Roger has always excelled in math and sciences — no surprise given lineage — and is of the age (9) where the science education is moving into bigger and smaller areas of study.

So far, he has gotten by with a QX-5 Digital Microscope
and mixScope. While the QX-5 is great for looking at money, the veins in leaves, bits of mushroom and tiny critters, high magnification is pretty much useless because the construction makes focus impossible.

Thus, the desire to get something more like a real microscope. In particular, I really wanted a microscope that allows for live viewing on a computer screen (like the QX-5). While, there were some good ones for less than $500 — 3MP digital camera model microscopes that included simultaneous use binocular eyepieces, even — their software is pile of Windows only crapware.

No, thank you. Next!

Close-up of cross section of spinal column.

Enter the Celestron 44340 LCD Digital LDM Biological Microscope. It replaces the normal eyepiece with a 2.1MP digital camera and a color LCD screen. More importantly, the build quality is actually quite decent such that focusing at, even, the 400x maximum optical zoom is quite smooth!

Unlike the QX-5, the Celestron 44340 is really only for use with proper microscope slides (The QX-5 still has a purpose!). blank microscope slides and slide covers are cheap, so I picked up a bunch of those, too.

The slide table includes a very nice set of caliper style adjusters for moving the slide around in a highly controlled fashion. Slides are held in place by an easy to use spring loaded caliper.

The microscope can illuminate the subject from either the top or bottom and the bottom illumination includes a variety of color filters that can be quite useful. Intensity of illumination can be adjusted.

The top illumination is nearly useless at all but the lowest magnification (otherwise there isn’t enough distance between lens and subject).

The digital controls include an EV adjustment, a digital zoom, and the ability to take snapshots. Digital zoom only works when the snapshot resolution is configured for less than 1600×1200. Digital zoom works by interpolating data across the sensor into a lower-than-sensor resolution image that provides a higher-than-optical zoom factor. It actually works fairly well (unlike most digital zooms).

Pollen. Evil, evil, pollen.

The unit also comes with a really nice hard sided carrying case, a dust cover, and power adaptors for global use. A surprisingly complete kit — I was completely blown away by the quality of the case for a device this relatively inexpensive.

My only real complaint is that the LCD is effectively physically attached to the camera & lenses. That, combined with the relative stiffness of the buttons means it is hard to take an image that isn’t blurry. However, it seems that the unit has a slight delay between button push and recording such that is isn’t as big of a problem as it could be. But, still… stupid design — just move the damned shutter button to the base. I’ll probably hack the unit to add an external shutter button.

All in all, I’m thoroughly impressed by the build quality and feature set of this microscope. I would still have been impressed if my $180 had purchased a microscope with this optical performance, sans awesome case and really nice slide table.

All of the images in this blog post were taken with the microscope, no surprise. It is a boxed set of prepared slides that I also picked up from Amazon.

This year was mostly a great growing season for our garden. We got lots of beans, squash, tomatoes, and other goodies.

However, this year was also the year of aphids.

At left is a blossom on a red oleandar that I planted a few weeks before that photo was taken.

The ants are farming the aphids. That is, they herd and protect the aphids. In return, the aphids suck the plant’s sap and the ants carry off the waste product — the aphid poop — to store away in their nest for future feasting.

Two species acting symbiotically to irritate the hell out of me.

If this were the only infestation of this kind, I would be concerned that I had chosen a location for the plant that was sub-optimal and, thus, led to weakness that made the plant susceptible to such an attack.

But, not in this case. This is not the only massive infestation of aphids that I have seen this year!

The community garden was also plagued with aphids. And by plagued, I mean plagued.

This is a closeup of the blossom of a long bean plant. At a distance, the vine looked black because the aphids were this thick over the entire plant.

If you look closely at that photo, there are a handful of parasitic bugs attacking the aphids. Unfortunately, nowhere near enough to quell the infestation. The only solution was to remove the plant in its entirety.

Oddly, they only attacked some of the bean plants. No idea what made one plant more attractive than the next, given that the beans were in the same soil and climbing the same trellis.

Every now and then, a critter will strike a pose for me.

This red-eared slider showed up a week or so ago at the landing site for the Smith’s Fern Grotto tour, a boat trip along the Wailua river with a short walk through the jungle.

They had been looking for the turtle to re-appear. Of course, Roger found it — he has 20/10 vision and finds life in the most surprising places.

