Don't Eat Red Meat

Not only is red meat the least healthy meat to consume, but red meat is responsible for ~2.5 metric tons of carbon dioxide emissions per household per year, while fruits/vegetables and cereals/carbs are both responsible for <1 metric ton of carbon dioxide emissions per household per year. Chicken, fish, and eggs are responsible for even less.

According to a recent study by researchers at Carnegie Mellon University, foregoing red meat and dairy just one day a week achieves more greenhouse gas reductions than eating an entire week's worth of locally sourced foods. That's because the carbon footprint of food miles is dwarfed by that of food production. In fact, 83 percent of the average U.S. household's carbon footprint for food consumption comes from production; transportation represents only 11 percent; wholesaling and retailing account for 5 percent.

www.waterfootprint.org
A new website has compiled data on how much water is needed to produce consumer goods ranging from tea to T-shirts. It is also home to a water calculator that helps users figure out their overall water footprint. The beverage that uses the least water is water itself. One cup of coffee requires approximately 140 liters to produce. In contrast, one kg of corn requires 900 liters of water to produce and one kg of beef requires 16,000 liters of water.

Saturday was Amanda's birthday and we spent the weekend celebrating and taking it easy. On friday night, we went to a Sushi Party that was actually a going away party for our good friend Dana. It was a fun event and it got all our close friends together.

Several months ago Amanda was asked about what she wanted for her birthday and her response was, " A sewing machine and a shotgun." Now thats the woman that I love; now you can all see why I married her! Anyway, she was fortunate enough to get both gifts for her birthday. The shotgun came from Bob. He gave her his old gun from when he was a boy and the sewing machine was a gift from Ryan, Bob and Rosie. Below are some pictures of Amanda working on her first project: seat cushions for the chairs on our front porch.





























In other news, I got one hell of a haircut this week. Amanda was nice enough to give me a free haircut with our set of clippers. The only problem was that we underestimated exactly how short the attachement would make my hair. It wound up a little shorter than we wanted, but I like it. I don’t think Amanda is a big fan, but its much cooler than the mop I used to have! What do y’all think? Yay or nay? (leave comments if you would like).

Gone Canoein' / Gardenin'

Two weeks ago we got a new canoe and took it out on Cedar Lake for the day. The maiden voyage was a success!!! We explored some areas of the lake for possible camping sites and didn't tip over once. Special thanks to Bob and Rosi for getting us the canoe as a wedding gift!

Later that day we planted our garden. This year we will have several kinds of peppers, tomatoes, cumcumbers and some herbs. Amanda's herbs actually made it through the winter, so we didn't have to replant. You can see the monsters at the right in the picture.

The Saber-tooth puppy

I just had to put this picture up! Dash runs around the house like this....with part of a deer antler she chews on hanging out of her mouth. We call her the 'saber-toothed' puppy. You all probably don't think it is nearly as funny as we do.

CFPs in southern Illinois

Ryan gave his thesis presentation today and did a FANTASTIC job. Numerous people said it was "the best" graduate work/speech that they had seen in the Forestry department. He still has a lot of work to do in finishing his thesis, but this was a big step for him. I am very proud of him and we are celebrating tonight with Vo and frozen pizza!

Killian's Irish Run

Last weekend we participated in the River to River Relay. The race course is 80 miles long and spans some of the most hilly terrian in all of southern Illinois. Each runner completes approximately 10 miles of course divided into three legs (or sections). This year, our time was the best to date: 9 hours, 51 minutes. This is our 3rd year in the row to enter the race, our team name is Killian's Irish Run.

Part of the 'River to River' experience is traversing the course in one of these big white vans. To limit traffic on the course and make the race possible, race officials limit teams to one vehicle. Most teams opt for one these big white rental vans and decorate the van with there team name and other motivational sayings. Some of the vans have pretty ridiculous decorates (e.g. inflatable dinosaurs and women's underwear).






This is the famous 'Oh shit' hill. Accurately named by our teammate Jen the first year we did the race. I think the name speaks for itself. Although not the hardest hill on the course, this is one of the most intimidating. Hills like this one are typical of most legs of the race.






