Fragile as Butterfly Wings

On days that I really really hate my job, I try to think of all the ways I have benefited from working there.  A surprising opportunity to learn more about entomology, occurred shortly after I started at the lab.  My coworker Ronda had been working with monarch butterflies for years.  Another coworker  had started the tradition at work and passed it onto her as she did us.

 Our company has a field behind the garage of prairie grasses and flowers that we utilized.  On lunch breaks we would walk the field searching for monarch eggs, finding all kinds of interesting insects in the process.  

None of us have tried our own butterfly rearing, but instead helped Ronda gather milkweed leaves and eggs, and watched the beautiful process unfold.  When the transformation was complete, she let us help her release some of them!

This is me in our hallway outside the O.E.P. room holding a monarch we are about to release.

Watching an egg the size of a pin head change into a tiny caterpillar and then into a delicate butterfly is a patient amazing process.  Like every girl I always loved butterflies, but it wasn't until I watched their transformation that I really understood how fragile they truly are.  How cruel the world can be to something so tiny.  How insignificant such a little speck can seem to us, but oh the rewards we receive from them.

We now have what seems like an unending plethora of synthetic organic insecticides.   These insecticides function in various ways.  Insecticides can kill by disrupting the nervous system, acting as an endotoxin, damaging the exoskeleton, or causing infertility.  While some insecticides claim to target certain species, most do not discriminate.  That means we're not just killing pests, we're killing all the beneficial insects that make this world flourish with foods and flowers of every color.  Not only that, but aquatic species specifically have shown high mortality rates in the presence of pesticides.

 We need to remember what it is like to be in nature, remember that it is nature we belong with, not the artificial walls of the cities or the synthetic chemicals we think we need.  What we really need is to let nature do as it was intended to do, and the fruits of nature will unfold.  

While we're on the subject of pollinators, I followed this little friend around the yard after work the other day.  It's a spicebush swallowtail butterfly on my pesticide-free butterfly bush.  I used this very handy blog for identification so thank you for the pictures!

 http://louisiananaturalist.blogspot.com/2009/06/four-dark-swallowtails.html?m=1#butterfly

Links
http://ipmworld.umn.edu/ware-intro-insecticides-a good read into some of the uses, histories, and lasting impacts of insecticides

http://www.askdrmaxwell.com/2013/03/the-gut-destroying-toxin-you-eat-everyday/

Blinded Me with Science

A transformer went down somewhere and the neighborhood is out of power.  The backup generator isn't running the lab at full capacity.  Every hallway has flickering lights and the hoods are acting possessed. It's like we're in the middle of a horror movie or haunted house attraction.  It's pretty awesome!!! So now I'm on break and getting paid to work on my blog! Thursday you're alright!  We even got to leave and get coffee!  We heard more booms and saw sparks from an electrical pole across the street on the way back. This is the closest we get to a snow day and I'll take what I can get and enjoy it fully. This is what I was working on today.  Making reagents can be fun and very messy.  This is the carnage left after I made a reagent with sulfuric acid.  Behold the power of the tiny drops of acid.  

 

Slippery When Wet

Our lab is busy as ever here at 4ladiesandabeaker.  Our 2nd quarter busy season didn't end when the season was over, and we're currently shorthanded while training 2 new people.  Over time has been a approved, so we're going in early and staying there late.

We had our yearly lab wide E.P.A. audit just a couple weeks ago as well, putting the whole laboratory in a frenzy about finalizing data, cleaning up areas, making sure calibrations are done, etc.  Honestly I've gotten lucky not having to deal with audits too much.  This year though the E.P.A. decided to focus heavily on drinking water, and since my partner left, I'm the only one certified.  Lucky me.  It went smoothly though, and they didn't find anything wrong in our area.

By the end of a long day extracting multiple batches of samples, I come home feeling like my brain is floating in a solution of ether and methylene chloride. 

Sometimes I mix that with  a little rum or vodka.  

Chemicals, and a mix of chemicals on top of that, leaves you more exhausted than you think.  

 However floaty my brain may feel I have been diligently working on several articles sure to melt your mind as well.

This is me hard at work.  Look it's Batman, or a laboratory style shank.  No it's just me breaking glass again.  These gloves are as slick as they look.

Au Naturel Pumpkin Patch-Pesticide Free Is Good For Me

I never had much of a green thumb growing up, I just helped my mom.  She grew big gardens and beautiful indoor plants.   Last year I finally had somewhere to grow a small garden, and I was going to give it my all.  The garden was decent, the flower beds full of gorgeous wildflowers, but the crowning glory was my pumpkin patch!

