One week at a time: Week 68

I have only seen the Aurora twice in my life. The first time I saw it was only briefly, with the sky turning shades of red over the dam near our house. Luckily, since we grew up near a state park, the encroaching urbanization didn't impair our experience of the outdoors. Our little farm life on the "compound" was rich in appreciation of animals, the soil beneath our feet and the beauty of nature. I was a either in 8th grade or freshman in highschool, headed back from a choir practice at church with my aunt, uncle and cousins. I hopped out at the barn and fed the rabbits and cattle before walking the path back to the house. And as I walked, I noticed that the sky seemed lighter than other times. At most, we might pick up the city Northwest of us, or directly South, but this color was shifting. Faint reds, a bit of green/yellow. And by the time I shared it with anyone it was almost gone. But my imagination had been captured by this improbable appearance. What a wonderful world it must be out there on the frozen tundra, when the sky breaks forth in color.

A couple years later, I was also walking back from the barn with my dad. Time with Dad was pretty hard to come by and almost always happened when we were working outside or in the barn. But as we walked and talked, that old lantern clanking against his leg and our stupid dog Jake twisting his leash all over the place in search of wildlife poop, we both noticed the change in color of the sky over the dam. This time, I wasn't alone, and we both just stopped and stared in awe at the shift in colors. I remember my giddy voice describing the color shifts out loud as if Dad wasn't standing right beside me. It was the first time he had seen them, and they were so much more vivid than before. We just stood there and watched, filling the silence with "Ooohs", "Ahhs" and "Wows", as if it were the 4th of July. Nature is full beautiful wonders if you will only take the time to appreciate them.

The Aurora will never be as awe-inspiring as it is nearer the Arctic Circle. Photo Credit

Well, it's prime time for an Aurora down here by us, but this week it was of a different variety - the rumen fluid kind. Before you get grossed out and stop reading, just take a moment to appreciate the art in this science. When we go out to the farm to collect rumen fluid, we have to hurry because the cold weather this time of year can kill the bugs. They prefer the temperature of the rumen (about 39C), and so we fill a cooler with heated water, this time of year about 43C, and head out to the farm. We catch the cow, coax her into a stall, open up the cannula and remove rumen digesta. This is squeezed through cheesecloth and exposed to oxygen (the microbes hate this!) and stored in bottles, in the warm water (which has cooled down to about 40C by now). We make sure to put all the digesta back since we only need the fluid, and then seal the cow up gently. Back in the lab only about 30 minutes from when we left, we mix these microbes with a buffer designed to limit pH fluctuation. In the cow, the saliva and feed would serve as the buffer, but we have to manufacture this in our culture environment. By the time all of this is done, you are generally hoping a critical process mistake wasn't made during the transfer, usually indicated by dying protozoa as they are more sensitive to pH, oxygen and temperature than many other microbial groups. Well, when the white film floats wispilly through the fermenter, you know that you have done it perfectly. This white trace is the protozoa swimming out along the edge of the fermenter and seeking the slower mixing where they can safely hide away from passing out until there is feed introduced into the fermenter. It is a very cool thing to see and always reminds me of the Aurora. This week as we started the CO35 period 3, we got to see great protozoa response at the beginning of the trial - so wonderful!

Not so wonderful was later on in the week when I had to reach in and adjust an infusion line. Unfortunately, any adjustments inside usually end with splashing of rumen fluid on the heating rod that we use to keep them warm. You don't want to walk into the lab and smell burning rumen fluid very many times in your life, so I took a video instead.

Other notable things that happened this week include my start on a proposal for a USDA grant. It would be a real honor to receive this grant, and my letter of intent is due next week. Since I've only just started on my literature review (up to 2 pages, lol), the letter was a real push for me to visualize what I wanted to accomplish with the rest of my time here as a PhD student. Quite a big thing to put together in such a short amount of time, but I have had my hands immersed in so much research over the past year that this letter is coming together pretty well. Unfortunately, it does mean long hours at work and less time with our beautiful daughter and my lovely wife. Flip-side? I got to see people skiing across my parking lot this week when we got hammered with surprise snow. You never quite know what you will see around here.

Hannah is actively rolling now, much to the dismay of her playmat.

We also sit up quite nicely. :)

And we have a newfound fascination with our hands.

Well, the long-prophesied conflict has finally come to play. My Spartans went undefeated in conference play nearly parallel to Ohio State. In what was always bound to be a crash collision, the best offense will play the best defense and I have tickets to the game. My wife volunteered to stay home with Hannah, probably just so she could finally break out the "Tressel sweater-vest" that we bought a couple years ago. It's good we didn't go to the game together, because it would have only been stressful for both of us. Instead, I took my brother, the trusty drinking buddy and responsible driver that I knew would get us both there and back with our sense of humor intact. We picked up my boss and his son, and made the trek to Indy across windswept and bare fields. Traffic wasn't really that bad and parking was pretty easy. But the bar scene was packed and it was nearly impossible to get food to eat. I would be remiss if I didn't tell you that our friend Chris found a place and invited us out there, courtesy of social media and my urgent request for a warm place to sit, eat and drink. Nice place, but I won't tell you where it was since I don't want to give up the hideout for future years. Great food, decent service, nice pitchers - all courtesy of my boss/advisor in gratitude for the free ride. It is really awesome to have such a good relationship with my advisor through graduate school. I know what it feels like to have animosity with an advisor, and I can appreciate my current one so much more because I know how hard he works to guide me and make sure that grad school is fun, and doesn't always interfere with my family. It was a great trip, and a great win for a team that has been an underdog so long I didn't even believe this moment was possible.

Their team theme this year? "Chase it". I think we could all apply a little bit of that to our dreams.