In this picture I am handing the baton to our teammate Sarah. You can see the exhaustion in my face from the 4.05 miles of hills I just ran. Teams must carry an official baton through the entire race and cross the finish line with it. The biggest mistake you can make it dropping the baton during an exchange. Our team has a flawless record.
Every year at the end of the race, the baton is given to the member of the team that has put forth the greatest effort. This year the baton went to Dennis for running the hardest leg of the course, leg 22, which has a nearly 2 mile long uphill climb.


Here is Amanda after finishing her last leg of the day. It is such a great feeling to be done!!! This year, Amanda was the 2nd runner to be done. I ran the final leg of the race, so I was not done until we crossed the finish line at 7pm. It was quite a feeling to cross the finish line holding the baton!

Here is our team on the banks of the Ohio River after finishing the race. This picture was taken facing east, but to the west was a beautiful sunset. Every year, we are worried that we will not make it to the finish before dark.......made it this year!

Our team (starting at left): Craig, Jen, Bridget, Dennis, Sarah, Amanda, Kevin, Ryan.

For more info on the River to River Relay visit: http://rrr.olm.net/index.html

Opening Night Softball Rout

Last night was the season opening double header for The Little Lebowski Urban Achievers (our softball team). Below is the team, poised for action just minutes before the start of the first game.

Perhaps it was too much pre-game Busch Light, too little practice, or the unseasonably cold weather conditions which lead to two giant "L"s in the loss column for The Urban Achievers. No one can say for sure, but the score of the first game was 20-0 by the 4th inning, causing the game to be called on the mercy rule.

In second game Amanda Pankau was called out of the bullpen and put on the mound. Due to her excellent pitching and an increase in base hits (from the lone base hit in the first game), The Urban Achievers were able to send this one to the 6th inning before losing by the 10-run rule, by a score of 14-4.

The Urban Achievers were highly favored losers at the start of this exhibition, playing the 3rd-year-running league champs. One player was quoted as saying,"I'm happy going home tonight knowing we at least put 4 runs on the board. There's always next week." With a winning attitude like that, these underdogs will be a force to be reckoned with by the time the league tournament starts in late July.

Pictured at right: Amanda Pankau taking the mound in game two with her work cut out for her.

The Easter bunny!!!

We celebrated Easter today with a special meal! I bet you could never guess what it is. I'll give you a clue. It is a dish that may be more related to Easter than any other dish, but no one ever eats it. Any idea???? We had the Easter Bunny for our Easter meal!!! John, our roommate, went rabbit hunting when he was home for Christmas and brought two rabbits back with him. I don't know why more people don't have rabbit for their Easter meal....it seems so appropriate! :)

Happy Spring Everyone!!

Well its finally spring in southern Illinois! No more crazy ice storms....they have been replaced with torrential rain storms. Earlier this week we got about 10 inches of rain in just a little over 24 hours. I'm not complaining about that because life is already back to normal for me and it was nice and warm today. All the local streams and rivers are flooding, which is kind of neat to check out if you are a Hydorolgist or a Wetland Biologist. The first pic is the bridge over the Big Muddy River in Murphysboro (water is usually ~30+ feet below the bridge). The 2nd pic is Riverside Park in Muphysboro.

I think it was mid-week last week when I realized that spring was here. I was out doing field work and found the first tick of the season on my leg. The really funny thing is that about 10 minutes later Amanda text messaged me that she had "found first tick of season!" I just started laughing out loud. I texted her back that I found one too!

Yesterday was actually the first "official" day of spring and we marked it with the first meeting of the new year for our "Thursday Night Climbing Club." I founded this club last fall. We meet on thurday nights to go rock climbing and hang out. It was a pretty good first night.

Turkey Trappin'

This morning I (Ryan) got up at the crack of dawn to go out turkey trappin! Our roommate, John is conducting a study on wild turkeys for SIU.



We were sooooo lucky to catch turkeys today! It is the first morning John has actually went out to trap. He considers himself the "luckiest turkey trapper ever." We caught 6 turkeys with a rocket net. You can kind of see the net on the ground in the picture above. It is probably a 50ft by 50ft net.

