Davis is a nexus of animal husbandry and biology studies, what with the ginormous UC land grant school as the town anchor. Its also a ridiculously liberal and feel-goody town, so we like to visit. Fleur has provided the Things with 4 cousins (Fleurette, Biscuit, Myrtille and Bruyant) with her husband, DrÉnergie; a fluffy cat and a fluffy dog complete the family. They’re a lot to keep track of, I don’t know how she does it—just thinking about vacuuming after the fluffy pets exhausts me.

DrÉnergie has a veterinary pathology business, where your local veterinarian sends acky bits of sick pets for expert analysis under a microscope, and various research studies are conducted. He’s built his own lab, which is very, very cool. We managed to get a tour for the Things the day before Thanksgiving. Starting with the video microscope, where DrÉnergie has a collection of “kid friendly” slides of interesting things he’s found to look at (black widow egg sac, anyone?). This is a mosquito wing. It looks kind of like my legs in winter. Who knew they were so hairy? I reduced the size a little bit, and I’m sparing you their disgusting little feet.

Stop here and scroll directly to the bottom if you are squeamish, it gets grosser quickly.

Then was the really interesting part! First, DrÉnergie slapped some gloves on Thing 2, and before he knew it he was holding a diseased dog tail for all to see. You can see that Thing 2 is a bit happy but unsure about this. I have to admit, the tail was the grossest thing of all, be grateful it is blurry. And there was a lot more to come.

Next, there happened to be a recently amputated cat leg for analysis. Now, veterinarians don’t do this operation casually. While it is gross, the leg has a fast-growing cancer that was headed for the cat’s body, and cats can get by just fine on 3 legs. Anyway, out comes a ziplock bag with a cat leg in it, with which DrÉnergie shows the kids how muscles work and where the cancer is. Thing 1 gets to palpate the leg and feel the tumor (This is where Thing 2 bails.), then DrÉnergie shows us how he takes a sample and prepares a slide for later analysis. 

After the cat leg was safely put away, DrÉnergie fished a sheep’s heart out of a small bucket of other sheep bits that are part of a study at the lab. He showed the kids how it was insulated with fat, and ran water through it to show how it pumps. Then, in what was fascinating and gross, he dissected it for Thing 1 and Myrtille to see the different chambers. It was really neat. Meanwhile, in another room, Thing 2 was being entertained by a technician who was showing him slides of brain and kidney slices. (Its way less smelly outside the lab room, and slides are a less “immediate” reminder of where the tissue came from.)

Hmm. Can’t find my sheep picture. Will post later.

While the turkey was roasting on Thanksgiving day, DrÉnergie entertained us, and the neighborhood, with his collection of estes rockets. Many tiny parachute men were sent to the stratosphere about 200ft. It was really fun, the shooting off, and the watching the platoon of kids race to catch the spent rocket and parachute men.

Here is DrÉnergie getting a rocket ready with Thing 1, Fleurette and Myrtille.

This one is self-explanatory.

Fleurette and Myrtille readying the porta-potty rocket. : )

Happy, Lucky Things.

As if that weren’t enough excitement for one weekend, on Friday we took the Things to the Happiest Place on Earth: The Exploratorium in San Francisco. (I bet you’ve seen ads about another Happiest Place. Don’t believe everything you see on TV.) We spent basically the entire day doing the hands-on demonstrations of scads of scientific concepts. I don’t know about the Things, but I personally experienced sensory overload about 3 hours in. We’ll definitely be back!!

The things pedal-power a light bulb, among other choices of appliance.

SysGuy smoke ring generating with the Things and Myrtille.

Oh, yeah. On the way out of town we went across some old orange bridge.

And that, was that.