forest research institute

Wasn't feeling well today. I could tell everything was interesting, objectively, but I had trouble standing for such long periods of time. In the wood museum, I remembered a lot about my time working at the lumber yard at Twin Oaks-the way to stack the wood to cure it, specifically. But also the fun of lifting entire logs to the sawmill and impressing others with my might! I missed the organic garden part of the tour because the chemistry department finally did me in, and I joined Tabby in the bus. Other departments we went to was the genetics department (which, according to the video, does something with hashish. Awesome, said those of us still awake at that part of the video, which literally was not all of us), where a woman in the lab showed her ice-cold samples and some of what she does with them. They showed us a family of eucalyptus trees that had concomitant generations and clones so really scientific control groups could be experimented on from initial growth. A man in another department (herbology? Or is that just in Harry Potter?) was very enthusiastic about the many samples of leaves and flowers he had pressed and recorded on yellowing papers throughout his library. The buildings in general were beautifully designed, but we found it odd that everything was wood, and they had obviously cleared the surrounding area of trees to build the place.