Red-eared sliders have become ubiquitous the world over as they are the most popular aquatic turtle kept as pets. We found a rather much larger red-eared slider in Missouri.

For whatever reason, the black widow population in our neighborhood has skyrocketed this year.

They are relatively non-aggressive and harmless when left alone, but they are a nuisance and can be a hazard.

One of the toddlers around the corner got bitten earlier in the summer. 2 days of all over muscle cramping followed by 2 weeks of flu like symptoms. The spider had taken up residence in the stroller and didn’t like being sat upon.

An accident, assuredly. While black & brown widow are voracious consumers of pest bugs, I would much rather have some other species of spiders around.

This particular critter had taken up resident in an antique toy truck that had been rusting in the yard for a while.

Beautiful creature. I hadn’t seen a black widow with such distinct markings on its back. That’s because it isn’t a black widow, but a brown widow (thanks, Mark!!). If there were any doubt that it is a widow, the picture of the spider’s belly below will lay that question to rest.

I do hate to kill anything, but this one met The Big Squish in the middle of the street.

Yesterday, Roger and I decided to wade up the creek in the valley behind my parent’s house. The creek is healthier than I have seen it in decades; full of wildlife, including fish, frogs, tadpoles (big fat ones!), crayfish and the occasional turtle.

“Hey, Dad, there is a turtle over there!”, Roger exclaimed. I looked and I didn’t see a damned thing. At first. When Roger makes such an observation, I know better than the doubt him.

Now, you might look at the picture at the right and think, “well, duh, it is obvious”. That picture is the product of modern technology! The reality was that said turtle was under some tree roots (seen at the top of the picture) in a deep shadow near the bank of the river. Not terribly obvious.

Moving a bit closer, fortunately not too close, the turtle became quite obvious. It was a snapper and a pretty good sized one, too!

Roger and I had talked about snapping turtles earlier in the week and I said that I knew how to pick one up. Of course, that meant that I was going to have to pick this particularly ornery beast up.

Can’t disappoint the son on Father’s day, after all!

Snapping turtles are one of the angriest of critters around. These are some seriously bad tempered critters. And they are well armed.

When something said turtle doesn’t like (or wants to eat) passes within about 6″ of its face, it’ll sit motionless until the target is within range. Then the turtle will shoot its rather rock-like head out with jaws wide open and then snap them shut. Flesh and bone is no match. Neither are shovel handles, if the snapper is big enough (this one wasn’t).

Given that they can also move side-to-side fairly fast and those are some really big/sharp claws on its feet, the safest way to pick up one of these is by the tail.

So, tail grab it was!

In the photo at left, I’m actually holding the turtle by the tail with my left hand and shooting the photo with my right. It is a little over a yard long from tail to snout.

Little did I know that snappers can flex their tails enough to swing a bit to get a bit of extra range for their head-thrust-and-snap attack. That was an exciting discovery.

I really need to teach Roger how to use my camera. It would have been easier.

One thing that is not conveyed in this image is just how bad the damned thing smells. Think stirred up sewage lagoon in the hot sun.

After checking out the turtle for a moment, I put it back in the creek.

Little did I know that my turtle adventure was not actually over!

It seems that when you irritate a snapper, they take it quite personally. Not only did the snapper keep one eye on me and one eye on Roger, it actually started to come after us!

Now, fortunately, they aren’t the fastest creatures in the world, but it is still a bit unnerving to have a 25 pound hissing, snapping, rock crawling through the creek after you.

Once it was clear we were moving on, it went back to lurking in the shadows, doing its best to look like a rock.

At left, is tight crop of a Black Widow that I found this morning.

If you look closely, you can see my reflection on its back (below the mouth bits — it is upside down).

The ring like reflection is the ring flash on my the Canon 100mm macro lens used to take the picture. The bluish-white blob to the right of that is me; my shirt, mostly.

Same shot. Not so cropped.

This particular Black Widow is living in the neighbor’s bed of clover. She is clearly quite hungry in that Black Widow’s are rarely so aggressive. This one would pop out of her hidey-hole at the slightest bit of motion on the web.

I got this particular shot by using a stick to jiggle the web like an insect would.

Beautiful creature, really. Just wish it didn’t live quite so close to where the neighborhood kids play. Thus, it’ll likely be dead by sundown.

A went back and visited Ms. Widow a bit later and discovered that I could get her to come out in the open by jiggling her web with my finger. Slightly unnerving as she approached my finger, but then she decided to hang out in the open.

