Owls are not what they seem

A winter getaway

2012-02-11T15:31:00.000-05:00

This winter has been the complete opposite of last winter. It's been unseasonably warm with almost no snow. We had more snow during the freak October snowstorm as compared to the entire winter so far. Last week I was even looking for salamanders and turtles...that's how crazy it has been. I can't say I'm complaining as my tires on my car and due to replaced in short order.

We took our winter Vermont trip early this year and it was a very small group as the parents were up at the house. Even Vermont had very little snow until the days we drove up and two snow events gave us about a foot of fresh and festive snow. It was the perfect snow and made everything beautiful and postcard like. It was the perfect depth to take leisurely walks in the woods and the dogs enjoyed romping about.

We even had a couple days of bitter cold and we awoke one morning to what appeared to be frozen fog up in the mountaintops. See the pic above. We did get stir crazy after a couple days and even though it was bitter cold that night I enlisted some to go out and look at the stars and attempt to see the Milky Way. The Milky wasn't visible but Jupiter was out in all its glory and the stars were beautiful as usual in a cold and clear night. The dogs settled in each night after hours of romping about. See if you can pick out the flying pig formation dog in the very top photo.

The sunsets were awesome and I snapped photograph and photograph trying to capture that perfect shot while trying to stay warm.

We even got to see a mild sundog one sunset, which I kept calling a snow dog. It's when it's so cold two bright spots appear on each side of the sun. Only one was visible as the trees blocked the other one.

Parade of critters

2012-01-10T18:24:00.000-05:00

We got a brand new fancy field camera and set it up a couple months ago. It's on top a steep and rocky hill and it takes a good 15 minute hike and many breaks to get up to it. I'm usually the one to go and it's my exercise for the day. We set the camera up to take 3 shots once the motion detector goes off with a 1 second interval. At first, everything was great with a reasonable amount of shots to review each week. We even put the old field camera up near it. We've had a bunch of windy days and nights which resulted in at first hundreds of photos within a week, but the latest round has resulted in over 6,000 photos. It's attached to a smaller tree that moves in the wind and there's an ample amount of branches and leaves into the field of view to set the camera off. The top bear photo was enough to stop reviewing the photos in the field and quickly scramble back down the mountain. I just hope this big guy survived the imminent bear hunt. The usually visitors are the squirrel, oppossum, and raccoon. The coon and possum seem to play tag team and their photos are always close to each others. The squirrel shot is what I called the sunbeam squirrel shot. For now, we've taken the cameras down and will wait later winter for some new action. In the meantime, I hope that we can solve the excessive photos because my eyes are not happy from reviewing them all.

We also had a mystery guest as shown on the photo below. The camera is set pretty close to the ground. By process of elimination, we said it was a red fox. We think its' up on the camera going for a very very quick sniff because the photos before and after it, which are one second apart, show nothing.....unless someone else thinks otherwise.

My mini road trip

2011-12-05T17:48:00.000-05:00

First off, I should mention that I sometimes forget that I have a blog. I mean I know I have a blog, I just seem to forget that I actually need to post things. So I am remiss and it's practically winter.

Originally back in October, I had usual Vermont trip planned with friends. We stay at my friend's parent's vacation home. When Hurricane Irene struck and it struck Vermont very bad, I made the mistake of forwarding various links and videos to those same friends. I was riveted by all this and religiously checked the Road Closure Vermont websites and various newspaper, town, and shop websites. As it drew closer and closer to our supposed vacation, I learned that my friends didn't want to go. They felt that too many things and roads would be closed and that they heard this information from a variety of sources. They were not open to any discussion. I felt the total opposite. I saw that Vermont was working like crazy to get roads back up and most of the shops/areas we usually frequent were open. We could even take our normal route to get up there. I even have a friend who lives in the same town and he agreed with me. I also felt that I wanted to support Vermont, the open businesses, and I am fascinated by seeing Mother Nature's destruction. So I decided to still go to Vermont and visit some areas we don't normally go.

When I arrived, the leaves were just past peak in the lower elevations and entire direction and view was a postcard. Unfortunately, the sun never fully cooperated so the pictures don't do it justice at all. I did a ton of driving and hit some of the Vermont Cheese Trails sites. It's December and I still have a large supply in the fridge.

The destruction was just as riveting as the leaf colors. Entire hillsides slumped into rivers. Tree parts, debris, and sediment created new landscapes and terrain. Rivers and streams made new paths. Buildings were knocked off their foundations and the roads almost always had a new patch near streams. I will say that I never had to turn around because of a closed road even though there were some sketchy areas.

One of my main reasons for the trip was to take an introductory falconry lesson at the British School of Falconry . It's a bit pricey but I figured where else am I going to experience this. This also had a even pricier off road Land Rover driving class but I didn't do that.....yet. We got an overview of falconry and learned that Harris Hawks make the perfect candidate. They naturally hunt in families and are very social/tame. We each got our own Harris Hawk. Mine was Monty and he was a youngster. I immediately wanted one and he made the cutest "I'm so excited noises" when we were walking outside. It was like a muppet. Here he is attacking a pheasant wing. It's like the best toy ever to them and they love love love it. He got so obsessive he was even attacking just one feather from the wing. You have to throw them a piece of meat and quickly grab the wing out of their sight. We got to send them off to the perch and have them come back. Monty decided the close perch was too boring and fly up to the top of the barn. He then flew back to me unprompted because he knew that he would be rewarded with a piece of meat. He was so light and you could barely feel his weight given his size.

