The lab and the lake, the park and the pavement.

Another three sketches this week... 

Multicolour Flow-Cytometer. That's a bit of a scientist joke, or maybe just a me joke! The experiments run on a flow cytometer include labeling of markers with fluorescent dyes. The technology is called multicolour flow-cytometry. Here I depict a flow cytometer in multicolours in stead of the samples it is running. If you have to explain it, it really isn't funny - sigh.

Green Lake. This picture also comes with photos. Saturday morning my landlady dropped me off an I walked around Green Lake (about 2.6 miles). Lots of people were out using the water, there were canoe races, some crazy person was swimming, there was a small sail boat, and there were a few kayaks too. Oh, I just realised kayak is a palindrome, how exciting, that might help me remember how to spell it. I was accompanied on my circuit of the lake by a few hundred other souls lapping the lake by walking, running, running with a pram/stroller/buggy/pushchair (which surely must have a name because it is a unique form of exercise torture), jogging, rollerblading, cycling, and a few other odd mode of transportation. 

Flag Irises on the lake shore

Baby Canada Geese are really quite cute!

Natural rose arch

Blue Heron

Canoe races

Japanese Garden at Washington Park Arboretum. 

Saturday Afternoon I took two buses over to the Arboretum. I was impressed that it only took 35 mins, the joy of buses that just happen to arrive late but well coordinated. With in the grounds is a Japanese Garden. This sketch is of the "Kobe Lantern" given to the people of Seattle by her sister city Kobe in Japan in 1957. I loved the way it sits above these rounded boulder like shrubs. More photos of the Japanese Garden and the arboretum below. 

Japanese lace leaf maple (Acer palmatum)

Dry steam bed

Blue Listeria Trellis

View of the lake/pond from the North (ish)

Kobe Lantern

Koi in the pond. The visitors leaflet said the gardens are
often visited by a blue heron, I wonder why?

A turtle saying hello

Tea Garden

The Japanese Garden sits in the grounds of an arboretum used for research by the University of Washington. There are a few main paths but lots of others that just meander. I even found one slightly unofficial path that went through a 3ft high tunnel under some shrubs. I forget how nice it is just to wander and be led down trails that lead to somewhere else. To walk on loam and not concrete, how neat! The trees are not especially exciting for a non-botanist. The are arranged in family groups dotted around the grounds.

Entrance to Arboretum

A twisty tree

A Redwood from bottom-up

Not so Giant Sequoia, but still fairly large. The fence is 3.5ft ish.

A bee having a drink, incidentally whilst I was taking this
a mosquito decided to have a drink from me. I removed it
carefully without damaging it's proboscis, and the little blighter flew
straight back on to my arm to have another go - I must take good!

Last but not least. The Pavement...I know you were all wondering what that was about. I walk over a bit of new sidewalk every day, except this one had a few leaves drop in it whilst it set. Now I see the impressions every time I get off the bus, and I never fail to think how beautiful they are.

Modern fossilised leaf impressions!