for several minutes before flying off when I got the camera lens just a little too close.  As I was planning on bringing in my plants later that afternoon, I was OK with having scared it away temporarily; I don't think it'd be able to survive overwintering in my house.  Hopefully it'll return, though, to guard my sempervivum and sedum which spend the winter outdoors.

Hurricanes, Rogue Waves, Rogue Wave Holes, and the Three Sisters

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Do you ever go on Wikipedia research spirals?  I end up on them all the time.  My most recent lengthy one began with this Yankee Magazine article, "A Fatal Mistake | The Sinking of El Faro," which brought me to the Wikipedia page for SS El Faro, which somehow led to researching rogue waves and rogue wave holes and the MS München as well as the Three Sisters waves and the SS Edmund Fitzgerald amongst other well known incidents.

This was all particularly interesting to me given my prior experience working as an assistant vessel operator in dry bulk shipping.  While steering-into-a-hurricane-leads-to-calamity is an unsurprising notion to me, I was not aware of the phenomenon of rogue waves prior to this research spiral; science itself wasn't really aware either until 1995!  It's amazing and kind of simultaneously exciting and terrifying to me that there is still so much about this world that we don't know or understand.

Halloween Pixelated, Low Resolution Face Paint

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I like to paint my face each Halloween with either an art-related theme or a high skill look (or ideally, both!); I fancy that it shows my students another facet of artistry they may not have considered - and being a good makeup or visual effects artist absolutely involves a lot of the principles and elements of design.

This year, I did a pixelated, low-resolution look.  That's what you get when blowing up raster... and we've been talking about vector vs. raster artwork in Computer Graphics all semester!