Ms. Irene

2011-10-25T20:47:00.000-04:00

So the hurricane was imminent. The stores were packed with frantic shoppers in search of milk, bread, and eggs. I guess everyone makes french toast when the weather gets rough. I don't know why folks buy milk and other perishables when there's a strong possibility of losing electricity. It seems like wasted money. Water, batteries, and flashlights were totally sold out. My coworker saw someone buy a small raft and we joked that if you are buying a raft, perhaps you should just evacuate. The weather reports got more and more ominous. The hurricane symbol showed up on the weather report, which is something I've never seen. They said that around 6 am Sunday was supposed to be the worst. I barely slept Saturday night fretting about possible basement flooding and the loud wind and rain outside. By 4 am, the wind and rain kicked it up a notch and I thought "How much worse can it get by 6 am?" Turns out the storm had picked up speed and hit us early. By late-morning all that was left was the wind filling the pressure void left by the hurricane. I was lucky. No basement flooding, no trees down, and I never lost power. My parents who live 5 minutes away lost power for a week and the next town over suffered major flooding and many downed trees isolating people for days.

I was back at work on Monday anxious to check on the hatchling turtles. We headed out knowing that the travel would be tough and that the area we were going to was essentially closed. We faced many detours from flooded roads, downed powerlines across the road, and downed trees across the road that had been cut just enough to allow one vehicle through. This was the part of the state that I felt would have it easiest and it was farthest from the hurricane. But I was wrong. It looked like a dam had been released. Where there was normally about a foot of water in the stream there had been 10+ feet of water. New streams attempted to form in lawn. Rocks had been excavated from the ground and pushed out all over the place. The footbridge across the stream had one of its concrete footings demolished. It looked like someone had taken a jackhammer to the parking lot. The bathrooms looked like the sewers had backed up with water rushing from it. The picture below is a normally a lawn picnic area. Now it has a rock installation.

Once I saw this destruction, I knew that the hatchling turtles were gone..pushed practically out to the bay or buried under rocks. Maybe just maybe the larger one who had earlier climbed the embankment survived by holding on for hours or perhaps by sheer luck it kept climbing higher and higher out of harms way. Either way we couldn't pick up any radio signals from any of them anywhere. Given the small size of those transmitters, they could have been easily damaged. We tried for a few more days after that but we never found them. Recently we set out to remove the radio transmitters from the adults. We happened upon a very young turtle, who was probably about a year old. So maybe just maybe those hatchlings held on, but all the radios failed.

A not so silent lurker

2011-09-25T08:00:00.002-04:00

At this point, we had tracked the hatchlings for almost a week and it was my turn. I headed out with one of my bosses and a supposed expert on this tracking equipment. Because the radios are so small and weak and we only could rely on how loud or quiet the infrequent beeps are, it was difficult tracking. Once you thought you were very near, you would take the antenna off and then play stethoscope with just the wire and receiver. We successfully found 1 of the hatchlings, but the next one was throwing us for a loop. We would get a very strong signal with the antenna, but once the antenna was removed, we just couldn't get a signal at all. My boss was about to give up, but I wanted to try across the noisy and swift brook in this patch of weeds. I headed over there and picked up a weak signal sans antenna. We hand searched this patch of weeds but couldn't find it. We ended up giving up and assuming that it was there but that we just couldn't find it. We tracked the next one pretty quick and then my boss wanted to take another shot at the one we couldn't get a visual on. I then saw him checking this steep bank next to the river. I headed over there and sure enough the hatchling had successfully crossed the swift and somewhat deep brook and then scaled a 5 foot tall embankment. We saw it booking away from the brook. Very exciting! I called it bruiser because it had been the biggest of the bunch and clearly it was up for challenges.

We were walking out and heard what at first we thought was a cicada in this very dense grass and tree saplings. But towards the end of the sound it sounded like a classic baby rattle. It then made the noise again and we were both "That's NOT a cicada". My boss took my walking stick and started to move the vegetation away. Sure enough it was exactly what we thought it was and it was NOT a cicada. The pictures came out horrible because it would move just when we had cleared the vegetation around it. I guess it heard us talking close by and was alarmed. Otherwise we would have never had found it.

It's now about half a week away from Hurricane Irene hitting us.

Expectant surrogate mommies

2011-09-18T16:39:00.000-04:00

Last spring we conducted a nesting survey for these rare turtles. We were able to successfully cover one nest with mesh and rocks to prevent predation. It appears that the predators were able to get to most of the other nests. A little over a month ago we modified the mesh and rocks into basically an upside down brownie pan formation. That way the hatchlings could dig out of the ground and have a secure area to walk around in. When it came close to hatching time, we stopped by every other day to see if they had hatched. One of our visits on a weekend at this park/recreation area my coworker saw someone holding our mesh in their hands and using it to collect crawfish. He was horrified and reclaimed the mesh and attempted to put it back together. The person claimed he just found the mesh lying around. Hello liar! Keeo in mind it does take time and effort to remove all the rocks holding it down. Then a large rainstorm came by and the water was dangerous close to drowning the nest. We went back and added some large nails to really secure the mesh to the ground so it was like a fortress.

We got word one morning that there were six hatchlings within the enclosure. So we all scurried up there and numerous phone calls and coordination was all happening at once. We were going to attached radio transmitters to a few of the hatchlings to see where they go. We had 6 hatchlings, one unfertilized egg, and I discovered after we were done excavating the nest that we also had one dead hatchling. All 6 seemed strong, cute, and perfect. We fitted a few with radio transmitters and then let them free.

One of them sat stunned in the middle for a bit and then crawled into the nearby vegetation. One made a beeline for the water and proceeded to take a ride downstream to an unknown destination. The others (including all the radio tracked ones) headed into the nearby dense vegetation. Now comes time for the daily or every other day radio tracking. Mind you Hurricane Irene was just forming in the Caribbean......to be continued.