The reason it was so amazing was that I never bought pumpkin seeds, never planted a thing! The pumpkins and gourds I bought the previous year were really hardy, and I kept them around long after the holidays, not throwing them out until spring.  I had a bonfire pit in the yard so I just chucked them in the pile.  Awhile later I realized a little pumpkin patch had started to grow all on its own.  A couple weeks later I saw another small patch had started in our ditch.  We got quite a bit of spring rain that year and the pumpkins were loving it! They took off like crazy.  By the end of the season I had about 20 total.

I think people have gotten so far away from nature now that they forget the magic of it. It is absolutely amazing to me that with little effort at all, in fact just tossing out old pumpkins I could help create a whole new environment.  How many people know that sometimes it is that easy to grow?

We live in small spaces next to one another, and we don't have the space or the time or whatever it is to plant.  When you start thinking about how far people have gotten from planting and the earth and dirt and knowing the land, it gets scary.  Scavenging, gathering, and planting is how humanity made it, how could we get so far away from this?  It's clear that plants have thousands of beneficial uses, and many dangers we should be aware of.  It is only hurting society that we have gotten out of these practices.

Even more frightening many places have bans on growing your own food.  It makes you ask the question why would a place ban growing food?  Especially when big corporations tell us how we need pesticides to grow food for all the starving people. What reason is there to not grow food?  Why grow grass in the first place?  When did this shift of natural land to grass lawns happen?  What happened to victory gardens?  Why don't we care now that a basic necessity is being outlawed?

 Well this girl does! In defiance I grow as much and as often as I can.  I buy heirloom plants and support local companies.  I never use pesticides.  It is literally not only throwing your money away to greedy companies, but killing the environment and us.

 The great thing with nature is that if you take care of it, it creates wonders all the time.  Nature free of human intervention continues on, but imagine what the world could be if we nurtured it.

So plant a tree, buy a pack of heirloom flowers, and most importantly forget unjust laws and grassy lawns.  Instead grow food that benefits you and pollinators.

Our backyard is a haven for birds all year with a couple big trees providing shelter, but when I planted a garden I noticed just how busy our little haven became.  Butterflies, bees, insects, and arachnids now shared the yard with the birds and the moles.  It's one of the great joys of my life to just be outdoors somewhere and watch the wildlife.  When you stop and listen nature has great lessons to teach us all.

Sometimes nature doesn't care what you think and comes to you.  This is a wildflower bed in my yard and neighbor Dilly cat who loves to help garden.

Filling The Pockets of Those That Don't Give A Damn About You

It was a beautiful summer afternoon when my young brother and I were riding bikes around the neighborhood.  Suddenly a utility truck of some sort passed by us, and I was instantly assaulted with a noxious odor and taste in my mouth.  We were caught off guard and worse we were stuck on a street we couldn’t escape from.  Reluctantly we were sprayed with who knows what.  The heat, mugginess, and physical activity had us breathing hard and sucking in the now chemical laden air.

I was flabbergasted and irate, so I immediately started looking for answers.  What I found out was that although many people were aware of a pesticide truck spraying, few if any knew what was actually being put into the air.  There were no community boards, signs, or websites to direct me.  Not sure where to get the information I wanted, I called the local street department and learned what product was being used, and some restrictions to spraying such as wind speed and humidity.  

Unsatisfied with these results I started my own research.  I read chemistry books and scientific journals every chance I could, carrying stacks of papers out on my lunch breaks. Using my job to it’s full advantage, I talked to professionals in the chemistry field that analytically test insecticides and herbicides.  As professionals they must follow EPA regulations on handling these chemicals.  To do their job correctly these scientists have to understand the properties and behaviors of pesticides.  For instance it's helpful to know if chemicals are more harmful if inhaled, how well they absorb through skin, and how long they last in different environments such as soil or water.    

In the meantime, I filed a freedom of information request with my local village.  Specifically I requested the material safety data sheet on the chemicals being sprayed by the truck.  The MSDS is used to acquire information such as the identification, chemical qualities, and hazards.  The MSDS that I received stated the chemicals were permethrin and piperonyl butoxide.  I was assured by many that these chemicals were among the least toxic on the market, but the MSDS stated they could cause allergic reaction, skin/eye irritation.  Large doses of permethrin in lab animals had produced diarrhea, bloody nose, and tremors.  