Thus, I was able to capture the image at left. It is an uncropped, full 15 megapixel, image of the black widow as she hung upside down in her web.

Best viewed at full size and then scaled to fit your monitor.

She then proceeded to hang out and fix her web. Thus, I ended up with a gallery of action shots, spinnerets and all. I didn’t know that black widows have hairy backs.

Roger found a black widow hiding under the rim of a neighbor’s trash can.

I took a photo before we knocked it down and squished it.

As much as I hate to kill anything, I’m not at all opposed to discouraging growth of the disturbingly large population of black widows in the San Jose area this year.

We’ll be lucky to get any Osmia lignaria bees this season as they generally try to already have a nesting site by now. They are a very early season pollinator!

However, there is a second native bee that may likely take up residence and provide effective pollination services all summer. Osmia californica, another mason bee, takes over about the time lignaria is done!

I might order some tubes of Osmia californica bees to kick start the local population.

If you have any interest in gardening or flowers, or follow any kind of agricultural related financial markets, you are likely aware that one of the ecological disasters we face is known as colony collapse disorder.

Basically, the worker bees in a honey bee colony die, get lost, or otherwise just cease to function. The cause has been attributed to pollution, mites, genetic degradation, pesticides, genetically modified crops, and/or a slew of other guesses.

It is a serious problem in that bee driven pollination of crops is what sustains much of the agricultural production in the United States.

Oddly, though, the european honey bee — the bee that everyone immediately thinks of as the One True Way that flowers are pollinated to yield seeds and crops — is actually an imported species and, frankly, a bit invasive at that.

Not only invasive, honey bees tend to be territorial in that they will actively defend their hive. As well, they really aren’t even that efficient as pollinators.

Not surprisingly, there are many native pollinators buzzing or flitting about. In the South Bay, the most noticeable are the carpenter bees as they are gigantic, relatively clumsy, totally non-agressive, fuzzy, and have a noticeably loud buzz while flying.

But they aren’t the true superstars of the native North American pollinators. For that, one should look to the Mason Bee or Orchard Bee (Osmia lignaria).

The mason bee is a rather docile flying insect that is considerably smaller than the carpenter bee. Like the carpenter bee, it is non-territorial, won’t sting unless seriously threatened, and is non-swarming.

The mason bee is an extremely efficient pollinator as a single bee may visit over a thousand blooms per day.

Clearly, this is a bug whose presence should be encouraged!

Fortunately, it is easy to provide housing for such a helpful critter. Roger is standing next to a mason bee home that we made over the weekend. We chose to make one out of a block of wood. However, bundles of reeds, bamboo or — even — appropriately sized straws work quite well, too.

To make a wood based bee house, start with a block of 4″x6″ wood. Soft wood — fir or pine — works best and it must be untreated.

As the nesting holes need to be at least 4″ deep, you’ll be drilling into the 4″ side of the wood.

Draw a grid on the wood with the holes all being separated by approximately 3/4″.

Don’t worry to much about making the lines straight. The bees really don’t seem to care!

At each intersection, drill a 5/16″ or 3/8″ hole that is at least 4″ deep, preferably about 5″ deep (no more than 1/2″ from all the way through).

Hole diameter and depth is rather critical. Any narrower or any shallower and your bees will tend to produce male offspring. The male mason bees don’t live as long and are not terribly good pollinators, by comparison.

A drill press — especially one with lasers — definitely makes this particular part of construction go much much faster!

Once drilled, I also sanded the front face of the house. Not so much because I was worried about the bees getting splinters, but because the wood was soft/wet enough that some of the holes had been a bit blocked by wood after drilling. Thus, sanding opened the holes a bit.

Fit a bit of scrap wood on top of a make shift roof. It doesn’t need to hang over that much. The roof exists mostly to provide a bit of early afternoon shade and to shield the front from water running down it during rain.

If you want, you can stain the outside, but not the nesting holes, obviously.

Mount your mason bee house with a South-SouthEast exposure. It should be at least 3 feet off the ground and should be exposed to the morning sun as the morning warmth encourages the nesting bees to get out and get busy.

Simple enough. I’m not sure we put our houses out early enough in the season. We’ll see. If not, there is always next year!

I have always loved banana plants. Actually kept one alive in a pot in an apartment in Columbia, MO for a few years! For an apartment banana in a cold climate, a new leaf is rare and exciting (if you are into plants anyway).