Run for the border

2011-08-14T15:06:00.000-04:00

We headed out to Pennsylvania a couple weekends ago to take the Yuengling brewery tour. It's the oldest American brewery and they still bottle beer there during the week. It was also nice to see a functioning brewery rather than the remains of one like others I've visited. Although I want to go back when beer is being bottled. I didn't take any pictures since it's hard to capture something in the dark (in the dank caves below the brewery) and when there's like 50 people on your tour. So I enjoyed the tour and took the above pic in the tasting room where you get your one free beer.

On the drive there, we saw signs for Cabela's and I was excited that it was the same exit as Yuengling. I arm-twisted my driver and we took a quick trip there. Sidebar - I had planned on a hot, sunny, and humid day and I had dressed according to this including suede ballet flats. Turns out it was rainy and cold so I spent most of the day miserable. Cabela's was freezing inside to add insult to injury. It was packed with people and I want to go back and spend more time there. But it was as I expected....full of stuffed critters. The river otter stood out as it was giving the death glare. Not the cute and happy live otters I've seen.

This was a hodgepodge of familiar critters. Everything from leucistic deer and droptine deer....all with huge racks of course.

Then there was a jam-packed African safari scene. Note that the elephant was shot by Mr. Cabela himself in 2001 in Zimbabwe. I guess trophy hunting is unfortunately still happening. They had a sign saying that lions, leopard, elephants and rhinos are the deadly four in Africa, but I'm pretty sure that hippos trump at least lions on that list. They are territorial and one bite from them....well it would be game over.

I'm pretty sure the below scene really takes place in water, not on dry land, but I give them credits for trying to include as many animals in one scene as possible. Nevermind that zebras, wildebeasts, and friends all apparently line up to drink.

Some like it hot

2011-08-05T08:00:00.002-04:00

This summer we've been extra busy with field work. We have a few high profile jobs that require us to be environmental monitors for construction for a variety of reasons. It's making sure that trees that are threatening power lines are safely removed without disturbing rare turtles or their habitat or making sure that a major construction operation doesn't injure any rare turtles. Both of these operations continue no matter how hot it gets even when it's record breaking. Above is a pic I took of my mobile weather instrument taken in the shade one day. It did get hotter but I didn't feel like doing much of anything aside from snapping pics. I was surprised to see a couple painted turtles fully basking on the hottest time of the hottest day. I guess they don't mind short spans of the heat as much as I thought.

Most of the time it's pretty boring work out there. You have to find a way to pass the time until you are needed. Plus you have to keep out the way of the massive construction equipment that are swinging around large trees into massive dump trucks. Last time I was out there I was checking between the two silt fences to see if any critters needed rescuing. Low and behold I spotted this guy. I suspect that he came from the very close river and somehow climbed the fence. I ended up babysitting him for a couple hours in the hot sun. I tried to block him from direct sun, gave him some baths in the river, and came home burnt even after applying sunblock. Long story short is that he's now free albeit with a radio transmitter and seems to fancy the area he was originally found.

The newest addition

2011-07-31T14:13:00.000-04:00

A little over a week ago I randomly peeked outside my deck one night. At night, I've seen everything from racoons, skunks, opossums to deer mice on my birdfeeder or deck or in the vicinity. At first I thought I had spotted yet another deer mouse on my birdfeeder. But it was huge! I said that's the fattest and biggest mouse I've ever seen and what's up with it's belly. It had this rippling effect along the side of it and I could see that it's belly was white as compared to gray brown fur. Then I spotted it's tail and it was not a mouse or rat tail.....it was furry. By George that's a flying squirrel! I quickly ran to grab whatever camera was in reach and shot some horrible pictures.

The flash gave a double exposure effect and it was just too dark out on the deck even with the deck light. Plus the deck light is yellow to keep the moths away. It's been coming back almost every night and I've experimented with different cameras and my work point and shoot seems to be best. I haven't figured out all the settings on the dslr to get a good shot. I did use my headlamp light as a spotlight and got these better shots.

Every summer I battle chipmunks, squirrels and others eating tomatoes and constantly digging in the flower pots. It may be a population explosion but this year has been worse than ever. There's definitely an endless population of chipmunks and they scurry around the entire condo development. In the past, I've tried to use rocks, pebbles and other things to cover the soil. This year they've thrown the rocks out and dug around the bigger stuff. Mind I also was dealing with yellowing of the tomato leaves and fungus gnats. I started under watering with fertilized water and that seems to have solved both of those problems. Yesterday and today I went on a rampage with the deck garden. I cut out circles of hard green plastic netting and placed them on top of each pot. I also did that for my basil plants and newly planted peas in the flower boxes. So far the digging has stopped...granted it's been one night. But they continue to eat the tomatoes. I don't even remember the last tomato I picked...cuz they eat the green ones and the ones that are just barely turning non-green. So I upped the ante and took some crushed red pepper flakes and ground them in my coffee grinder. I made about 1/2 cup of powder and it sure works on me....sneezing fits, running nose and eyes from just grinding and dumping it out. I sprinkled it on top of the soil in hopes of dissuading them from eating and digging. I'm hoping this all works otherwise I may be harvesting green tomatoes and ripening them indoors...yuck.

A new visitor

2011-07-13T08:00:00.002-04:00

I had a new visitor to my deck over the extended weekend. It was a juvenile praying mantis. It was not happy to see me and vibrated itself farther and farther away from me. At first I took a couple pics with my new work point and shoot camera. It does a fair job but with it has a hard time focusing where I want it. So I went back inside and then a little while later I realized that I totally should use my dslr camera...aka fancy camera. I don't have a macro lens yet so I'm stuck with the limited kit lens, but I was able to get some ok shots. I had a lot more control over the focus area and mantis was not happy that I was inches away from it.

