Sagebrush Fields Forever

Ok, so I have to frantically type this since I'm in McDonalds (first time I've eaten the stuff in YEARS) and my battery is dying and my boss, Brady, has his dog in the car in the parking lot. It's ok, the weather is cold, so the dog won't die from the heat.

So, the drive out to the wildlife refuge was fast. I don't know if it was the fact that we were going 80 mph the whole time or that the landscape is so flat it made it seem faster. There was sagebrush as far as the eye can see (which is pretty dang far) and some pretty interesting geographic features, like cliffs and mountains. It was really pretty except for one thing. NO TREES. I've grown up around trees and it's very disturbing to not have ANY around. None, zip, zilch, zero. Ok, there are some willows around the rivers, but come on, they don't even have leaves yet.

The ranger station where we're staying is pretty out of the way, but very nice. Our house is rather large, with a full kitchen, 3 bedrooms (one has a bed, so I'm sleeping on a folded out futon...no complaints here), a patio, a backyard, 2 bathrooms, and in a week or so, a washer and dryer. It's actually nicer than my apartment back in Georgia. However, there is no TV or Internet, so that kind of stinks. Thank goodness Brady brought his TV with him and a TON of DVDs, so we can watch movies etc on the days or nights where we're back at the house.


We've already sampled for 2 days. We were SUPPOSED to sample today, but it's raining and there's a winter weather alert. Rain ruins the scat and washes away the DNA, which is no bueno. Essentially, what's happened is we went along the first half of the Green River the first day marking and looking for sites. If we found lots of recent scat, we marked it and set up a hair snare. If we found new scat, we collected it. Oh yeah, when we set up hair snares, we have to bait them with "The Stink". "The Stink" is ground up otter anal glands in Vaseline, and it reeks to high heaven, hence the name. Fortunately, Brady created that before I got here, so I didn't have to grind up any otter parts in a meat grinder. YAY ME! Anyways, back on the frantic track, we set up a bunch of sites on Monday and got to our campsite around 4pm, which was good time. It looked like rain, so we set up camp, cooked our chili (I'm not going to be eating many veggies this summer, which is going to stink), and went to our tents. Well, it didn't rain. It snowed. Not a lot, but it still did. That was 'fun', and ruined a lot of good scat for the next day. But we still managed to set up the rest of the sites, collect some samples, and set up some snares.


I've already seen a bunch of wildlife. Just driving to the site, I saw Pronghorn (America's antelope, essentially, hence the scientific name Antilocapra americana), Mule Deer (Odocoileus hemionus), Sandhill Cranes (they sound like dinosaurs), tons of ducks and songbirds, and signs for coyotes (Canis latrans) and moose (Alces alces). I haven't actually seen a moose yet, but I've seen tracks and scats, and man, they are BIG. I can't wait to see one. Oh, and I've seen a Golden eagle and a Bald eagle. The Bald eagle is on the river and she's sitting on a nest, which means I'll hopefully get to see some eagles grow up this summer! 


Ok, so I have some rants on manual cars, the windy weather, and other things that I guess I'll have to save for later, as well as some pictures. Like I said, I had to rush when I typed this. Hopefully the next day off I get, which will be 6 days from now because we had to take today off and that threw off the schedule, I'll be able to type more and add pictures here and on Facebook.


I miss everyone and it's going to take a while to get used to being out here, but I feel like I'll eventually get into a groove. Hopefully I'll be able to start running and exercising regularly, too. Eh, that's for another not rainy day. 


MISS YOU GUYS!