Upon moving to California, I acquired some banana plants. For free, even, though that really shouldn’t come as much surprise to other Californians.

In a more favorable climate — like California — Bananas are incredibly fast growing plants. And they multiply rapidly. A well established banana tree will produce two or three new tree stalks per year.

Fast growth? No. Really. Fast growth.

A couple of weeks ago, I was cutting the dead leaves off of our bananas and accidentally sliced new leaf growth that was coiled up inside an old leaf.

The picture at left was taken less than 4 hours after the cut was made.

But that was just a small leaf. On a different plant, I cut down a rather large bit of the central trunk. At right is a picture of the new growth after about 4.5 hours.

Now, nearly two weeks later, the leaves are nearly a yard long and mostly unfurled.

Now that the banana trees are quite well established, I’m going to have to experiment with various recipes that call for wrapping the main ingredients with a banana leaf prior to cooking.

Unfortunately, bananas in California do not generally produce edible fruit. One of our banana trees did manage to actually bloom and set a hand of bananas, but they never matured. Bees, though, absolutely love banana blossoms.

Bananas are the single most global of all of the fruit crops. Interestingly, over 90% of all bananas sold are genetically identical (sad, too, because the best bananas I have ever had were all in the other 10%– unfortunately, they don’t ship well). As with any genetic monoculture, that means the world banana supply is vulnerable to catastrophic collapse due to disease.

And that is exactly what is happening now. You can expect that the current “universal banana” — the Cavendish — will effectively go extinct in the next decade or so, to be replaced by some new species.

This has actually happened before. The previous “universal banana” was the Gros Michel banana. It was pretty much wiped out by panama disease (banana root rot, effectively) in the early 1960’s, to be replaced by the Cavendish.

The claim is that the Gros Michel was a significantly sweeter banana and the Cavendish isn’t as good.

It will be interesting to see how the global notion of banana flavor will change next!

This year we are making a more concerted effort to actually, like, plan meals and buy what we need as opposed to ending up with the world’s most expensive compost heap from the wasted food bought at the farmer’s market with best of intentions.

As a part of that, I’m also taking a more serious run at the whole gardening thing in our community garden plot.

This actually started last fall when I turned and planted the entire 20′ x 30′ (approx) plot with fava beans. Now, we happen to love fava beans, but not that many. There was an ulterior motive.

Namely, fava bean plants do a brilliant job of pulling nitrogen out of the air and fixing it into the cells of the plant itself. As well, since favas are such a vigorous over-winter growth in this climate, they nicely shade and choke out most of the weeds that would be sprouting about now.

To put the nitrogen into the soil, the bean plants must be worked into the soil. Last year, I did this largely by hand (with a much smaller number of favas) by digging holes, chopping up the plants with a shovel and turning them into the soil. It worked, but not terribly well as it leaves potentially large air pockets in the soil that plants hate.

This year, I used Blue Blade (pictured at left). Or the scariest damned Make-style hack ever. It is one of the various inventions used by the gardeners in plots around mine. (No, I didn’t make this — if I had, the sides would be a bit sturdier and I would have used nylon nuts to keep the damned thing from falling apart.)

It is a pretty simple device.

• Rip apart an old lawnmower
• Cut a piece of plywood in a circle the same diameter as the lawnmower’s deck
• Drill hole in middle and bolt lawnmower engine to plywood
• Attach blade to bottom
• Attach plywood to a sawed off barrel (In this case, plastic… lending to the fear factor)
• Cut a 2.5″ in diameter hole to the side of the engine
• Attach a plastic tube used to feed in the favas
• Grab a handy stick and jam the engine’s throttle wide open because you don’t have a throttle cable or dead man’s switch anymore

Then? Fire the damned thing up and feed favas, weeds, and any snails/slugs into the tube.

The end result is green gold. A thick mat of minced favas that are easily spread and turned into the soil. Not only does it add a ton of nutrients to the soil, but the fibrous matter loosens the soil quite a bit and makes subsequent planting and weeding tasks a ton easier.

I’m still letting a good sized patch of favas grow to full maturity. Which is frightening. I picked up fava seeds from Peaceful Valley Farm & Garden Supply along with a rhizobacteria that grows in symbiosis with the plant to maximize nitrogen yield through excellent plant growth & health. In my case, this means a solid mass of 6 foot tall favas!

Peaceful Valley or “groworganic.com” is an awesome company. They have been very helpful and have an amazing assortment of heirloom seeds.