Swamp dogs

2011-07-09T15:13:00.000-04:00

This past July 4th extended weekend I headed up to the Berkshires to Cokane's father-in-law's place. I drove up Saturday morning partially using printed out directions, a map, and my gps. Anyone that uses gps knows that sometimes its preferred route is not really a preferred route. I tried to avoid major cities and highways that I thought would be full of traffic. I ended taking smaller highways through picturesque towns and eventually onto unnecessary dirt roads. I say unnecessary because my gps made no distinction between a dirt and paved road. I was met by a sign that said "not a through way. no winter plowing" or something along those lines. But I continued onward and made my way to the house. No one was home but I immediately heard some cool birds and was happy to be out of the car and walking around in nature.

After lunch, grocery shopping and some scenic driving, we headed back to the house. It was a gorgeous day and we headed out for some stick playing and a walk with the dogs. The dogs couldn't have been more excited regardless of the constant bombardment from mosquitoes. We headed towards an emergent marsh along that same dirt road that I drove in on. Cokane restrained the dogs while I snapped a couple pics and briefly searched for any herps. Then the dogs were released and immediately dove into the mucky water. As you can tell from the top pic, they didn't mind marsh muck treatment and we very pleased with the results.

The next day was pretty much all rain, but I arm-twisted Cokane into heading in the backyard swamp and towards another open marsh area surrounding a network of streams. From an aerial photograph, it looked delightful and full of possible herps. We suited up in rain gear, walking sticks, rubber boots, and hip waders. Alas, it was an alder shrubby wetland and the rain got more serious as we got there. So we turned around and headed back to the house. Maybe next time, I'll continue the hike in hopes that it'll get better as it goes downstream.

Nightwatch

2011-07-01T10:35:00.003-04:00

Early in June we had a crazy period of time were we had watch nesting turtles at night. It went for 7 days a week. Thankfully we all rotated so no one had to be out there every night. The first night I was out there most of us got to watch a successful nesting of a turtle. I didn't bring binoculars and chose to be catcher of the turtle once she was done so I didn't see her at work. I was rocking two walkies...one walkie I could only hear out of and the other walkie I could only talk in. After sometime, I got word that she was done and to catch her so that we could photograph and mark her. As I rushed over, she just sat there on the side of the stream. She gave me the look of "I'm exhausted and now you are going to eat me." I was able to see that she was marked so I let her be and took a couple horrible photos. My camera's flash doesn't work and it was at that I point I resolved to buy a new work camera. Hence the blurry photo above.

The second night I was out there was just me and one of my bosses. We split up at dusk and I ventured down a small trail to check out one stretch of the stream. When you leave me alone, that's when the weird things happen. Sure enough as I was walking I heard a minor noise in the very dark woods. It was getting dark and the hemlock woods were pitch black. I chalked it up to a squirrel but my spidey sense said otherwise. I kept going to my destination and headed back. As I was walking back, I heard a rare bird calling and another bird going crazy. Next to this and near the woods, I saw a bush being repeatedly tugged at. I get on the walkie and relay this to my boss as I continue to watch it. We chat back and forth and then I see the darkness behind the bush (which I thought was from the lack of light) turn into a bear head. It had the look of "Oh hiya. Didn't see ya. Don't mind me as i eat this bush or those baby birds." Needless to say, I headed back to my boss.

A few days ago we went to check on our radio tracked turtles. The new turtles were crazy far away and the beginning of our journey was immediately met with weirdness. We were venturing down that same narrow trail and heard a noise that sounded like an elk (not in NJ) or what I called a giant housecat throwing up but doubly fast. We immediately turned around and away from it and went to get a better view of the action. We saw nothing and went through our internal database of what that could be. We came up with momma bear telling her cubs that danger was near. We went around it to the road and were met with a bunch of senior hikers. They said they weren't making weird noises but had been on that same trail. They must have spooked it and we were the icing on the cake. I looked it up online and it sounds like concerned mother black bear, so we were correct.

Fast forward to summer

2011-05-31T20:00:00.004-04:00

It seems that someone has pressed fast forward on the seasons and that we're fully in summer. I am already dreaming of already with this heat and humidity. I'm not meant to work in this heat. Tomorrow will be another scorcher of a day. It's tough to do a turtle survey when you and the turtles both want to escape from the heat. They are hunkered down in dense shrubs trying to hide and you are desperately trying to find them.

But here's some critters that I've recently encountered. There's a box turtle in the top pic. It seems every shot of him he's looking away from the camera, which is a shame since he has such pretty eyes.

Then there's this hatchling painted turtle that I found that has a shell defect. I probably spent way too much time worrying about it and giving it a pep talk that I lost my coworkers for a brief period of time. Then I had to find the perfect spot for it so that we didn't trample it on the way out. No matter. They didn't find turtles in the area they were while I found a wee one on our brisk walk in.
Here's a green snake, which is a pretty rare find. I even held it (not my hands in pic) where it promptly pooped. Gee thanks.
I found these frog eggs on sultry afternoon. The sun was hitting just right in the tall vegetation and I spotted them. Looking forward to the wee tadpoles when they hatch.
Finally...this is possibly a home for ????? Too small for a bear. I certainly can't fit in the hole, but who knows. Looks like a perfect spot for something to live in.

It's definitely spring

2011-05-14T15:48:00.003-04:00

This time of year you blink your eyes and the trees and shrubs go from gray and bare to full leaf out. Everywhere you look has lush shades of green. Everything else has a coating of the unnatural chartreuse shade of pollen. I spent most of the week doing field work....mostly turtle searches...mostly fruitless turtle searches.

While turtle searching, I had a bear sighting. I heard this noise that sounded sort of like someone dragging empty garbage cans on the ground. I crept closer to the noise expecting a human since I was close to someone's house. Instead I see a bear sliding down a tree in the woods and then take off running. I guess my coworkers had scared it up a tree and it came down when all seemed quiet.
A day or two later I spotted these two fawns separately in a field. My first fawns of the year and maybe they are twins. They tried their hardest to even further tuck themselves in as I got close.

