If it's not made of PVC and tape, it's not science!

The title of this post is the unofficial motto of my lab here at SERC! I thought it was very appropriate for today's post because today I really spent the whole day immersed in the Phragmites! It was a field day, all day! You can see the Global Change Research Wetland, where I do all my field work from space via the satellite version of Google Maps!

Today I was labeling all the stems we have in all 12 of the CO2 x N chambers. It took way longer than I thought it would! Each chamber has up 15 stems, that must be found and determined which stem the blue flag is indicating, then a ring was made out of tape (double wrapped so there was not a sticky side next to the plant or on the outside of the ring), the stem's number was then written on the ring. And the ring slipped onto the Phragmites stem.
The Phragmites was very non cooperative, it did not want to put a ring on it!
Settle down Phrag, settle down!

Sorry, I didn't take a picture of what I did today!

But I did take a picture of what I made for diner.
It was another day of using up a variety of ingredients that I have around. I used some rice, some chicken breast, some green pepper, and some canned pineapple in juice that I had leftover from making sweet and sour chicken this weekend. But all of those ingredients are very versatile! I started the rice in the rice cooker to make it nice and sticky. Then I started with the rest. I cooked the chicken on the stove top, then added green peppers to the pan. Once they were almost cooked, I removed them to a plate on the side. I had some chicken broth and pineapple with its juice together in a saucepan. I let that concoction come to a simmer. When it started to simmer, I added the chicken and green pepper to finish cooking as well as absorb the flavourful juice of the pineapple. After a few minutes, the rice was done, I plated that, then topped it off with the mixture from the stove, and ended with a drizzle of the pineapple sauce. It was great! And it all came from off the top of my head with a bunch of random ingredients from the fridge and pantry. Fabulous!