Tread Softly and Carry a Big Stick

Trying my hand at radio telemetry...Janice took me out with her Thursday night to track some Spotted owls, and she let me pick up the signal on one that was close by. So I only look like I know what I'm doing here...



Kika came out into the field with us to volunteer herself as owl bait...


Friday morning, the girls and I got up and went out onto the Willamette River one last time with Art. We canoed 14 miles and saw tons of ospreys, mergansers and great blue herons. It was the perfect day for a ride.


We ate lunch on a gravelly sandbar. I tried to walk the girls around to get them good and tired before we got back into the boat. Shabbi had a hard time on all the loose rocks, but she ended up sleeping almost the entire second half of the trip. Kika was alert and on guard; she even jumped out of the boat twice...before we pushed off from the bank...


I couldn't resist asking Art to take a pic of my little VW with the canoe roped to it. Art has an old-school bug that he totes the canoe around on, so I guess my car is the "next generation" VW, although he informed me that my little plastic car is no match to his 1970s metal car when it comes to acting as a transporter.

23 and Counting

So tonight I am headed out with Janice to do some radio telemetry with the owls, and tomorrow (assuming I can get my arse outta bed after such a late night) I am going out on the canoe with Art along the Willamette River. Saturday, I'm driving up to Corvallis to spend one last weekend with Anita and Eric before I start heading down south to California.

Adam is doing well, and says "Hello to all and to all hello."

Counting Down the Days---25 Days Left

Talked to Adam this morning (and actually, talking to him again right now) and it sounds like he is going to be stateside on the 29th. As it stands, we've only got 25 more days before we see each other. Will update you all on his goings-on as he updates me.

Labor Day Weekend

So, my last day of work came and went relatively uneventfully. It was sort of like when I defended my Masters thesis--I had longed for the conclusion for so long, I was expecting the completion to be this exhilirating moment, but it really wasn't. I'm wondering if most things in life are relatively anti-climactic? Do our extreme joys and excitements fade as we get older?

Friday evening, I packed up the girls' and my stuff, and we set out for a campground a few miles from the house. Some of Janice's coworkers had reserved some campsites and invited us three girls along, so we made the most of it. Sitting under the stars that night, chatting with folks over a campfire, I realized there was no better way to celebrate the end of the field season. We camped alongside the Umpqua River, with a pair of great blue herons, a soaring eagle and many hungry ground squirrels to keep us company. What a wonderful experience.

The following day was the BLM/Forest Service Spotted Owl crew's end-of-summer bbq. It was located at the same park that we had camped at, so the girls and I woke up early, walked around and chatted with some of the other campers (and their dogs; Kika managed to rough up a Chihuahua puppy before 8 am) before getting ready for the bbq. I got a chance to meet many from the owl crew I hadn't yet encountered this summer, as well as the guy who passed along my housing request to Janice this past May. Thank goodness for Pete, or else the girls and I would have been up a creek this summer! After lots of scrumptious food, my failed attempt at volleyball, and Kika jumping out of the window of the car, it was time to pack up. The girls and I camped a second night, then got up early the next morning to pack and go home. I was hoping to catch Adam's phone call at the house but alas! I missed him yet again.

At the bbq on Sunday, I met a friend of Janice's who's retired and has several horses on his property. He was lamenting that all of his friends still work during the week so he never has anyone to go riding with. One woman said she'd go riding with him if he paid her. He laughed and said all the pretty ladies want to be paid to go out with him. I love horses, and thought I'd risk being rude, so I said, "I'm out here for another 3 weeks and you wouldn't have to pay ME to go out with you...." He looked at me and told me to show up Monday morning for a ride. So Monday morning, Janice and I drove a little ways down the road and met up with Dave and some friends for a 2-hour ride through the hills. It was wonderful. It was the first non-tourist horse ride I've ever taken, so I had to be in constant control of the horse. She was a little frisky, even at 19 years old, and she wanted to take off several times. I had to learn how to make her calm down, slow down to a walk, and recover from incidents with the other horses. I felt a little "western" that day. Once Janice and I got home, I noticed that I was having a weird reaction--the entire right side of my face was breaking out in a rash, and my right eye had swollen shut. I was also starting to have a difficult time breathing. I don't think I"m allergic to horses, but I don't know what else could have triggered this reaction....Janice raced to get me a Benadryl and I washed my face off. I just remember passing out on the floor for several hours after that; I kept waking up with a bad headache. Janice cancelled her plans to go into town to keep an eye on my condition. What a roommate, huh? So that was my Labor Day weekend. It was great!