Then I ended one long day with a story of a porcupine in a tree. Off I went and sure enough it was still snoozing up a tree. It did wake for a moment when enough people gathered but it quickly went to nap zone. It's good to finally see one alive. The dead one was just down the road so I'm hoping this one is smart enough and quick enough to avoid the same fate.

RIP Porcy

2011-04-24T16:29:00.003-04:00

I'm not one for stopping on the side of the road to inspect some roadkill, but this one was special. I usually try to avoid catching a glimpse of the mess. The animals I've seen hit and still partially alive throughout the years will forever haunt me, but this one caught my eye. I've never seen a live porcupine in or outside of NJ. I've seen its quills and I've seen other people's photos of them in NJ but I have never seen one. So I left the car running and jumped out for a quick peek. Poor thing was intact (thankfully) and didn't smell (also thankful). Then I drove for a minute or two and thought that I really wanted a pic. So I turned around, properly parked, and ran back with camera.

Which leads me to my new questions, how fast was porcy going when it was crossing the road? Seems weird that it would be intact...all internal injuries? How fast can they go on foot? Do they make noises? All new questions.

The happiest and most stressed time of year.

2011-04-19T19:36:00.002-04:00

For most, it usually is the major holidays that involve presents or around tax time. For me, it's spring. Let's see what's on the spring agenda. Spring entails hawk and owl surveys, vernal pool surveys looking for frogs, salamanders, and friends, and various turtle surveys and turtle radio tracking. Plus we are just getting started with real spring weather that's conducive to such activities....aside from this non-stop drizzle that seems to never end. Hours upon hours are spent planning our weekly schedule and it usually goes to hell quickly. Weather changes so we all have to adapt. No point in doing those surveys when it's pouring, cold, and everything we are looking for will be hiding.

We are only a couple weeks in and the hijinks have started. It's pretty well known that if you leave me alone in the field weird things happen. Turns out that even means leaving me alone for 5 minutes. Like when I was radio tracking a turtle and thought I had found it but that it's transmitter had died. I was looking for one of our turtles that we knew the transmitter had recently died but she's a homebody so she should be easy to find. Turns out it was not her but a poor turtle with a 10 year old dead transmitter. I realized this when I asked my coworker when and why this turtle had gone from being a girl to being a boy. Then phone calls had to be made in an area with now cell reception. But in the end, we ended up removing his transmitter and now he's living the happy life with a weight lifted off his back.

I stayed late after radio tracking to try to find some bears. I met up with a friend and spent over an hour searching in what was supposed to be prime time and area. Nothing was seen so I was started the long drive home after the long field day and spotted a mama bear and her two wee cubs basically in a brushy area by the highway. I love seeing things in the wrong spot after searching the best areas.

Then there's the owl survey from the car that illicited a pack of coyotes to respond. They did their locational calls and it was far away and faint, but definitely interesting. I'm just happy they weren't closer and that I was in the car. Or the almost coyote incident my co-worker had on foot that same night where he progressively encountered 7 pairs of glowing yellow eyes in woods where he's heard that same coyote locational calls. Alas it was just deer.

So I leave you with several shots of turtles I've found in the past couple weeks. Those are the good days where I'm solo with nature and can really enjoy spring.

Winter projects

2011-03-19T08:30:00.000-04:00

This winter I had plenty of time for indoor projects. I have had a sewing machine for a few years now, which was forced upon me from my mother. My mother is an avid crafter and borderline craft/fabric hoarder. She made a bunch of my clothes when I was a child. That went over well with my catty classmates in elementary school. By junior high, we had to take home economics which included sewing. I excelled at the projects like draw-string bag and was usually done a million hours earlier than others. In high school, I would ghetto alter my skirts and pants behind my mother's back. Prior to me obtaining the sewing machine, I made a bunch of things just hand sewing and of course I patched a bunch of my field pants and vests.

I found myself at a fabric store and fancied this teal wool which was on clearance. So I bought myself a yard or so and went about making a mini skirt out of it with my mother's guidance. Unfortunately, the junior high home ec never taught things like different sewing techniques. I'm not good at interpreting pattern directions but once I understand what to do, it's pretty easy. So teal skirt was done and I set about making a black version. The black wool that I coveted was camel and pricey. It went on sale and I bought what I thought was the minimum amount I needed. Of course I had ample left overs of the teal wool, teal lining, black wool, and black lining. It wasn't enough to make anything big, but I figured it's too bad to throw out or get lost in my mother's. I decided to make headbands with the remains and add some random colorful buttons from my mother's ample supplies. I then would have my mother sell them at her craft shows. So here they are. The black ones will have to wait until probably summer. Spring is just too busy for me.

Little bit of everything

2011-03-12T13:15:00.002-05:00

For President's day weekend, we headed to Vermont for some much needed R&R. We got lucky and didn't encounter any epic blizzards or crazy driving conditions. So it was relaxation all around. For a day or two, we had very warm conditions that approached 50 degrees. Then moments of cold and snow showers. The dogs certainly seemed to enjoy the snow even though there was plenty back home.
I ate a ton of amazing food this trip that is beyond words and description. I certainly came home weighing more then when I came in. I wish I spent time showshoeing rather than plain walking in the 2 feet of snow. It was a crap shoot every step you took. Sometimes you stayed on the surface and other times you fell through. Nevermind the drifts that were thigh high.

We didn't do any sledding, which was probably for the best. Last winter, I went partially down the ice ramp, caught air and landed on my head. Thankfully I wasn't really hurt although my neck was a bit sore. Others had the same fate as I did.
The best thing of all is seeing the plentiful stars at night. We had full moon or nearly full moon the entire trip so you could see everything without a flashlight. We were eagerly anticipating seeing some northern lights but once again we got skunked.

