I can't believe it's already been three weeks since this happened.  Maybe time is going by faster than I thought it would.  Honestly, I thought that after I stopped working with my most awesome field buddy, that the rest of the season would drag and drag.  It seems like a long time, though, since last November, when I ended the 2010 season and couldn't even stand the thought of going back out again.  I thought it was going to be terrible.  And well, the first week was pretty darn crappy, but then J started coming out with me and I thought, "Wow, this totally doesn't suck."  But alas, he has to go back to school and get married and all that crap, so no more good field season for me, I guess.  But it was good while it lasted.  The past two weeks I worked with Egghead, and it was not so bad.  I had someone to dig holes for me and someone to talk incessantly to when I was feeling bored.  Next week, I'll be working alone.  But camping with my boss.  So we'll see how that goes...

But anyway, catching up, here's what went on in the field those few weeks ago.

Like I said before, we didn't camp at Negrito.  Instead, we went off on a random road somewhere and found a spot to set up camp.  J put up the tarp and set up our little area underneath, with the table and stove and everything.  It was a pretty nice setup. 


One reason we got this spot was because of this cool flat(ish) rock, which J liked to sit on until he said it hurt his back.  Should've gotten the camp chair.  Anyway, it was still cool looking.  And we were finally allowed to have fire, so we did.

The mountain in the background is Elk Mountain and we spent a fair amount of time traversing around on there throughout the week.


Here's a view from up there, kinda sorta near the top.


And since we were up there trundling, I got a picture of another different view the next day.


That was our last full day in the field and we got 5 holes described that day.  One of them, I even dug myself.  I don't really expect to get that many next week.  I made a goal of six for the whole week, since I'll have to do everything myself, and things will go a lot slower.  But if I can get those done, that will be the end of that quad, and I'll only have one more to go before I'm done with field work!  Hooray!

As usual, I'm way behind on my posting.  So we're going to go back in time, to two weekends ago, when Matt and I went to the Sandia Crest.  I had never been there before, can you believe it?  I've been up on the tram twice but I never took the Crest trail.  So that is what we did.  This time, we drove up.  This involves going around through Tijeras (which means scissors, if you're curious : )  and up the East side of the mountain.  It's a really pretty drive going up, and when you get to the top, the view is incredible.

Later, we went to the East side of the mountain and took in the forest views, including one of my favorite trees, corkbark fir, which actually does have squishy corky bark.




We spent the evening looking at the sunset, and getting a preview of where we would be spending the next weekend.






Can you guess where we went?  I'll give you a hint.  It's that mountain waaay off in the distance.  I'll tell you more about that later.

Because we can.

P.S. I don't know what's up with the weird lighting.  My camera is old.  Sorry.

For the past several weeks, I have been staying at the Negrito Work Station while I do my mapping.  The firefighters stay there when they're not off, you know, fighting fires.  They have barracks that they stay in but we just sort of set up our tents somewhere and call it good.  However, we have access to everything else.  We're not staying at Negrito next week, though, because it's more convenient to go somewhere else.  I may or may not go back later by myself (next week is J's last week before school starts and I am sad : (   but in the meantime I thought I'd show you some crappy blurry pictures I took of Negrito, so you'll see what it was like to stay there.

Ok, so first of all, they have bathrooms with flush toilets, sinks with running water, and showers.  This, to me, is pretty darn fancy.  Last year, at Ben Lilly, we had some latrine type toilets that I thought were nice compared to the behind the tree pee that I normally did.  But these... they flush!  And oh my gosh, showers... I've taken one every week and it is super amazing being able to get clean after working with dirt all day, especially now that monsoon season is kicking in and everything is all wet and muddy.


This is the kitchen and mess hall where we often cooked and ate dinner.  Other times, we've just used our own camp stove and sat on the back of the truck but when it's raining, it's nice to have a place to go inside and eat.  Plus, they have a tv.  That's pretty awesome.  I should have taken a picture of the mess hall with the tv in it but I didn't because J was in there watching baseball and I got nervous he would think I was weird for taking all these stupid pictures.  But I did take a picture of the entryway.


And the kitchen.


The only thing I didn't really like about it in here was that it smelled kind of weird.  Oh, and the rat poops.  But the firefighters clean it all the time so it wasn't really that gross. 


I guess that's it for now.  I'll try to take some pictures of our camping spot next week to show you as well.  I can't believe it's August already.  The summer is going by too fast, and I still have so much more field work to go.  I'm starting to dread it again.  At least I'll have one more good week.

I have a house guest this weekend.  His name is Boris.

Oh my gosh!  Cute!

His full name is something complicated and Russian because his owner really likes Russian authors.  And I do too, and am part Russian, but I still can't remember the name.  Haha.  I'm watching him for my co-worker while he is in Las Vegas for a wedding.  I'm jealous.  Have I mentioned how much I love Vegas?  Oh yes, yes I have.

Anyway, I've decided pugs are awesome.  They're affectionate, loyal, smart, well behaved and have the cutest little bark ever.  They are the perfect apartment dog.  I want one. 

Right now he's sleeping on the couch and it's super adorable.  I may never give him back...  : )

Now that we're finally getting some rain, the Sandias were open last weekend so we decided to take full advantage of some hiking in the mountains.  We ended up going on an easy trail because I'm lazy from always hiking during the week.  It's really pretty, though.  It's a nature walk type thing in Cienega Canyon.  Cienega means "wet meadow," or so the sign said.

