The Birds and the Bees

So life hasn't exactly been boring the last few days...yesterday, I almost ran over a young bear that darted out in front of my truck while I was driving through the forest. Laurie about had a heart attack. Today, I literally almost had a heart attack. I went out to survey on my own this morning, which I actually kind of enjoyed (the peacefulness of nature without conversation, plus I get to sing as loud as I want to the tunes on the truck radio). Anyway, I was climbing down a steep hill after finishing with a survey point when all of a sudden I felt a stinging sensation on my left hand. I looked down to see a yellow jacket on me. Now let me back up a bit...the first thing that my colleagues here told me when I moved out here is that I can forget about the black bears and mountain lions; the biggest threats to my safety are the yellow jackets and injury sustained from a fall in the forest (they are very steep slopes). Well, today, both came to pass. As I've been told, once you step on a yellow jacket nest, they go after you, so your only choice is to run. That left me with two options: run down a steep slope and risk breaking my neck, or walk down carefully (and slowly) and get ravaged by a swarm of angry yellow jackets. I chose the former. I hadn't run 10 feet before I got caught on a dip in the ground and went flying. I went tumbling probably about 10-15 feet downhill, and landed facedown in the vegetation. Oh yeah, the ground cover here is thistle and blackberry, both of which have nasty thorns and prickles. Well, that's what my face and body landed in, but the story goes on. I could still hear the yellow jackets buzzing around me, so I had to get myself up and take off again. I fell a second time, but only to my knees, and this time I realized I had lost the bees. They usually give chase for about 100 feet or so, but I guess these bees spared my pathetic self. In any case, I arrived at the truck breathless, a little wigged out, and stinging all over. I kept finding thorns and prickly needles in my hands, arms and face. I kept watching the hand that was stung to see how it swelled (it only swelled a little) and monitored my breathing for any allergic reactions. After about 5 minutes, I realized I was fine, and decided to carry on with the rest of my surveys for the day. I must admit, I feel just a little bit rugged today :-) Luckily, however, there were no other dramas today, other than missing Adam's phone call for the 3rd straight day. That has bummed me even more than almost hurting life and limb. Today would have been a good day to get a little Adam sympathy...

Mighty Nice Day for a Boat Ride

Last weekend Janice and Art took all 3 of us girls on a canoe ride down the Willamette (pronounced "will-AAA-mitt") River. We made a whole day of it--canoeing, visiting a friend of Janice's, cherry-picking, and then dinner at Art's house. Janice and Art have been so wonderful to us girls, we can't say enough! Wildlife was abundant--bald eagles, osprey, great blue herons, and sandpipers--and the weather was warm and beautiful which made for a great day.

Preparing to go out...Shabbi and I strapped on our life vests while Kika thought she was a good enough swimmer without one...here we were just about to push off for our fun day canoeing the Willamette River with Janice and Art!

Janice took this pic of us girls (and there's Art in the background!) enjoying our trip down the river. Shabbi took it easy, pretty much napping the entire trip, while Kika couldn't resist checking out the sights.

Who says I don't earn my keep? Here I'm paddling away after a hearty lunchbreak and good stretch of the legs on a nearby sandbar. Shabbi was snoring so loudly on this leg of the trip that Janice said we had a motor for our boat!