True winter

2011-02-02T14:17:00.003-05:00

This has been one hell of a winter and it's not over. Snowstorm after snowstorm with no thaw or melt in between. My condo's snowbay has been full for weeks and they have become creative on where to put the plowed snow. Parking spots are now taken over by snow or its just dumped in random spots. Right now, we're coming off of a 2 day event. It's been all ice/sleet/freezing rain this round. It's 2 pm and the plows are just getting to my condo.

I've been working from home the past 2 days and I'm READY to get out. I tried to get out yesterday and this morning. Both were failed attempts. I almost made it to work yesterday morning but turned back when I realized that if the roads were that bad in the beginning of the storm, it could only get worse on the evening drive. That and the various accidents I passed or where almost part of. We were driving on the highway and almost everyone was respectful and driving appropriately. I was in the second from the left lane with a car just to the left of me in the far left lane. I was going a smidge faster than the car in the far left lane. Then this white sedan...like a circa 2000 ford taurus...comes flying up in the left lane and I do mean flying. I lightly tap my brakes to avoid having that car come into my lane. Then I notice that it turn into the median. That was weird. I don't recall seeing an emergency vehicle u-turn area. Then I see it do a full 360 in the snowy median and it's now facing the wrong way. Must have lost control. Plus it's now pelleting frozen rain. Then I see another remains of an accident on the other side of the highway and decide to turn around. I'm eagerly anticipating the aftermath of the white car median excursion on the way back. Except I now see that this car someone has escaped the snowy median and is now on the other side of the highway perpendicular and blocking the 2 right lanes. Cops are blocking traffic before the car. I never got a good look at the driver but seriously what is going on. It has to be three things.....drunk, high, and or just totally clueless.

This morning I was one of the few souls on the road. The driveway and parking lot was covered in at least 1 inch of ice. Water was pouring off the roof. My road was a mess and the roads were not the best. Branches were down and traffic lights were out. I decided that if it was that bad by me, it must be much worse up at the office. So I turned back home once again.
So you say, what else has been going on? Well there's been absolutely no field work in January with no field work in the near future with this deep snow. I've been sick and just now am getting healthy. I've bought a new camera...a digital dslr. It'll be my new project to learn on how to work it. I've taken up sewing and have made almost 2 skirts. I just took down my Christmas tree last weekend and found some sort of weird white fibrous fungus all over the bottom branches....the cause of my illness?? Since I was sick, I didn't use my fireplace for a couple weeks. I store my firewood on the deck in plastic bins. I opened a bin this weekend and found 2 mice living in it. It was a lucy episode trying to get them out. Let's just say one almost climbed on my leg.

Spring-Autumn turtle radio tracking recap

2010-12-12T15:30:00.004-05:00

I realized that I never once blogged about my turtle searches and radio tracking that took place in the spring through autumn in a place we collectively call "the park." We did numerous snake, rare plants, raptor, and turtle studies at the park in the past couple years. I was never involved until this spring when everyone was mobilized there at once. More people = more trouble and harder coordination in my eyes. This was no exception. We had 4 walkie talkies spread over 10 people in an area where cell phone reception was null to spotty at best. At times, it was comical. People without walkies would be yelling for attention and people with walkies thought they were talking to someone far away when in fact they were talking to someone 20 feet away. Total miscommunication and mayhem style.

Our mission in the spring for my group was to find rare turtles. I was one of the few that couldn't find any. It got to the point that I didn't want to go because it was pure frustration for me to see everyone find turtles but me. By late spring, we were allowed to place radio transmitters on rare turtles and we were radio tracking several turtles. Also by late spring, it was sweltering and you had to wear hot hip waders to get around the rocky, rapid, and deep streams. Bears and poisonous snakes abounded. Nevermind, the steep and foreboding terrain. You'd be in a dense brush area and you would see bear dump after bear dump....clearly a bear nest/napping area. It didn't give you a warm and fuzzy feeling and any rustling noise was met with alarm. We were told to never go out to the park alone due to all of the above reasons.

I had periodically radio tracked the turtles in the summer and it would be challenging. The turtles liked to hide in the most ridiculous areas....under dense barberry neck high in a wind-thrown part of the woods. It was a spot where dozens of trees had blown down in a wind shear event. Barberry has those nice needle thorns. You'd spend an hour searching one small area just to find one turtle.

By fall I saw on my schedule that I was go out radio-tracking at the park alone. We were all busy so I didn't have a chance to find out if that was a mistake for for real. I was apprehensive because weird things always happen to me when I sent out alone and I just had a feeling. But I geared up and tried to make the best of it. I attached the radio receiver to my belt, had a walking stick in one hand and the radio antenna in another. Radio antenna was wired to the receiver on my belt. I had a field vest one and a backpack on top of that. I felt like an one-man band. I found the signal of first turtle near this large hole along a stream in the top picture. I couldn't get a visual on the turtle but it had to be there. So I moved on.

I continued on and saw what appeared to be a rare turtle across the stream 1/2 in the water 1/2 out. As I got closer, I confirmed it was a turtle and not a rock/mirage. I reached out to grab it and it was really really heavy and I noticed another turtle was attached. Yikes! I couldn't hold them up with one hand so they slipped back into the water. This is when things get fuzzy. I must have thrown the antenna and walking stick onshore (and yet still attached to antenna) and grabbed the two quickly swimming and now separated turtles. It was a miracle that I grabbed them both. I get back to shore and now have two large, biting, scratching, and angry turtles. I'm now supposed to measure, take notes and photos, mark, and attach radio transmitters to them. I really can't swing this alone. It's a struggle just to hold them both. I frantically call the office (with cell phone held to my ear by my shoulder) and after numerous attempts I get through. Several phone calls later I get someone to come out and help. It's a 45 minute one way drive but that gives me time to calm down and start the work up. I dump the contents of my backpack out and the turtles are put in....jail if you will. I am hoping in the 1+ hour that I will forced to stand in one area that a bear, poisonous snake, random hiker, and the rain won't strike. The male was very calm and relaxed at the bottom of the bag. The female was attempting a jail break every 5 seconds. Each single measurement I took of him, I had to put her back in the bag. I managed to finish the measurements and markings before my boss came. We finished up and radio-tracked the others without incident.

