Goodbye Glasgow :(

,

It is my last day in Glasgow. I think I'm going to miss it; the sage brush, the open sky, the train sounds, the folks. I guess before I realized it, Montana grew on me. We are leaving tomorrow for the Miras River near Shelby, should get some good pictures out there. Then I'll be homeward bound.

Mikey hosted a going away BBQ on Sunday. She has been comfort for us interns, going to miss her sweetness. Going to miss the lot of them. Joanne came with Rowen Charles, he is so perfect. Bunch of hugs and laughs. I am very grateful for my time here, and the people I've meet.Josey, Me, Marissa, and Lauren

Pretty specialBurger, Tribby, and Todd
Look how happy they are, how am I not going to miss them?

Friday the girls and I went to the Sather Farm, saw a calf branding, picked up the eggs from the coupe and had dinner with his family. I really enjoyed it there, he has the greatest dog. We got carried away in a photo shoot on the farm. pretty ridiculous but also a blast.

Well goodbye Glasgow.

The youngest

Joanne is having her baby! No pictures yet, and haven't heard if it is a baby girl, or boy; But Joanne is now Mama Joanne.

I am reading East of Eden, which I'm fully enjoying, a good one for the end of summer.
Found a couple of prairie rattlesnakes today, and an Indian tomahawk hammer.
It is raining and cold and dreary tonight.

Missing many people , so Hello.

This Little Light of mine...I'm Going To Let It Shine.

It's been a while now, I do apologize had some slow weeks and have been out of town quite often.

The week I left you last, we did some turtle trapping. I was pretty nervous about going. Our boss's boss, Ryan was taking us out individually. Last time I had worked with him he had taken us bird mist netting. He was working on untangling a piece of the net, while I watched him work. He looked over to me and asked if my fingers were broken. I replied no and while I was thinking about why he would ask me that Josey walks over to the net and helps him to untangle it. So I was very worried that I would not perform to his standards. Turns out we had a great time, maybe he was in a good mood, but he said I was good luck out there, we caught two soft shell turtles. We were baiting one trap where a group of people were fishing. I was carrying the chopped up fish bait and going down a bank when I slipped and the cut up fish went flying 5 inches from this old mans lap. I was thinking OH BOY, and just saying I'm so sorry sir, I'm so sorry. Ryan turns around and says you will have to excuse her she is from Florida. It got some laughs. Monday Ryan will be taking all of us bat mist netting, so should be interesting.

Yes, we have moved off of birds and are really on bats now. It is nice to not have to get up at 4:30am. What we do now is pound these wood stakes in the ground attach a Petterson ultrasound detector and a recording device. We let them sit from about 9pm to 2am, the detector can capture the frequency bat calls make, and slows down the call, making it audible to us. We upload the calls on to the computer and using Sonobat application we can figure out what species of bats are out there, by the shape and frequency of the call. So late nights and dark hours.

Last weekend I meet up with Dane - my guy buddy from Texas. He has been doing a field school in between Colorado and Idaho for the summer. So he drove up and I drove down and we meet in Yellowstone. Quite gorgeous, we weren't very well planned, and cut it close a couple of times not having a campground for the night, but things seemed to be in our favor, we kept on lucking out and securing the last campsite available. We did a many of day hikes, seeing grizzles, bison, elk and wildflowers. One day it rained on us, so we just drank coffee on a boardwalk and watched the people, trying to piece together relationships and laughing at us and them. Another day we painted/drew landscapes (I'll have to take a picture of mine and show it to you). Dane managed to get his truck searched by the park rangers, he has a pick-up full of antlers from his summer field class. The park rangers assumed he had gotten them from the park, and Dane had to explain that wasn't the case, which is a good thing he did or he would of gotten 10 years in prison and a bad fine. Nothing gets the heart pumping like the uniform, but it's just basically a good story now.


My camera died on the first day, so I don't have many photos from the trip. The place was beautiful though and as long as you avoided the crowds it was quite enjoyable.

I've got two more weeks of work, Momma is coming out the 4th of August we are going to take off and see Glacier then return to Florida. It feels good that things are coming to an end, I did my time out here, learned a bucket full. Now that it is ending I have more incentive to reflect back on it.

Sorry bout the delay

First, God bless America.

Sorry its been awhile, not much has been going on. I've had a few exciting events, last weekend we hosted a white trash party at the trailer park, pretty brilliant. I don't have a picture of me (I'll work on getting one) but I do have a picture of my boss Joanne and her husband Marc. I think 5 cases of 24 beers were put in the cooler and the next morning there were 8 beers in the cooler, so that's pretty white trash. One of the interns had started drinking at 7am that morning, also pretty white trash. Luckily I did pretty well and avoided that amount of poison.

Told ya she was pregnant

I've got a new fantasy to be a rodeo girl. I guess it's rodeo season here in Montana. I've gone to two now. This last one was very good. After the rodeo they had a street dance, oh boy! Two stepped, jitter bugged, even polkaed to my favorites Patsy and Waylon.

New Idol

The sky here never gets old, just more beautiful.

We are finishing up bird surveys this week, and switching to bat work. The transition might be a lil jarring. Currently we wake at 4:30 work till 12 or so. But the bat work is basically opposite, you don't get out in the field till 20 minutes after dark (10pm it gets dark here, that was interesting for fireworks last night, they didn't start till 10:30) and you're out for 4 or 5 hours so like till 3am. We will see how that goes.