One More Day

So I finished my penultimate (okay, okay, second-to-last) day of work a few hours ago. As good as I'm feeling right now, I know I'll be sky-high tomorrow when it's all done and all the field gear is turned in. The only thing I'll have left to do is finish entering data into the spreadsheet, but that's almost done, so no worries.
Not much to report here, so I thought I'd just pop a few pics onto the blog for your viewing pleasure. Oh yes! I found a new WiFi hotspot...a little used bookstore just a couple exits from the house. It doesn't serve food, but has coffee and tea, so that's good. It also has nice (but not creepy nice) folks working there, so I don't have to worry about getting the heebie-jeebies anymore.
Anyhoo, just a few pics so you can see what's been goin' on...

Since fieldwork is coming to a close soon, I thought I'd make sure to get some final pics of the different birds out here. These little guys came and perched for me once I psssshd them down (a sound a birder makes to attract songbirds). They are the Oregon variety of the Dark-eyed Junco. They pretty much sound the same as the ones back east; they just look a little different.

This was the other day. I got out of the shower to find that Shabbi had fallen a little. She was okay, just hanging out with Kika keeping her company until I could rescue her!

And...in case you missed the lunar eclipse, this was what I saw that morning once I got to work.

Seeking: New WiFi Spot

So, I haven't really been updating the blog with news of SCM (Sleazy Cafe Man), who you might remember me writing about a couple months ago. He was the creepy cafe owner/manager who thought it acceptable to poke me in the ribs, tickle the back of my neck and be generally skeezy whenever he's around me.
Well, since those initial encounters with him, he has followed me outside to gaze at me while I got into my car and drove away, massaged the back of my neck and hovered over me when serving me my coffee. I finally decided (way later than I should have) that enough was enough. After he tickled the back of my neck while I was on the phone with Adam, I put Ads on hold and firmly told SCM that I was uncomfortable with his habit of touching me. He seemed surprised and embarassed, and said, "I'm so sorry, you see, I come from a big affectionate family, and that's just my way." In case he was suggesting that I am devoid of affection, I responded, "I come from an affectionate family, too, but you see, that's my family, and so it's different." He got my point (and my tone), and his touchy-feeliness has not been an issue since. In fact, he has made a point of standing a good 5 ft or so away whenever he addresses me (which is silly, but FINE with me!).
Things came to a head for me in the last week, though. SCM decided that although he can't touch me, he can still be really skeezy. The straw that broke the proverbial camel's back came over the course of two days. One day, he followed me out to my car under the pretense of talking about the girls (who were in the car at the time). He stood way too close to me as I was trying to get in my car, opened my cardoor for me (not in a chivalrous way), and proceeded to linger next to my car, leering at me, while I was trying to get the hell out of there. A couple days later, he came by the table I was sitting at and started asking me personal questions--where I'm from, what I'm doing in Oregon, how long I'm staying--all while he was very obviously reading my blog (which was on my screen at the time). That clinched it for me. He didn't even pretend to be looking at something else. I should have slammed my laptop shut but the "nice girl" in me wasn't assertive enough to do that. He proceeded to tell me how much he was going to miss me once I had left Oregon. Yuck. I'm never going back to that place, never giving him my money, my time or my presence. I'm typing all this from the house dialup right now.
So...now I am searching for a new spot to do my Internet work...be patient if it takes me a couple days to find a place I like. For me, a couple days without highspeed is worth a lifetime without SCM.

Gordon Lightfoot

So, as I have previously mentioned (on several occasions, I know), Janice, Art, and I went to the Gordon Lightfoot concert on Friday evening. It was wonderful.
I was a little surprised by how small and frail Gordon is now, and his voice is quite a bit changed from the deep, rich, melodious quality we know from his prime recording years. In fact, I could see him shaking his head sometimes when he didn't quite hit some of those higher notes. But everyone in that crowd was SO happy to see him there, singing and healthy. He went through some very difficult health problems a few years ago; he is lucky to be alive, let alone still performing.
He performed a lot of my favorites--"The Wreck of the Edmund Fitzgerald", "Carefree Highway", "If You Could Read My Mind", "Cotton Jenny"--as well as some off his latest albums. He really has great stage presence and won over a crowd that was already in love with him with good stories and even better jokes. I also realized how lucky I was to see him--he was only performing in 5 cities this year! Needless to say, I really enjoyed the concert and look forward to getting his new album. We love you, Gordo!!!