I wanted to show my boss this hole and see if we could get a visual on the first turtle. That's when things kicked it up a notch. He crawled in the hole and announced "we got copulating turtles in here." It was the radio tracked female turtle and a suitor. So I crawl in. Mind you that if I am in that hole, you can't see me at all. I get down on my belly and snap the picture at the very bottom. That's when the hole was named the "grotto." We've been back to the grotto a bunch of times. But now with the break in the drought, the hole is no longer mostly dry. I'm off to radio track turtles this week and I am very curious if something rather large, furry, and black had taken up winter residence in there.....if you know what I mean.

Wolves, foxes, and bobcats oh my!

2010-11-07T14:16:00.009-05:00

I went and saw the wolves again this week. This time I went during the week to avoid the flocks of small children. It was mostly a success. Also as compared to last time, most of my photos were in focus. These two wolves in the above pic were doing the typical contest most dogs owners will witness. One kicks up some dirt and marks and then the other nonchalantly, of course, will do the same. Then repeat until completely empty.

Midway through our tour, the wolves took a howl break. Here's a portion of the action. They preempted the howling section of the talk.

After the wolf talk, it was time for the bobcats and foxes. Apparently the one bobcat we saw last time no longer comes out for presentations. The characteristics in house cats that some people don't like is amped up in the wild ones. These bobcats can be demanding divas and when they don't get their way you won't win. I wasn't able to capture the nearly instant transformation from sweet meow to low guttural snarl.

Fox and friends

2010-10-20T19:12:00.003-04:00

I've been kept busy this fall with a bunch of field work. Lots and lots of walking has been the theme. Today I was in south jersey walking and walking. Thankfully by the end of the day I could basically drive up to my target locations. Regardless I had perhaps the greatest quantity of vegetation, seeds, twigs, and soybeans in my boots by the end of the day. That and two deer ticks were plucked off my jeans.

We've kept up with the game camera and we've mostly had pictures of nothing.....well nothing obvious. Perhaps a squirrel or chipmunk. I also think falling leaves and branches set off the camera. But this time we had at least 3 photos of interest. The top photo has something big. The middle photo has something middle-sized and the bottom photo has something tiny....think Pauly Shore.

Hazelnut 2's big day

2010-09-18T14:16:00.002-04:00

At the beginning of the month, Hazelnut 2 was granted freedom. Of all my turtlets and all things being equal, I think Hazelnut 2 has the best shot of survival. Hazelnut 2 has got spunk and loves and loves to eat. The top pic is it after it's release. I wasn't there at the release, but I'm told after the initial shock of being free, it started chowing down on plants and duckweed. It then found an underwater sunny spot and started to bask once again in real sunlight. The night before Hazelnut 2 was part of a show and tell for children. Mind you when I first got it, it repeatedly tried to bite me so I was worried about hearing this. But I guess after the months of me handling it, it figured out not to bite the hand that feeds you. It even got a couple showers with a brush under the kitchen tap once it started getting brown and slimy. But considering the hot and dry summer we had, Hazelnut 2 had the best life getting big and fat indoors. Here I am saying my goodbye to the little champ.
Here's Hazelnut 2 when I first got it.

Wild New Jersey

2010-08-30T19:27:00.003-04:00

I grew up watching a lot of Marty Stouffer's Wild America. I fondly remember the grizzly cub raising episodes. My parents didn't have cable and perhaps still don't have cable, so kid friendly shows were limited on non-cable tv. I'm sure if they knew what profession I end up with, they would have quickly ordered cable and had me watching doctor or teaching shows instead. I don't think they fully or even partially understand my profession and my father isn't very happy with the constantly dirty state my car is in. Did I mention that just this weekend my father remarked that he couldn't tell the difference between a squirrel and a chipmunk.....and had probably ran over the dead one we were looking at? Yup. I'm totally adopted....at least that's what I tell myself.

Even though the summer's heat has been at times unbearable (very punny), I've had my share of bear sightings. First up was a mother and her two young cubs. I spotted them while driving and quick as a flash I jumped out the car, left the car running, and grabbed my camera. My shots came out awful, but thankfully my boss' shots came out good and he didn't mind my animal paparazzi action. One cub immediately scurried up a tree, while mom and other cub casually meandered closer to us. Everyone was very relaxed and cubby eventually came down and joined the fam.

I had another encounter at another site with likely the same bear that had spooked me this spring. Had it not been for my co-worker, I wouldn't have seen the bear....two times mind you. We seemed to be following it or playing some sort of game of tag. Eventually it hunkered down for a nap and if I had been solo I probably would have walked right into it. I also reaffirmed to myself that if you hear rustling in the bushes....rustling of a large animal....a deer or bear....and if you yell out to it, if it doesn't run off it's likely a bear.

Ms. Orange and Mr. Yellow

2010-08-15T16:57:00.004-04:00

Field work this summer continues to physically challenging with the heat and humidity. The unofficial drought has turned soil into powder and many wetlands into deserts. Leaves are dropping or turning yellow on more and more trees. Drought sensitive plants are withered and brown. My recent field outing had taken me to an area that was flooded and I was unaccustomed to walking in deep water. It had been so long since I've seen so much water. I need to regain my sea and muck legs.

