Cold!

I haven't made any blog entries lately because I have been really busy with the new semester and with a fellowship application. However, it is important to note that it is - 0.0 outside right now according to my thermometer. I don't know how it can be negative zero. But in any event it is cold enough that when I breathe in, snot in my nose freezes!

Winter Ecology Pictures

well, I don't have a ton of great pictures since it was so cold. but here are a few:


into the field!


a mouse popped out of the ground here.


snow!


dragging a stillborn calf carcass up the hill. sadly, the ravens rejected it.


grouse tracks and wing marks!


Sunrise from the cabin.


Old browse damage on a striped maple. I did a mini-study on moose browse on these maples.

Preliminary Winter Ecology Post

Well, I have returned from Maine with new friends, amazing stories, a few sketches, a whole lot of knowledge I didn't have before I left, and exactly the same number of fingers and toes I had when I left!

I can't download pictures because I don't have my photo cable (it is on campus) but even if I did have it, I don't have a ton of pictures since the conditions were a bit adverse. However, here are a few highlights of the trip:

-Tracking weasels, mink, coyotes, deer, snowshoe hares, all manner of rodents, and a moose

-Learning that deer pee sometimes smells like Pine-Sol

-Dance Party with Bernd Heinrich

-Hanging out in the leaning, flammable, perilous sauna, then rolling around nude in the snow (don't worry, I am not posting pictures of this)

-collecting Callisoma cocoons

-Discovering what it is like to hike when it is below zero

-writing 'try our product' in pee

-Helping drag two dead calves up a hill - the ravens were not interested, however.

-having to hack through the ice on the well to get water

-sleeping in a below-freezing cabin and huddling like kinglets for warmth

-eating vole meat, pieces of lichen, and massive amounts of cheese, and chewing on various branches like a moose.

-Counting stems in 18 degree temperatures

-hitting my head on ceiling logs and stepping on slush with my socks

-new friends!

-Learning that 'little hotties' hand warmers only warm the ambient temperatures by 20 or 30 degrees (but raising your toes from 0 degrees to 30 degrees is still a big deal!)

-Learning that shooting a bear feeding from a bird feeder is like kissing your sister.

-breaking the coffee maker thingie (this was not a high point).

-Singing!

-still being confused about how to tell apart red and sugar maple.

And much more! Stories will follow, and hopefully pictures also.

Winter World!

I will be in a cabin in Maine for the next 9 days learning about how animals and plants survive the harsh winter (and trying to survive myself, with my multiple layers of warm clothes). I hope everyone who reads this has a great week and I'll hopefully have some neat pictures when I get back.

Record Snowfall in Burlington!

Last weekend Burlington received 32 inches of snow - the most ever recorded out of one storm. Needless to say the town was completely buried and I woke up to an amazing scene, reminiscent more of the mountain towns of the West, which get heavy snowfall like this more often.






Winooski River


Zac's dog Simba, who I was petsitting.

Back in California, Part 3

I had to check on my plants while I was in California...


Mini-wetland


Oak, planted in 1995


The wild cucumber is popping up!


Manzanita!


This is Madrona Marsh where I did a lot of restoration work in high school:

There is some water but not too much yet.


On the way back I got stuck in Chicago overnight. I arrived too late to go out and enjoy the city at all, so it wasn't very fun, though the airline did buy me a hotel room.






As of right now I am back in burlington and we are getting hammered by a record snowfall of over two feet! I'll have pictures of this event later.