For the past week or so, John has been baiting the turkeys with corn. You can see the corn on the ground in the background (upper left). Basically, the rocket net is a big huge net that you hide on the ground in the leaves. After your bait pile has been out long enough that you think the turkeys have found it, you sneak out to a blind about 50 yds away from it in the very early morning and wait to see if the turkeys come to your bait pile. When they show up, you fire off the net and it shoots over the turkeys and traps them.

The flock of turkeys that came into the site today was originally about 10-12 birds. John fired the net, and some of them escaped before we could get from the blind to the net, so only 6 were actually trapped when we got there. The biggest challenge is getting the turkeys untangled from the net without hurting them or letting them go. To help, we had black bags to put over their heads and Velcro straps to wrap up their feet. Once the bag is on their head, they are pretty calm and let you handle them.

We took several measurements on each bird, including: weight, age, and sex. Then each bird was fitted with a radio transmitter to allow John to track their movement. This study is mostly concerned with nesting habitat, so we only put transmitters on the hens. The picture below shows the "backpack" transmitters we put on the turkeys.

It was really neat to be able to handle these birds and see them up close. I was really nervous the whole time! It was quite a rush! I've never seen a turkey this close before, let alone handled one! Only got pecked a couple of times.

In this picture, they are trying to determine the age of the turkey. From feathers on the wings and tail, you can estimate the age of the bird. John has just checked the wing and is now using the tail to confirm his age estimate. The tail is fanned out and John's left hand in on the bird's wing.

Pretty cool for a Monday morning! Hope the rest of the week is this good!!!!

Tofu

We tried tofu for the first time this weekend. I thought it was great!!! It has little taste on its own, but readily absorbs the flavors of whatever you cook it with. It kind of has the consistency of cheese. We marinated the tofu and vegetables with a herb and garlic marinade and then grilled them.

I would suggest trying it. It is low in calories, contains beneficial amounts of iron, and has no cholesterol.

We started a Blog!!

Hello all,

Due to the growing infrequency of our visits home, and the ridiculous winter weather that has limited outdoor activities......We started a blog to let y'all keep up on us.

For Amanda and I, this spring is going to be a thesis writing marathon. Not a 26 mile run, but a really long, overwritten report on the research we have done over the last 3+ years. Most of our weekends will probably be filled with the task of writing, analyzing data, and other boring scientific stuff, so we will not be making our usual number of trips home. Whether you guys want to read this or not, we hope to at least fill some of the void in our lives by keeping this blog.

Besides all the thesis mumbo-jumbo, I think the biggest thing on my mind right now is the stupid winter we are still having in March. Snow is predicted for tonight and tomorrow. Over the last 4 weeks we have had 4 separate ice storms. They have actually been really pretty, but really limit the outdoor activities. Its pretty hard to run when everything is ice coated.

Amanda has been doing well at keeping up on the running workouts since she joined a local gym. I have not since I have insisted on running outside. It has gotten to the point for me that I cannot get motivated to run if the weather is at all bad. I just can't wait for spring!!

Despite all the crappy weather, we have gotten out a few times with the doggies to play. These pics are from two weekends ago. We had an ice storm on wed/thurs and then several inches of snow on top of that. Pretty darn good sledding weather!

Amanda flying down the hill with Bo while Dash watches from the hill top. Dash didn't really know what to think about the sledding at first.



Dash finally caught on...its fun to chase sleds. Looks like Amanda is heading for trouble. Can she put on the brakes fast enough!?!?

Here's me and Bo heading down hill fast. I wonder who will get to the bottom first? It looks neck and neck.


This is the small lake at the bottom of the sledding hill. A few minutes after this picture was taken, dash fell thru the ice and had to squirm back to shore. We decided to call it a day at that point. Poor little dash had a rough day. She got hurt by slipping and sliding into a wood post right when we got out of the car, got hit by a sled not too long after that, and then finally fell thru the ice and got all wet. It's tough being a puppy in southern Illinois.

Thanks for checkin' in on us! Hopefully the next blog will be about spring weather!!!