Grizzly Gal I'm Not

So some of you know that I've been reading a book by Stephen Herrero called "Bear attacks: Causes and Avoidance". It is a scholarly look at the reasons why grizzlies and black bears have attacked, and in some cases, killed humans. There are a lot of graphic descriptions of the maulings some of these folks have been through, and yes, it is my bedtime reading. Needless to say, I have had lots of bear dreams and have had them on the mind a lot while I'm out in the field surveying. Add to the mix the 12-year old boy who was pulled from his tent last weekend and mauled to death by a black bear (highly unusual, but can happen), and the fact that today was the first day my coworker and I split up to survey different sites, my bear thoughts were at a peak. So maybe it's coincidence (or not) that today, my first day in the field alone, I saw my first black bear. I think it was a young male (~100 lbs probably), walking down a road by himself, and he was a good 1/4 mile away from me. But I saw the ambling figure, and knew it wasn't human, so I looked through my binocs and confirmed it was a black bear. The road he was walking on led to me. I radioed my coworker, who calmly congratulated me on my sighting and told me to make some noise if he got too close. Soon after, the bear ducked into some vegetation, so I couldn't tell if he was headed up the hill toward me or not. I radioed back that I was concerned and was going to start making noise. Meanwhile, my radio conversation was being intercepted by the loggers in the area, who started breaking in that they'd heard me report the bear and would put a bullet in its head if they had the chance. I certainly don't advocate needless killing; I just wanted to make sure the bear knew I was in the vicinity so that I wouldn't surprise him, hence a "sudden encounter" as the book describes it. I started yelling "Go bear!" and then started hooting, and the bear all of a sudden popped out of the vegetation a little less than a quarter mile away and ran into the woods. My coworker radioed back that I had made so much noise that SHE had heard me on the other side of the canyon! While I definitely am not welcoming bear encounters, I will say that I feel a little less 'scared' and a little more 'cautious' about the thought of them. While a wild animal can unexpectedly do anything, at the end of the day, it'll be how I handle myself that will dictate how the story ends. "Go, bears!"

Fathers, Babies and Other Thoughts

So today we got the joyous news that our good friends Michael and Dara welcomed their new son, Jake, into the world. Adam and I are thrilled, but I think we're both feeling a little isolated in our respective locations. It's been hard knowing that Jake was coming into the world soon and I won't get a chance to see him for another few months. This has been in addition to seeing my own nephew grow and change solely through pictures. It's my choice to travel and live far from family and friends; but it still stings a bit to miss all of the special moments. It also stings having Ads away on Father's day, just as it was tough not having him with me on Mother's day. Many think us corny, but we really think of the pups as our little girls, and every year we acknowledge each other on the respective parental days. Especially now, with Shabbi's health declining, I wish Adam were here to celebrate being her daddy. *sigh* She's hanging in there, walking quite well, but her senility and incontinence are at an all-time high. Thank goodness for doggy diapers because we would have gotten kicked out of our current living situation long ago otherwise...so, plans for the week ahead...tomorrow is our last dusk survey, and then we return to our early morning risings (4 am) to do 6 am dawn surveys. I'm not bothered by the morning or the dusk surveys; my social life here is limited, so I'm not "missing out" on anything by doing either of them. I do value my weekends to catch up on phone calls to folks back east, or to read, spend time with the girls and travel around the state. Today I've lived in Oregon for 4 weeks; hard to believe how the time has gone by, and how much fun I've had through it all. Another 2 1/2 months left, although I'm not counting down; as much as I can't wait to jet down to California and throw myself into Adam's arms, I also hate wishing parts of my life away, so I think I'll just enjoy the time I've got left here. Seems as though there will be a lot of trips and adventures that I'll be planning for the remainder of the summer....In any case, to all you fathers out there, happy Father's day.

Till the cows come home...

The last couple days have been met with a seeming explosion of cows...last night, Laurie and I drove up on a bunch of cows that were grazing on the mountain ridge next to our field site. Evidently they move from their pasture lands up into the mountains during the summer, but know how to get back "home" in the fall; otherwise, the ranchers come up the mountain on horseback to round them up. The cows were none too pleased to see us, although they did let me take a few pics.

...And then this morning, I woke up to find cows grazing in the fields adjacent to Janice's house! Kika growled when I lifted her up to show her the cows...guess she could never have been a herding dog...

