Wednesday, November 7, 2007

Proposal Hell

As a researcher your life's blood depends on convincing people and agencies with money to share the wealth, and fund your research. For the last two weeks I have been in a proposal vortex, frantically writing and rewriting drafts. It all ends later today. Wish me luck.

Tuesday, July 24, 2007

Loose ends




Now comes the bittersweet ending. We are both more than ready to see our loved ones and sleep in our own beds. But, there are a million tiny things to do before leaving. List after list is made, one by one items are checked off. After months of diligent science, now our focus is on cleaning out the fridge and packing up clothes that are almost walking themselves to the washer. In the midst of it all we did make it to the North Hills to check out the birds up there. Whoa daddy, is it wetter and cooler. We've made some lovely friends with the Black Hills botany crowd and they let us crash their place near Spearfish. Not bad huh?
So now the season draws to a close and we look forward to all of the hormone assays and data analysis that will fill our days for months to come.

Tuesday, July 17, 2007

wee beasties

So we're back at it trying to finish strong but events are not conspiring in our favor. It's been well over 100 degrees the past couple of days and even with our best efforts we're hardly catching any birds. It's frustrating to work on 5 hours of sleep in brutal heat and not have much to show for it. Then, to add insult to injury, some form of evil insect hatched recently and seems to love the taste of biologist, especially C. They are tiny little things that swarm all over you and bite, but don't leave marks. Long, thin and reddish or black wee devils. They are roughly the same size as a chigger, but more svelte.Perhaps a biting midge? Lovely no? I know you're jealous. It may be time to give up the ghost soon and head home. All work and no play (data) makes K a cranky biologist.

Friday, July 13, 2007

hittin it hard

Finally back at work. Feels good to be productive again.
Luckily our field sites are miles and miles away from the burn so our study birds were not affected by the fire. We're on a down hill slide now. How much work can we squeeze in to the next 13 days?

Wednesday, July 11, 2007

Back in the saddle again




So we were lucky, very, very lucky. The fire burned down to our driveway, very close to the house and stopped there.
I say stopped, but more truthfully it was halted by the firefighters. We happen to leave right on a spring fed creek and the fighters were using our driveway to refuel the tankers. Convenient for us, no?
So all we have to deal with is spoiled food in the fridge, and not quite reliable electricity. The fire is still far from out though. All night evening and through the night we hear tanker refueling, helicopters flying overhead and fire trucks driving past the house to the section that is still burning. Not the most restful night I've ever had, but I'm not complaining.
Time to get back to work.

Tuesday, July 10, 2007

Return to Eden

It seems the rumors are true. In an hour they're opening the road to residents. We got a special get out of jail free card from the sheriff so we could get in as well. What will we find? Who knows. We don't know if we'll have power or water or if the place is even livable (smoke damage is distinctly possible). But at least we'll know where we stand and be able to make a plan for the next few days and weeks.

pins and needles


Rumors are flying. A cold front blew in last night, the fire is more controlled, we may get in tonight. Please, please, please. There is another meeting at 1. Hopefully this one will tell us something useful. But i hate to get my hopes up. I am not a patient person and this is wearing on my nerves. We were planning on going somewhere today, getting outta town and distracting ourselves, but this news makes us hesitant. So we'll wait and clock watch and if all goes well get back in tonight. Kiss lady luck for me if you see her.

Monday, July 9, 2007

clockwatchers



Our driveway

Now the waiting game.
As nice as lounging in a hotel room is after months of field work, we're bored, ready to get back out there. But most of our supplies, clothes, and equipment are back at the house. Rumor has it that it will be a few more days before we get back in.
The fire is still out of control and erratic winds make everything uncertain.

Sunday, July 8, 2007

Light my fire


So last night I'm trying, again, to fix the plumbing on the field house, it's not working so i decide to give up and get the cheat grass out of my shoes. There's a storm blowing in and i relax under a tree and enjoy the breeze.
Something is wrong, off, strange.
Instead of wet hot dirt, i smell grass and wood. Burning grass and wood. The sky is overcast and the sun is going down so i'm not sure if there is any smoke, but i smell it.
Sure enough, a short while later there is a huge boiling smoke cloud North of us. But it's a few miles off and fire is a fact of life out here, so we don't sweat it too much. We update the backed-up data and read a book.
Few hours later it's still burning, you can see the red glow over the ridge even though it's now about 11 pm. But it doesn't seemed to have moved much and the smoke is blowing east instead of south where we are. So i go to sleep, but I think ahead enough to set my alarm for two hours later. Death from smoke inhalation doesn't sound appealing to me.
I wake before the alarm goes off. Look out the window and what to my wandering eyes should appear but a raging fire moving right down the ridge.
Time to go.
I wake up C and we begin to hurriedly pack up the essentials. Wallet, check. Cell phone, check. Laptop, check. Samples on ice, check. Of course, in our haste we pick up a few needless things, the printer?, banding kits?, empty water bottles?. But forget some essentials, phone charger, toothbrush, actual data sheets.
As we're finishing up the fire crew comes tearing down the drive. Seriously, time to go.
At the end of the drive we look back up the canyon and see the flames eating their way up and down the preserve. Ever seen a wildfire hit a juniper? Very impressive what with flames over 30 ft in the air and all.
So we skeedattle, but we can't head north into town b/c the fire has jumped the road and it's gnarly (direct quote from fire crew). So we have to head south to nothing. Seriously, nothing, for over 70 miles, then you come to a tiny town in Nebraska. No room at the inn.
So we pull over on the side of the road and watch the world burn for awhile. Happy B-day C, never forget this one will you? Then, we decide to loop around the long way and go to the red cross shelter the locals told us about. 60 miles away, most of it on gravel, and it's about 3am now. woohooo.
We finally get there, but now there's the problem of the precious, precious samples we've slaved to gather over the last two months. They are fragile and must stay frozen or it's all been for naught.
A kind soul at the shelter offers the freezer space at his church and next thing we know we're in the basement of some random church with the preacher's son tucking away the samples at 4:30 am. Life is very strange sometimes.
By the time we're settled on our cots at the convention center/red cross shelter it's after 5.
We pass out for a little while then get up before 7 to see what we can find out.
The morning is spent twiddling our thumbs and listening to the locals talk about the destruction before we hear that our place is somehow still standing. The fire stopped at the edge of the driveway, missed the house by scant meters. Things are such a mess down there though it will be days before we can get back in.
So now we're at a hotel room in town with hot running water, electricity, wireless internet and cable.
A night of pure luxury after a hot, ashy, dirty, sweaty, anxious, LONG, day before.

Friday, July 6, 2007

feel it hot hot hot


It's hot out here.
Very, very hot and very, very dry.
The last estimate i saw was around 107.
Fun climate for field work.
We come home and finish processing the blood. Time to shower and relax.
C goes first, i heat up some dinner. I try to add a little water to the bowl before nuking it but no water comes out of the tap. Great. C comes down from her shower and says it stopped on her mid shower.
I love plumbing.
This old place was a weird set up, the water well is about 50m away and the water is pumped into the house via a black temporary pipe on the ground. So on days like today the cold water is too hot to use, seriously scalding.
So i go out and follow the pipe and sure enough there's a connector that's blown.
So i spend the next hour grunting and tugging and trying to use a swiss army knife screwdriver (it's all i had). In the end it still leaks a little so we leave the water off and I just deal with no shower, despite being caked with mud and the devilish cheat grass.
A wet wash cloth is your friend and savior.