The Green Mountain DNA conference went very well.  The speakers were all quite interesting, which isn't always garenteed since some scientists just aren't good speakers no matter how interesting the subject matter.  The two that stick out most in my head (while not totally applicable to what I do) were:

The talk given by the woolly mammoth guy - he leads one of the groups mapping the woolly mamoth genome.  He had facinating stories about digging mammoths out of the permafrost as well as having a really interesting insight into DNA preservation, extraction, etc...  It was also interesting to hear his questions to several of the other speakers as he knows all about DNA extraction, amplificaiton but little about the specifics of applying it all to forensics.  The factoid that seemed really interesting to me is that in working with coprolites he's isolated DNA from woolly rhinos in alaska more then a few times - the catch - archeologists have never found wooly rhino fossils in north america and thought that it was an asia-only species.  It's a really strong reminder of how little information is actually in the fossil record - a lot happened that was never fossilized!

I was facinated by the talk on Optical Tweezers (dude!  tractor beams on a cellular level!  crazy...)  Basically, they focus a laser down to a narrow point and use the physical properties of light to trap things at that point and move them around.  Yes - they're moving stuff around using a light beam.  It's pretty non-distructive and they've seen yeast budding while trapped and the sperm they trap and move around can swim away afterwards.  If you have time watch the videos at the bottom of the wiki.  It's really cool!

Along with taking real notes I broke down and took notes on silly references made by the speakers
1 spinal tap "this one goes to 11" reference (just one, but it happens at EVERY dna conference)
1 monty python reference
2 shakespeare references
5 (yes FIVE) star trek references (and 1 star wars refernece)

Meanwhile back at the farm:
"green" beans are starting to produce. 

I'll probably freeze the first few batches, and make some pickled green beans when I really start gettting buried.

I racked the tart cherry/apple wine into a secondary container and set up another:

Cranberry/apple/mystery berry (red, from the CSA last year, currant shaped, but way to sweet to be currants)  This is the "cleaning out the back of the freezer" wine.  There's a lot of berries in there still, I might do another...

I got a call from Neil on tuesday during lunch about how he'd looked outside to see something chasing reggie (Reggie's the dominant yard animal, things don't chase him)  Then it broke off and chased Jake, then Peanut.  Then Neil noticed Moxy cowering in the tall grasses.

The missing chicken is missing no more!  She only hatched 2 babies, which is a perfectly respectable number for a first time mama chicken.  And besides, I already don't know what I'm going to do with all the roosters from the first batch...  She's a bit feistier then our first mama hen.  Also, Neil's already spotted one of the babies riding on mama's back, so I'll go back to stalking chickens with a camera in hopes of catching one in the act!