My best friend

Today I'd like to talk about my best friend - she is 6 years old and her name is Vanda.  She is an American Staffordshire Terrier, a breed considered to be one of a fighting type but never in my life have I met a sweeter and more loving creature.  When I still lived in Russia, my daughter brought her home when she was a little puppy and she immediately started chewing everyone's shoes and marking her territory.  But the little thing had so much personality and was so affectionate that it was hard to be mad at her.  She turned out to be very smart and was quickly house trained.  Later, when I brought her here to US with me, she again adapted quickly, became bi-lingual, and can respond now to many commands in both Russian and English.

What always amazed me is a stark difference between her gentle, loving, and cheerful personality and reputation her breed has.  Her early ancestors came from England, where they were used for guarding and dog fighting. The breed is a mix between the bulldog and the terrier and was known for its ability to fight.  Maybe it is true with the other dogs, though she is usually pays very little attention to the other dogs when we walk, but I never saw her showing anything but love to any human even to complete strangers.

She recently got very sick, started loosing weight, and lost desire to even get up and walk with was very unusual.  We took her to a hospital and the doctor found that she had a life threatening uterus infection.  They had to do a surgery and remove the uterus.  It was sad. We were hoping for her to have children and some point but it will be impossible now.  We are still very glad that she was saved and is now back to being a happy and playful herself.

Reforestation

We have a beautiful natural park near the place I live. I often go there for a walk with my dog and both of us enjoy it a lot.  A few days ago I saw a beautiful young conifer tree growing out of an old dead stump, and thought about resilience of nature and how you can maintain its beauty with a little care and preservation.  Some trees in this area are extremely old and may be a few hundred years old.  Some of them die natural death and sometimes fall during one of the rain storms.  Some of them are young and strong and grow replacing the old ones.  No one is clearing the fallen dead trees unless they fall on one of the trails.  I was thinking it would probably be a fire hazard if it was somewhere in California, but here in WA we should probably be more concerned with floods that with fire.  So I am glad it is the way it is - natural and wild beauty.  When you walk just a short distance inside, you forget you are in a city and feel like you are on a middle of wilderness far away from civilization...

Giving life to a twig (Botanical observations from a personal experience)

I remember helping a friend to organize her back yard, and to clean it from dead trees and bushes last year.  We were cutting mostly dead dry branches, but every time we had to cut a live and a green one, I would feel bad even when it was clearly necessary.  I took one little twig from a nicely flowering shrub we were pruning (I am not even sure what kind it was, but I really liked it), and brought it home.  I removed the leaves from the lower one-third of the twig and put it in a glass of water.   For a long time it looked neither dead nor alive.  After about a week, the remaining leaves turned kind or yellowish color, and I was worried it was going to die.  However, after about a month, I’ve  noticed first little roots coming out on the bottom of the twig.  I was very excited.  I waited for a little more until the roots became bigger, and planted it into a small pot I had at home.  After another couple of months I planted it into a soil outside.  It was covered with bark and I am very hopeful it survives this cold winter (which is not over yet).  If it does, it should leave a long and a happy life:-)

My Homemade Buttermilk

I really like old-fashioned homemade buttermilk and often make it at home.  Because it is more natural, I believe it is also healthier. When I was thinking what I should write about in my first biology blog, I remembered buttermilk and thought of how it is being made.  The manufacturing process at production plants is probably much more complicated and includes things like pasteurization and homogenization, but at home I simply take a gallon of cow milk, add a little of lactic acid bacteria (Streptococcus lactis), and let it sit for a day and night at room temperature.  During this time, the milk is being fermented by the naturally occurring lactic acid-producing bacteria in the milk. This starts the butter churning process and fat from cream with a lower pH will coalesce more readily than that from fresh cream. The acidic environment also helps to prevent potentially harmful microorganisms from growing, increasing shelf-life (which I am not too worried about since it does not last long in our family).

Now, going back to the purpose of this blog, I'd like to mention a couple more things about the lactic acid bacteria (LAB).   These bacteria, usually found in decomposing plants and lactic products, produce lactic acid as the major metabolic end-product of carbohydrate fermentation.  It is also a probiotic, which is believed to be beneficial to the gut ecosystem of humans and other animals.

Buttermilk has also a lot of culinary benefits, and can act as leaven in baking, and can even tenderize meat but this is probably beyond the scope of this article.  After all this is a biology, not a culinary blog.

I should think of something more interesting next time:-)

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Some details for this article are taken from here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lactic_acid_bacteria