I like this picture because it's pretty and you can't tell how bad I look because I'm all shadowy

Can you see him?

The next day, I headed down to the field with my two travel companions (the boss needed some time alone, apparently, so I got two helpers : )  We had to do a transect this week, which is just ten holes in a row across the same polygon, or similar area, so I got to go ahead of the boys and flag out the spots where they would dig.  While I was off by myself, I kept hearing strange noises.  Rustling, some high pitched squeaks, stuff like that.  At first I thought it was the guys whistling for me but they weren't that close by.  I just happened to look up at the exact time that .... you guessed it... another bear was standing in the woods looking back at me.  I yelled at him, and he just kept staring, so I decided to blow my "rape whistle," as J calls it, and that scared him off.

After that, I didn't want to stay by myself any longer so I went quickly back to the place where I left the guys and told them about the bear.  They said I probably saw him because I was alone and not making too much noise.  I said it would be crazy if I saw another bear the next day.  That would be impossible, right?

Actually, no, not so impossible.

The next day, I was alone again because I had to finish flagging and describing the opposite end of the transect.  The guys took the GPS so I was on my own trying to remember where I put the flags.  I found the first few pretty easily but the one on the end was over on the other side of a little hill and I couldn't find it.  I was looking all over the place and getting really frustrated when I heard a noise.  I looked up and saw yet another bear (or maybe the same one?) running down the hill toward me.  This time, I was startled and afraid.  More so than I had been the day before.  But when the bear saw me, he stopped, and I yelled at him and he ran away.  At that point, I gave up on looking for the last hole and decided to head back to the truck.

The guys showed up a little bit after I did and I said "I saw another bear."  They thought I was joking, but I was totally 100% serious, of course.  They were both really tired from digging but it was only 4:30 so I wanted to describe another hole.  At first, they were pretty cranky about it, which made me feel bad, because I thought they were mad at me.  So I was pouting a little bit and J told me to cheer up, so maybe they weren't that mad.

For the rest of the week, we pretty much just stuck together so that none of us would have trouble finding the rest of the holes.  And we didn't see any more bears.

The only other thing that happened this week, was Egghead and I ran into a rancher and somehow he got started on the topic of wolves.  There's a program within my organization that tries to keep the wolves from going extinct, and ranchers HATE it. "It's a terrrrible program, just terrible" he said to us.  Egghead asked him what, specifically, he didn't like about the program, and the rancher said, "They sneak in, and they eat yer cattle."  No joke, dude.  But the program doesn't do that.  The wolves do.  But when I'm out there, I try not to get into any arguments.  Not worth it.  So we went home, and I was glad for it.  It was a long week.

Last week, J and I left our dear friend Egghead behind and headed to the field without him.  It was a super good week and I enjoyed myself quite a lot.  It's so nice working with someone I actually get along with.  I do hope the feeling is mutual.  At times, I feel like the annoying little sister, or like that 12 year old girl riding around with John Milner in "American Graffiti."  But I try to keep my annoying-ness to a minimum.

We saw some different animals this week, including a couple coyotes, wild turkeys and a horny toad.  One day, we were pretending that we were on a safari and kind of got distracted/lost.  Oops.

Horny toad waaa (that's what Matt and I call a baby : )

pink soil (made from weathered rhyolite)

Cute little drainage basin and awesome background scenery

Back in the office on Friday, I talked to my boss about my work, and he didn't really have much nice to say about it.  I'm trying not to let it get to me, though.  I know the work I did, and the effort I put into it.  I just have to realize that that's the way he is and I'll most likely never hear a compliment from him.  It's hard, though.  Next week, I'll do it all over again, and hopefully the negative comments will at least diminish.

This was the best week I've had in the field in a long time.  My new field buddy and I work together awesomely well.  And we have fun too.  It's great.  I haven't enjoyed field work this much since the VCNP two years ago.  This makes me happy.

Here's some pictures I took.

Tomorrow, after 3 weeks of sitting in my cubicle, I will go back to the forest.  Getting there is always a process.  A long, drawn out, stressful process.  Field work is not all fun time in the woods.  There is constant planning and preparation and perseverance even when things suck and you want to go home really bad.  But if you can get through that, there are rewards.



Like the ever changing New Mexico sunset.

And watching the moon cycle through its phases of light and dark.

I like this picture.  The way it captures two points of light, the fire and the moon, linked together in the darkness. 


And, if you're lucky, the sound of a stream running by on a sunny afternoon.




So tomorrow, I may be stressed, but tonight I am feeling calm.

Stuff has been so crazy around here that I haven't been able to post about everything I've been meaning to so far this year.  Instead of making a separate post about everything, which I'm definitely too lazy to do, I'll just catch up with some of my pictures I took from the last 6 months.  That way I can also finally clear out my camera card for some new pictures.  Multitasking!

We took Matt's dogs to the hills.  Here's Star looking cute.


Matt got three different Lufthansa airplanes, which he lined up together.  His sister just flew on Lufthansa airlines to Germany, not any of these particular ones though.  An A340-600.



My friend Erica came to visit and we hiked to the snowy Travertine Falls.



I went on an adventure to Silver City and took the scenic route back, through the overpass.



We took a trip to one of my favorite rest stops in New Mexico, Garden of the gods and goddesses.



We brought some friends along on a trip to the Mountains.




And went camping by a stream.


So, as the fires continue to burn around the state (albeit more under control, now) and I continue to deal with the stresses of daily life, I will remember these times and look forward to new adventures and many more photographs to come.