Hannah and Jack's wedding (She's Hannah Kennedy now!)

Well- the biggest event of the summer was Hannah and Jack's wedding in Massachusetts. That is me on the left, our lovely bride center and (little) Mary in yellow-- practically a grown-up can you believe it! It was a wonderful gathering, held at a quaint old-style summer retreat named Camp Stanica:

by the lake, complete with fairies as flower girls.

 John was there,

and Lili with Ziggy, of course

 and (not great picture of Rachel, sorry Rach! :), Liane-- Don's delightful daughter, Roz (before she dramatically fell down the stairs-- don't worry,she's fine) and our Marmee and Ziggy and Lili again...

father of the bride, Barry, with Rich-- camp administrator and crazy dancer

 groom, Jack, and Mom Eileen in elegant Hawaiian-style black

 my husband Tom in his usual "Please don't take my picture- I will mess it up for you" pose

Hannah with her flower girls and ring boys

the wedding party

Rachie's Don and John-- that is lemonade...

Dear cousin Mark, brother David Furlow and sister-in-law Becky-- so great to see them all!

coaching the fairies-- they were fabulous!

 and very earnest...

all views of the camp...

                                                                       June 4, 2011

These photos document a very lovely wedding, held in a beautiful spot, for a wonderful couple, and their family and friends, both near at hand and far away, all of whom are connected in this community. I also want to add that Barry's mom Beverly, and Papa Gene, and brothers David and Steve (who officiated) and Steve's wife Sibby (who helped design the Chuppah, a Jewish wedding canopy which sheltered the ceremony,  and whose top was a gorgeously colored  quilt pieced by Hannah) were all present too, but alas-- those pictures have not been downloaded into my computer, so this post is partial-- with what I have on hand today!

My sweetie pie ^.^

Tis me agian!!

Hi everyone,
Sorry I have been such a slacker at posting but life has been kind of crazy.
Just got back from my first voyage into the Great Australian Outback!!! It was great!!! To start my trip I flew up to Sydney where I got to spend a day wondering about the city. Walked to botanical gardens and the found my way to the Opera house. It was really cool standing there looking at this building that I have seen countless times on TV or in picture and here I am right in front of it!

After my day in Sydney I met up with 3 guys that were also going out the the research station and we headed out (I didn't know until we got into the car that it would take 2 days of driving to get there!). Anyway quietest car ride ever!!!!! None of the guys that I was with really talked, Uli and I (who I got to know later and absolutely love him) were strangers and the other two just didn't seem to like each other. Anyway once we got through the Blue Mountains I went into what I call a boredom coma and just took a continuous stream of cat naps. Would wake up to look around watch some landscape roll past then drop my head back on the head rest and be out again for another little nap. Because not only did no one talk but being in the middle of know where your cell phone didn't work, no radio stations came in and there was no CD player or Ipod dock in this car.

That is how I made my way from one side of New South Whales to the other (the wide way a crossed). Once we got to the station I met Simon the professor from Macquarie University that I had arranged this trip through. I didn't even realize when I met him who I was meeting at first. I was expecting an older man and Simon is only 38 was really impressed you usually don't become a tenured prof with a really successful lab in our field before you are 50.

So I went out to work on Zebra Finches, any one who ever spent any amount of time with Granddaddy Howard over the years has seen a Zebra Finch or 300. They are one of the most widely kept birds in the world (I think they are right behind chickens) also one of the most widely studied birds in captivity. Simon's lab is pretty much the only one that studies them in the wild. He has a number of partnerships with other labs around the world so that their students come and do research along side his on the wild finches. One of those students Ulrich Knief (Uli) was my main companion while at the research station.

I was assisting him with catching, banding, and bleeding the finches. By helping him I mean I was catching, banding, and bleeding the birds while he took his morphological measurements that he needed for his project.
The way that we were catching these birds was freaking hysterical! It was something an 8 year boy would come up with (The technique was probably created and perfected by an 8 year old). It consisted of a regular wire bird cage with a sliding door, a stick, string and some seed. We seeded the cage tide a string to the stick propped the door open with said stick unrolled the string about 10- 15 meeters and waited. Before we could really trap, the feeders need to be heavily seeded with the door wired open for a few days so that the finches could find them and get used to going in them. We were extremely successful, on average I would catch about 100 birds a day the problem quickly became that we were re-catching a lot of the same birds (ones that we had already banded).

I have to go to work now so I will have to continue this post later.
But here are some pictures from my trip!


Our Work Station



Male Zebra Finch



Sun Rise



Me and my first Spike haired pigeon (more scientifically called a crested pigeon) I as you can tell by photographic evidence am thrilled Pigeon not so much!




This is a picture that Uli took in December but I love it. This little guy had just gotten out of the pouch.




Me in a Gum tree



Spiders were everywhere, amazing webs and the tensile strength of these webs was insane!


I have fallen in love with Gum trees they are so beautiful and smell amazing



Tried to get a picture of an Emu the whole time I was out there. Then as we were driving in to Broken Hill to drop me off this whole family came up next to the road to say good bye!





My partner Uli kissing a Honeyeater that I caught!

"Snow"--fwd from Aunt Gail in Spencer, Oklahoma (I borrowed an image to illustrate)

Dear Ones,  Yes, we got a lot of it (snow) this time.  And lots of
 wind, too.  So much they are now calling it a ground blizzard (snow
 has stopped falling, now just flying around due to the winds).  And
 it is below bitter cold.  Just downright dangerous.  Has been -16
 degrees all day and will be worse tonight.
 And, yes, once again, we are blessed.  We are warm, dry and have
 the ability to make hot food.  Our biggest problem is that the dog
 barely stays outside long enough to tend to necessities!  She loved
 the snow last year.  Today she wouldn't even leave the path I made
 for her in order to chase the birds perching on low bushes.
 Actually, the whole state has pretty well been blessed.  Not so
 many serious car crashes, 'cause most everyone has heeded the
 warnings to stay home, but not had many, if any power outages,
 downed electric lines, etc.
 Tomorrow, I hope to get out for long enough to shovel the driveway
 and have it stay shoveled.  We are expecting delivery of a new wood
 lathe as soon as this stuff clears out and it seems they won't even
 bring it up the driveway.  They will forklift it off the truck and
 maybe sit it on the curb!  So, our entertainment as we wait this
 storm out is figuring how to get this monster up the driveway and
 positioned in the garage.  We are at this point thinking hiring
 some day laborers to help and carrying it like we do trees at a
 sundance! Please make a prayer that the wind stops so there is not
 such a horrible wind chill factor and there is no ice under the
 snow, cause this thing is probably going to get dropped off on
 Thursday!  Lots of love to all, Gail

Pictures

Just wanted to post up some pics that I have. I will try and put up a post in the next day or so. I am totally beat from work so I am off to bed.
love ya