My local insecticide sprayer had told me that only a couple people had previously complained about it.  One was an elderly couple that said it incited asthma attacks and another had complained about it causing a rash on their dog.  The truck sprayer had also told me that often he would see kids running behind the truck trying to get sprayed.  

During my research I found that the E.P.A. classifies permethrin as a possible human carcinogen on the basis of animal studies in which mice developed tumors from high dose levels.  The EPA states that permethrin is highly toxic to freshwater and aquatic organisms.  It is highly toxic to honeybees and other beneficial insects.  The EPA also states that permethrin is highly toxic to bees exposed to direct treatment on blooming crops or weeds, and that it should not be applied or allowed to drift on these crops or weeds while bees are actively visiting the treated area. 

 Locally, the village board quickly decided to end the insecticide truck shortly after I asked for the MSDS.  Before I could even attend a board meeting, they called me and stated they would finish the chemicals already bought and would buy no more, spending the money otherwise.  I never saw the truck again.

 After decades of use pesticides have infiltrated the soil, the water supplies, and our own bodies.  For decades to come, we will have to unravel and undo these damages caused.  The high costs of pesticides comes not in the name of saving the homeless and the hungry, but to fill the pockets of all those that don't give a damn about you.

The Chemical Worker's Song

And it's go boys go
They'll time your every breath
And every day you're in this place your two days nearer death
But you go ...

Well, a process man am I and I am tellin' you no lie
I work and breathe among the fumes that tread across the sky
There's thunder all around me and there's poison in the air
There's a lousy smell that smacks of hell and dust all in me hair

Well, I've worked among the spitters and I breathe the oily smoke
I've shovelled up the gypsum and it neigh 'on makes you choke
I've stood knee deep cyanide, got sick with a caustic burn
Been working rough, I've seen enough to make your stomach turn

There's overtime and bonus opportunities galore
The young men like their money and they all come back for more
But soon your knocking on and you look older than you should
For every bob made on the job, you pay with flesh and blood

Well, a process man am I and I am telling you no lie
I work and breathe among the fumes that tread across the sky
There's thunder all around me and there's poison in the air
There's a lousy smell that smacks of hell and dust all in me hair

She's Leaving On A Jet Plane

It truly is the end of an era at our job.  Our room has been just us 4 for so long now.  As Kim said when our boss quit, the dominoes will fall now, and 1 by 1 our group is splitting up.

Amber said she was quitting work and almost just that quick she was gone.  We had our last cup of morning coffee in the hallway, our last lunch date at work, and finally our last girls night out.

{Here's the delicious and hilarious cake Kim made!}

I was just as sad to say goodbye to her pooches and I had to get puppy kisses before they left.

Amber and I have known each other since high school and took courses together by chance at community college.  We were actually organic chemistry lab partners!!!

We both went on to get our bachelors degrees at different colleges and once again randomly ran into each other in our hometown.  She's actually the reason I got the job at the lab in the first place.  She'd been there a couple months and knew they were going to be hiring.  We both started out in the same big room O.E.P. (Organics Extractions Prep) together and then trained in S.P.E. (solid phase extractions).  That meant learning new methods, working on a smaller micro scale level, but mostly moving to SPE meant moving to the back of the room.

So for years we worked 40 hours a week together behind a tiny little counter.  We would joke that it was a good thing we got along because we saw each other more than our own families.  We had a sort of SPE dance where we were constantly grabbing reagents out of cabinets, anticipating chairs rolling, and moving around each other to get the equipment we needed.  We were good at it.  We were each others' right hand woman, always there to assist.

I've had 2 weeks without her and you really see the roles people play at work and in your life when they're gone.  Her drawer, lab coat, and pipette bulbs have already been given away as a new wave of employees streams in.

I think we are all more sad because Amber is moving far away.  As the title suggests she's leaving on a jet plane.  Her husband is a pilot and the beach was calling, so they answered.  She wants to work with manatee conservation and I truly hope she can.  What more fulfilling job could you ask for?  Of course, if that happens I demanded she get me a job with her again!

I made these guys as going away presents.  They could be a necklace or just trinkets to sit around.  Since I've always been a nerd, that is real beach sand and seashells that I picked up as a little kid and throughout my life.  Now she can take a little of the Midwest with her.

I miss her immensely, but I know we'll see each other again.  Even if we didn't know it at first, it seems we're meant to be forever friends.

Who knows one day maybe all of us at 4ladiesandabeaker will find our way to the beach and back to Amber.