Portland

So, like an idiot, I forgot to bring my camera this past weekend when I travelled up to Portland to visit some friends. What a time to forget one's camera; there were so many great things to photograph! My friend Eva and her daughter Alexandra gave me the VIP tour of the Portland/coast area. Saturday we travelled by MAX (Metro Area Express train) to downtown Portland, where we hit the Saturday/Sunday open air flea market (where I picked up some nice jams and spices). Next we went to the point of no return, aka Powell's bookstore (for all you New Yorkers, think the Strand in Manhattan). Powell's is this great HUGE new/used bookstore with every single book you can imagine there. Since I'm doing wildlife work this summer, I was drawn to the nature and environmental studies section, and got some old, cheap paperback copies of "Silent Spring" and "A Sands County Almanac". I also couldn't resist the temptation of the children's section, so Alexandra and I spent a lot of time thumbing through "Frog and Toad" and "Amelia Bedelia", some of my childhood favorites. Sunday we went to Cannon Beach on the Oregon Coast. We went to Moe's, a seafood restaurant along the beach. This vegetarian helped herself to a bowl of clam chowder and an order of fish and chips (yes i did! and it was yummy!). Afterwards, we went to Haystack Rock, a huge rock formation that's home to Oystercatchers, Cormorants and Murrers. By the base of the rock, there are cool tidal pools that host sea stars, sea anemones and hermit crabs. It was great to observe all that marine life. Before we knew it, the tide had come in and a storm was brewing, so we walked back to the car in a downpour, but it was actually a lot of fun. We headed over to Tillamook's, a cheese factory that also sells awesome ice cream and fudge. I helped myself to the cheese samples and couldn't resist taking home some fudge, too. All in all, it was a great weekend. Thanks to Eva and Alexandra for putting us girls up for the weekend and showing us a great time!

A Mighty Crew

Here's the Oregon field crew, plus Dan, the PhD student heading the project. Here, I am holding a few lucky mice that were spared from being fed to a very hungry spotted owl.


There might be mosquitoes, ticks, poison oak, and the temps might get down to the 30s...but who can complain about working surrounded by all this scenery???

Sono Luminus

This evening, we were conducting dusk surveys. In the distance we heard a pack of coyotes barking and howling, and then the nighthawks began to dive bomb, creating that swooshing sound. It was a great night.

The Hitchhiker's Guide, an appendix

I recently received more info on the hitchhiking phenomenon here in Oregon...evidently, the practice is legal in Oregon, although not in California or Washington, so get your free rides here. My roommate's boyfriend, Art, just told us the other night that he picked up a hitchhiker a couple weeks ago. The guy had been travelling with a couple who'd picked him up; when they took him to a rest stop for a break, he came out to find that they had taken off without him, with all his stuff in their car. So hitchhikers beware: not all free rides are safe ones...

A True Shephard

Laurie's German shephard, Trapper, just lost his 3-year old playmate to an unknown illness, so he's been pretty depressed lately. He gets nothing from Kika, who avoids him like the plague, and even less from Shabbi, due to her senility. However, he must have picked up on the fact that Shabbi needs extra help, because he has started following her around and protecting her whenever they're together. The other day, she fell down and was trying to stand back up; Trapper used his nose to boost her back up onto her feet. It was incredible to see. He's so gentle and caring toward her; it's too bad she isn't able to reciprocate. Now, every morning, Trapper greets us girls at the car when we drive up and he immediately starts to look after Shabbi. What a dog...

Snakes on a Lane

I didn't have time to take pictures (much to the delight of some of you...Heather...) but yesterday was an interesting day for snakes. As Laurie and I were driving back from the field, she all of a sudden yells out. She had almost run over a snake that was sunning itself on the middle of the highway. She was very concerned about one of the huge logging rigs running over it behind us, so she reversed and pulled over to the side of the road. Then she started yelling at me, "Get out! Get out!" I didn't understand at first, but then realized she wanted ME to go move the snake from the road because she didn't want to open her door to traffic. So I get out, walk to the middle of the 4-lane highway, and start coaxing a long gopher snake to the side of the road. S/he obliged and wiggled off into the woods. I climbed back into the truck and we set off again. But wouldn't you know it...a SECOND snake is sunning itself in the middle of the road just a mile later! Laurie doubles back on the highway and once again, Lauren is out of the truck to tend to the snake. This snake, however, was not as cooperative as the first (same species, though) and reared its slithering head at me as I tried to get it off the road. Meanwhile, I am listening for the sounds of cars and semis that could come around the bend at any moment and nail me. The snake, half-glaring and half-wiggling, finally made it to the forest. However, Laurie had to find a place to turn the truck back around, so she leaves me standing alone on the side of the road. Anyone who knows me remembers that I have fears about family and friends killing me and leaving my dismembered body in a remote area...those thoughts started to creep up on me as I stood, waiting for her to come back for me. Of course, she finally did, and today I had my camera out, just in case another snake needed my services.