hard-hitting ginger cookies and jiggling egg yolks

I had a really interesting day. At culinary class we had a guest speaker talk about making pasta from scratch.
"The traditional way is to take a mountain of flour and put the eggs in--a little mountain, a hill--"[chuckles]

Then for the carbonara sauce one of the guys was helping, with separating an egg. You take the yolk in your hand and dribble the white through your fingers.
-Levi, jiggle it!
-I'm jiggling as hard as I can!
-Faster!
-Whoo, that was awesome!

Off to biology class. We had a little expedition to the local stagnant pond, to collect samples. We were armed with ladles tied on to broomsticks, for added reach.
-That ladle is a masterpiece! Eh...okay, you can hold the masterpiece.

At the pond we were supposed to record in our lab notebooks what we saw and heard. Other than a small [but noisy] contingent of frogs fleeing into the water at our approach, there was not a noticeable amount of things to notice--quite possibly because we were making a certain amount of noise ourselves. There were some younger siblings along.
-Okay, I hear little kid screaming, big splash.....[I must hasten to explain that the splash was caused by the dog leaping in to retrieve a stick.]

Inside we played a review game. Cards with definitions on one side of a pair, and term on the other. Something like Go Fish, except it became evident that some of us were not as familiar as could have been hoped with the rules of the latter game!
Someone has, say, "eukaryotic cell" and asks for the definition, "do you have a cell that does not have any organelles".

Mrs. T: Bethany, do you have a parasite?
[mass hilarity]

Jonathan: Ooh, learning. I don't like that.

Mrs. T: [giving us a hint, for "endospore"] Now, if a bacterium is going through a difficult time....

Can't recall who it was: Does anyone have Fibrous Bristles?

Mrs. T: [More hints] Prokaryotic cells.....
Me:[happy to oblige, in a sing-song voice].....Don't have organelles!

More fun stuff:
-A flagellum..eh...locomotes.

-That's not the right kind of scribble!


I made another batch of ginger cookies tonight. They are hard-core. I used approximately 1/2 cup of powdered ginger, a substantial quantity of fresh grated ginger, and chopped candied ginger. Epic.

too much Facebook...

Sorry I haven't been posting lately!! FB is taking all my computer time :(

Today I had a Spanish class after culinary, a homeschool class in someone's home. Eh. Then raced over to rehearsal at the Grange where I creeped Eva out by how much I know about her schedule, plans for the weekend, etc. I have a tendency to do that to people. They start slowly backing away from me. "I am the human BlackBerry," I joke, as we plan our next rehearsal. As the other two distract me by sundry exploits with frozen bottles of water: "The BlackBerry's hard drive is overheating! It can't multitask!"

My current FB status: Bethany is looking forward to a nice evening. Risotto [with farmers' market chantarelles] on the stove--check, fire in the woodstove--check, biology homework completely [as of yesterday] pwned for the WEEK--check, new Artemis Fowl book from the library--check, geekiness--check.

Fall is here. I was just warm enough last night. At farmers' mkt today there was a notable presence of woolly hats, jackets, wellingtons, and a general air of brisk heartiness.
I wore a lovely pair of mismatched woolly long socks to school today and my feet were toasty.

Tomorrow at bio class we've got a field-trip [all of 50 feet, I think!] out to the pond to collect samples of pond-water which will then be allowed to percolate for a week, prior to excited inspection by us with microscopes. It's always fun to chase a swift-moving Volvox across the screen.

Oh wow--Blogger found about a dozen "mispelled" words in this post!
And OH YES......WHO knows about Pogo Possum???? Grandma, is it you????

That chair in front of the woodstove is beckoning me....cheers, folks!