Where is everyone

Where is everyone...what is everyone doing...have you all defected to Facebook. Here is an update from Topeka. I'm currently watching a rerun of House on USA. It rained today. Been eating lettuce from the garden. Grilled a salmon which was good to eat on the salads. Still collecting seeds for the Seed Bank at Kew Gardens. Farmers market is consuming me on Saturdays. I got a new laptop and now have to buy upgrades for my software to run on vista. I'm not a big fan of change. Spent a bunch of money on my truck because of sensors needing replacing. Selling handmade paper products at the Tallgrass Preserve gift shop and working for the preserve collecting seeds for a bottomland restoration. Thats the excitement from Topeka.

Topeka

So the theme this month is "origins of city names"! Last week my neighbor comes running over to tell me about a program by some neighbor down the way on the origin of the name Topeka. She said, Topeka is an indian word for "a good place to dig potatoes" When I moved here I heard Topeka means "a good place to grow potatoes". I sort of thought, "highly unlikely, the plains indians didn't grow potatoes". My neighbor explains to me that the potato that was referred to was the prairie potato or better known as the prairie turnip - scientific name Psoralea esculenta. Now it all made sense. This member of the bean family has an enlarged root that was a main staple of the plains Indians.
I've tried growing it with little success. Seems it only does well when growing in its native habitat. For all you S. Dakotans, it is found across the state of SD too.
What is also interesting about Topeka is that there is also a Topeka, IL and Topeka, IN. The Kansa indians were located from there. So now i wonder if those were the good places to grow potatoes and the city of Topeka, KS just inherited the name.
Here is the link to the story.
http://www.barbburgess.com/research-topics/prairie-potato-topeka/topeka-s-roots-the-prairie-potato

Spring Finally Sprung in Topeka

We had a nice day in the 60s today. I went hiking in the woods at the governors and hit a wet spot and fell completely down on my bottom. Didn't get hurt, but later ran into an ATA (Al Type Alert) and he fell down last winter and broke 4 ribs. I counted my blessing (1) that I only got muddy. Lets see, the midland fawn lilies are blooming in the woods, first wildflowers of spring.

truckhenge topeka

a secret topeka attraction....truckhenge. built by a guy who was being hassled by the county to "pickup" all the trash on his property...so he built truckhenge. he also built his house all out of recylables.

http://www.roadsideamerica.com/sights/sightstory.php?tip_AttrId=%3D16024

Tranvestite Manequin nativity

Saw this xmas scene in residential topeka. It appears to be made entirely out of manequins. Also looks like beards put on female manequins. Baby jesus is coated in ice, mary was such a sucky mother, surely SRS should put the jeeeez into foster care.

I'm in Fiji Bitches!

Well, not anymore, I lost my account password-so the true joy of telling you at the time is gone. Additionally I guess Denise figured it out before hand too. Oh yeah, Mully seems to have told Claude, and possibly Rene...well.

I'm Home now bitches!

!

The first image is the Google Earth satellite image of the beach where I stayed. I kayaked the coastline in that area and went snorkeling. There were tons of cool fish there (including clown fish-of Finding Nemo fame), iridescent blue starfish and many other colorful fish and reefs, urchins, sea snails and a school of flying fish!
The Second is from a ginormously bumpy road in Fiji. The driver was a true madman.

The third image is the view from the beach looking East. & #4

Ah, my home away from home-Gauguin never had it this good! Wicked rum and cokes + surly gin and tonics for everyone to wash away the taste of Kava. (I didn't have any though, I was too busy breaking a fever)

I did think of all of you while I was there, even as the room was spinning in a fever induced hallucination, I though..."Man I bet they are really having fun in South Dakota right now."

The Fijians were really nice people, I loved watching them fish, hear them sing, and watched them climb up coconut palm trees to get coconuts. Everybody seemed to be carrying a big machete so I felt a little left out though.

The geography there is amazing, huge hills rise from the lagoon. All of the hills reminded me of the un-excavated temples in Guatemala. The lagoon is protected by the sea wall/barrier reef (the white outline on the Google image) so the waters in the lagoon are pretty clear and calm. Perfect for the kayak and swimming.

More to post when I get the rest of my pictures from a friends computer. Ciao bitches!

Paper Made from Native Plants in Kansas

I took a picture of a sampling of some of the paper I have made. The top row is Thistle Fluff, common milkweed stem, Stinging nettle stem, River bulrush leaves, Dogbane stem, butterfly milkweed stem, osage orange bark, mulberry bark, whorled milkweed stem, smooth milkweed stem, and swamp milkweed stem.

Polyhedrons

Working in the Topeka school system I learned first hand in second grade that a person could make three dimensional shapes using simple sipping straws and twist ties.

I thought, wouldn't it be fun to make a triangular pyramid and a cube. Next I wanted to make a shape using a regular pentagon. THus was born the famous Lisa Simpson polyhedron -- the dodecahedron. Then I thought , what will I get with a regular hexagon. After much building I realized...nothing, it just makes a plane.

Here is a pic of some of the polyhedrons I made.

Now it was time to research polyhedrons on the web. I discovered there are only 5 regular convex polyhedra - the tetrahedron, hexahedron(cube), octahedron, dodecahedron, and icosahedron.

Next I learned about archimedian solids...they are made of multiple regular polygons, like squares combined with triangles.

waa waa waaaaaaaaaaaa

Okay, So I'm thinking as I am laying here in bed, what did i deserve to be in this condition. It all started at the grocery store, I bot grocs and forgot I had put water in the underside of the cart. As I was leaving I thot, cool I just shoplifted.

I get home and I put out birdseed for the wild birds. I also decide to take twig cuttings of various trees in my yard to test them for bast fibers for paper making. As I'm coming in I hit a patch of ice at thecorner of my house and twist and fall and writhe in agony. I was barely able to get up to crawl in the house.

I whine about for a while, and finally muster the energy to get my groceries out fo the car. Thats when I notice. They charged me for my shoplifted water. Do they have an ankle hieght scanner. or did checkboy just notice it and charge me. Anyway. I thot karma was knocking me on my ass for shoplifting. but i didnt shoplift. SOOOOOOOOO why did i fall and sprain, or possible break my ankle? PLEASE HELP MEEEEEEEE.