Dragonflies in droves and abundant ice cream

The worst of mosquito season is over in Saskatchewan, and this is partly because dragonfly season is peaking. Dragonflies eat many many mosquitoes, and the ones here are large, at times looking more like small birds than insects. Somehow we missed this last year – I don't think we notice the dragonflies at all – but there is no way to miss it this year. At times I am sure I have seen upwards of twenty dragonflies at one time. I think they are very beautiful creatures, and seeing so many of them at once can be a little bit awe-inspiring.

Also abundant in our house in the past week is homemade ice cream. About a month ago I bought two ice cream cookbooks, and I have been dying to try out some of the recipes. I sent Jeff out to buy some half-and-half, and I am used to half-and-half having a particular milk fat content, but apparently around here the dairy product with that milk fat content is called coffee cream. So, I had to send Jeff back out to get the dairy product with the right milk fat content for the recipe I was using, but then we had this extra milk/cream, and I found another ice cream recipe that was appropriate to use it in. That made two batches of ice cream. But then there was a little bit of each type of milk/cream left over, and rather than let it go to waste, I made another half batch of a different type of ice cream. So we currently have three kinds of homemade ice cream in the house, and even though we had friends over to eat some of it last night, there is still quite a bit left. I am not complaining. However, none of the three types of ice cream turned out perfect (the malt powder didn't dissolve properly in the malted milk chocolate ice cream, the coffee flavor is a bit too prominent in the darkest-chocolate-ice cream-in-the-world, and the coffee beans I used to make the coffee ice cream were old, and taste old), so I will certainly have to try making each of them again :-)

Remember not long ago I mentioned that I had gotten a grant for my research? Well, earlier this week I was interviewed by the local paper, and they did a little story about the grant and my research. I am both shy/embarrassed about getting attention, and excited/proud about the research :)