You can take the girl out of the field...

Grace Kelly would never do this.

A year ago I got a lagniappe (gift-with-purchase):

a small, black sequined purse.

Having no idea what to do w/it,

I flung it into my closet.

6 months later, at an REI sidewalk sale,

I got a fabulous deal on some bomber boots. 

And when I got home, flung those pups into the closet.

I only just noticed today, another 6 months later,

that I'd CRUSHED this tiny, delicate, evening clutch

with my gigantic, lug soled, all-leather (not light) boots.

*sigh*

Conclusions

bio dork humor, & I'm gettin' in the FIELD!!

 
Howdy, gangstas.* An "I'm not dead!" post (w/real time update @#6):

1. Laugh and laugh again
Ran across this photo from 2 summers ago and it made me laugh. Again:

It's a bio pun.

I wrote "DNA" using DNA-laden pollen.

What I think is funny is that

I still think it's funny.

Easily amused. =)

2. If I'm cleaning the chicken coop, then it must be time for fieldwork

Just got a call (from the day job), and I will be HEADING OUT into the field very soon! $weet!

Apparently those little birdies are thinking about romance, rendering us biologist types useful so we can ensure construction/other ground disturbance doesn't take any of the little darlings out.

It doesn't take a lot to dramatically reduce the impacts of construction (or your basic ground disturbance) upon wildlife and wildlife habitat.

So, that's exciting. Gonna be paid to be outside, tromping around. Nice!

But, before I'm in the field, I need to

• wrestle this LAST (oh-so-resistant) paper into shape to be done w/my fatty editing project,
• clean the chicken coop 'so the hens are happy whilst I'm away, then
• BUY BOMBER FIELD BOOTS.

3. Bio Dork crisis! My FAVORITE field clothes are gone. =(

bb & coworkers. Can you tell all-leather boots are kinda important??

The perfect set. 

This is a tragedy I've been holding inside

("Hanging on in quiet desperation is the English way"**)

save for occasionally mumbling about it to my husband,

who is usually in the next room and doesn't hear.

If you've done fieldwork at all regularly, you get this--
am I right, fieldies? (pray share your feeling in comments)

I probably left them in a hotel somewhere whilst on assignment.

Like back in the pre-MP3 days, I used to always lose my favorite tunes

'cause I'd bring them everywhere with me.

The crappy stuff NEVER got lost;

just sat at home, growing ever-more dusty & annoying.
Same with field clothes.

Anyhow, the perfect set included:

• my lovely $$$ all leather Vasque boots
• my favorite fleece (9 mile-long skinny sleeves (recall I'm female and 6' 1") in a vibrating chartreuse hue that made me v. happy)
• and some magic material socks ($martwool, no doubt).

A moment of silence....

4. Chartreuse aside

Factoid from Wiki: "Chartreuse in nature... Birds: Lovebirds are colored various bright tones of chartreuse..."

Photo by David (http://flickr.com/photos/81804231@N00).

aw... and terribly cute! =)

5. I-am-not-a-freak shopping

But, my loss also means I "must" find and shop at an REI.

While I am NOT a shopper, I DO love a good REI.

One of the only stores where I feel pretty normal and relaxed.

They have stuff I need (and want).

They are unphased at the mention of mud and freezing,

hiking (entirely) off trail in the rain, mud, wind, and amid-rattlesnakes.

'sno big. they get it.

Sort of like graduate school.
When I found myself in the School of Natural Resources and the Environment,
I realized that for the first time in my life,
I was around people who were like me.

Super into the planet and conservation and learning,
way enthusiastic and driven,
and SO excited to be there.

It was heaven.

Anyhow...

6. Time travel--whoosh!

Full disclosure, THIS part of this post is written TODAY, Monday Feb 13th, AFTER my fieldwork.

Did 2 days of fieldwork sans camera,

knowing I had more fieldwork the next week, so I'd bring my camera THEN,

once I'd gotten up to speed w/coworkers.

THEN they hired 2 new people & I was reassigned to the office to edit.

oops.

So, VERY SORRY, readers, precious little to SHOW re: fieldwork.

Do have 1 or 2 from last partial day in field (Saturday) that I'll share next.

And I still have 2 old nests (abandoned from last year, our task to remove)

that I'll photograph, share, and try to figure out who made them.

And I picked up owl pellets & various bones, so when I retrieve them,

I'll share that, as well.

Anyhow, I'm back home (for now), alive, and its' SNOWING!!!

Right now the sun is peeking through, brightening snowflakes,

and rendering the foraging deer ever-more glamorous. =)

Yup, life's rough.

And you? How've you been?

xoxoxobb

*Wrote this last week, before I left. Am now back. For now.

*from Pink Floyd's (somewhat painfully genius) song "Time." bb is, in part, English ethnically and (so a Scotsman tells me, more than a little bit) culturally.

These boots brought to you by... rattlesnakes.

 

(apparently these 2-day-old boots already have some fascinating scents)

The first day of searching for burrowing owl and San Joaquin kit fox burrows, I wore cross trainers, having discovered (yet again and too late) that I don't have decent hiking boots. I've never figured out how this happened...

Anyhow, at the end of the first day, ankles raw from 10,000 dried grass seeds (despite wearing gaiters), having felt unfamiliarly insecure re: rattlesnakes, I looked down at co-workers' boots.

Ah.

100% all-leather hiking boots.

k.

So, headed straight for REI wherein I bought the above beauties, completely NOT on sale. Didn't care. I had another day of rattlesnakes and seeds ahead.

Day 2: confidently clomping around in my huge boots, I had NOT ONE seed in my skin, and felt 100x more confident should I encounter a rattlesnake. Didn't see one day two (day 1 we encountered 2), but did get to pet a lovely gopher snake (Pituophis catenifer).

Anyhow, thanks to rattlesnakes and grass seeds, I have made a small contribution to the health of the local economy. And my ankles are very happy.

biobabbler

P.S. The scat bandanna came in handy on several occasions, as we collectively tried to interpret "sign." Well, handy outside of it's more typical use as pollen shield (when worn bank-robber style) and general wipey.