All and all I've got a little over a month left, I know it will go fast. Tell papa I want a pony when I get home.

Love you, miss yall.

Day for Daddy

This is the cup I drink coffee out every morning. Think it is perfect.

Happy Father's Day Papa

Things have started to go a lot faster. Working hard. Some days I feel like there aren't enough hours in the day, we rise at 4:30 and try to be in bed at 10, but still it seems short. Lots of working and fishing. Beautiful big sky of course. A bit of drinking on the weekends. So I'm done with a month officially tomorrow. So just a month and a half left, so I hope the time keeps passing quickly.Josey out fished us yesterday, caught this common sucker, the coolest was a stergon (sry no pic)

I out fished Josh Saturday, two golden eye, a walleye and a sauger.This is Cody, the last intern to arrive.

Long days

I am starting to come around to enjoy the sunrises over the sunsets here in Montana.

Slowly I've been given more responsibilities. Monday I did my first bird count on my own, I didn't sleep that well the night before - out of nerves I'm sure. But it was a success heard a veery, saw bobolinks, and northern flickers even saw a fox. It had rained the weekend before, when it rains here it turns the ground into a sticky liquid, everyone calls it Gumbo. You cant drive in it so for a couple of the points I walked out to I had 2-3 inches of gumbo stuck to my boots, very heavy and hard to walk with.

Wednesday I was scheduled for another independent bird count. I get to where the map looks like I need to be, turn on the gps ask it to find the nearest point which should be this point 7 I think I'm near. Well it dosent show up, I have to call Josey and see if she can help me figure it out. So I wait bout an hour, still looking for this gps point 7. I realize Joanne didnt upload the points on to my gps. When Josey arrives she concludes the same thing. So instead of an independent adventure of bird counts, I hop in the truck with Josey and go with her on her points. This is the River josey and I have started a love affair with. Our work is based along the stretch of the Milk River, with all its species, and all its habitat.

We were quite blessed Thursday, in seeing something most people don't get to experience. There is a large Wildlife Refuge in Montana, one of the largest in the continental states - Charles M. Russell Wildlife Refuge. The land is in a state that is close to the way Lewis & Clark experienced it on their journey west. We were out there to do a Big Horn Sheep Survey, the group counted 50 sheep, our team of interns saw 34 of the 50. Team of good eyes. We also saw 2 rattlesnakes twice, elk. The biggest event was this heard of nine sheep being chased by a female elk and 3 male elk. It was quite a thing to see, I feel very lucky I don't think many people get to say that. That was a long day left at 4:30 am got back at 8:30pm, I was in bed by 9.Miss HurricaneGroup of Big Horn Sheep LadiesviewView of the refugeElk. you can click the picture and hold shift and it will open large in a new windowTeam Good Eyes

Friday after work I bought my fishing license went fishing and caught my first Northern Pike, I was pretty thrilled, very cool fish has teeth. Mine was kind of small for a pike, but an accomplishment for me none the less.

week 2

Earlier this week didn't have much going on. We've been doing night time frog call surveys, Josh our neighbor (very nice dude) has been going out with us - he is our protection out there - I think Josey and I both feel safer with him there. One really cool aspect about these night time surveys is at 10 pm the radio station starts playing these 15 minutes old time radio stories. So when we get in the pick up we hear short stories with sound effects - we heard one about two sisters one was disabled the healthy sister didn't treat her so good. The healthy sister left and married a man and it turns out he becomes disabled. Then we heard one revolving around a game of chess.

Josh took us fishing - we dont have our permits so we just watched him fish. After fishing he took us around the Ft Peck dam, saw the spillgate. The lake looks like an ocean it is 119 miles long.good old boy Josh

fishing lakemeneighbor joshspillgatespilgate

Here is a classic image of Montana for you - One morning while doing bird surveys this older lady drives by in her GMC, she had her hair curlers in and her leather work gloves on, wish I had a picture of that for yall.

Lewis and clark and miss Sacageweafound in cottonwood bottom land.

Friday night we went to the Catfish Calcata - for those of you like me who dont know what that was, I'lll explain. Saturday there is the Catfish Classic a fishing tournement. So the night before the whole town gathers at a bar and bets on the team they think will win, some people won 4,000 - 2,000 bucks. SO friday night was fun,Ii payed for one $2 dollar beer, and all the other drinks were bought on rounds - I was pretty pumped about that.The Montana Bar serivng the drunks of Glasgow for 110 years (seriously)

This barber shop is connected to the Montana Bar. I really think my papa would get his hair cut here.

It was suppose to snow the night of the tournament but it didnt- I have mixed feelings about that - I would have both liked and not liked to see the snow.

Saturday Josh and I went to the town's Pioneer Museum - I loved it, tons of junk old timey stuff of cowboys and Indians, railroads, hunting, homestead kind of things, western paintings, dinosaurs, old doctor stuff. For dinner one of the girls at the office Mikey had us over for dinner - fried chicken, mac and cheese, collard greens, pinto beans and blueberry colber - very good. We watched young guns - new all time favorite and then went over to the catfish weigh in. The two best fish were 10.7 lbs.

Pioneer Museum

Im waiting on a care package from mitch - cant wait. besides that everything is good.
Love yall