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.
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