In my journeys, I stumbled separately onto these two box turtles. Both were brilliantly and unusually colored. At this time of year with the vegetation so high, I really mean stumble. At times while walking, I feel like I could be absorbed by plants at any second. The vines could twist around my ankles and take me down.

Estivation

2010-07-11T18:26:00.004-04:00

That's my excuse for not posting in over a month. It's been too hot and humid for my liking. I've been plagued by bug bites. Mind you I still see the visual remains of a deer fly bite over a month old. It seems we've hit by heat wave after heat wave, which caused me to officially say that summer is my least favorite season. It's not a popular stance, but I'll take ole man winter any day.

After the busy and crazy spring, I did manage a mini vacation up to Vermont. That's most of my pics on this post. Our drive up was in a 48 degree night and our day drive back to NJ topped 100 degrees. It was even getting hot for VT. I had to pack for every weather condition. I always enjoy the summer VT trips were we have campfires and the weather is pleasant. This year the bugs seemed to be on full attack but I came prepared with my spray. Last summer I found the neighbors' dog on our driveway and this year was no different. Kayla showed up at our door one evening and I'm beginning to think her owners somewhat neglect her. Apparently they sent her on the porch because she was shedding too much. Next year I'll try to have hang out a little longer and get some attention that she deserves.

In the beginning of June, I received my fifth painted turtle hatchling. Hazelnut 2 is its name. I've even got some members of my office using my names. Hazelnut 1 was caught and immediately released...hence Hazelnut 2. Hazelnut 2 was immediately different. It ate a worm...when my other turtlets were afraid. When I pulled Hazelnut 2 out of it's travel container (where it ate the worm), there was some debris on the side of its head. I tried to remove it and Hazelnut 2 repeatedly tried to bite me. I've never had that happen before. Hazelnut 2 is a pig of an eater and eats like 20 pellets as compared to like 5 pellets of the previous turtlets. Surprise surprise Hazelnut 2 tried to bite me again when I measured it, but has since calmed down. Yesterday morning it even swam to the center of the tank with its head out of the water when I getting ready to feed it. That's a first. I think of all the turtlets I've raised, Hazelnut 2 has the best chance of survial to adulthood. In the meantime, I'll keep fattening it up until fall when it'll get its freedom.

A sweet surprise

2010-05-25T17:38:00.002-04:00

I came home from work today and was checking on my plants on the deck when I spotted this silent lurker. I had seen a doe and a fawn a couple nights before so I can only assume it's the same fawn. I gave the fawn some perils of wisdom like look both ways before crossing any street. But I guess it was too much for it and when I turned my back it scampered deeper into the bushes. I resisted the temptation to get a closer look on the ground and left the little one to relax in this hot and steamy afternoon.

Dumpster diving

2010-05-17T19:42:00.002-04:00

It was not the typical monday morning. We had a visitor to my office dumpster who helped themselves to our trash. The plastic flaps on the dumpster (now destroyed) and open gate made it an easy target. A bunch of us gathered around and gawked at it until the landscapers' truck drove up to it and scared it off. Everyone except me went back in the office. I just had to get a closer look with my camera. Sure enough the culprit was relaxing along the treeline waiting for another opening so that it could continue its breakfast. The landscapers felt the need to try to warn me. Surely I wasn't around to take out some trash considering I was holding my camera in fully ready mode. Then the garbageman showed up so the landscapers had to back out and I alerted the garbageman of the bear. Of course, neither the landscapers nor the garbageman picked up the trash and so the bear, I'm told, came back. As I left for the field, there was a trail of trash leading to the woods. And we wonder why bears are a problem. It's like leaving a pile of cookies and candy on the counter at work. People will swarm in and help themselves without abandon. But I think I'll be taking the scenic route to my parking spot each day to cruise by the dumpster. Side note - The copy repairman was so scared of the bear he spent 45 minutes in his car. Apparently he couldn't just drive to a different part of the parking lot to avoid the bear.

But my bear stories don't end there. I ventured to bear country and had to do a turtle survey. There was a couple of recent bear dumps as we walked in. Add to that chomped skunk cabbage and cattail. Both usual sights. But today, throw in some nice and very clear bear prints. We all separated as we searched. I was in a tucked in spot along the woods. I then spotted an unusual tree sapling and was yelling out to the others about it. Then I heard a large crash and a huff very close in the woods. I couldn't see anything and I didn't hear any running. So my gut said "Bear, not deer!" I quickly rejoined the group and told of my observation. Needless to say none of the guys ventured over to that part for the rest of the afternoon. Their excuses were "You covered that area so well" or "There was just not enough time." I think we know the real reason.

More visitors

2010-04-25T12:16:00.003-04:00

The camera has been put back up, but I'm not the one who's been checking it. Work has been way to busy and it's really a one person job since you swap out the spent battery with a freshly charged battery. It had been put up in late fall when my coworker discovered it on the ground and all the metal hook of the bungee cords all stretched out. Unfortunately no pictures or videos had been taken of this attack, but it clearly was the work of a bear. Maybe it was this bear in the top photo. I'm told that after this bear photo, a blurry bear snuffle pic was taken.

In the meantime, turtle season is in full swing. So far I've had a banner year of catching spotted turtles. I think I have like 13 spotted turtles. I'll be back out this weekend if the weather holds.

Babe central

2010-04-05T19:41:00.002-04:00

I unearthed these youngsters underneath a rotten log. You got two red efts and one leadback salamander (which is just a color variant of the usual redback salamander). The red efts are the pre-teen stage of the red-spotted newts. These youngsters roam around in search of new ponds and you often see them after a rain. This week we found a couple on the surface of a pond just floating by, which was quite strange. Often these reach adult, they become olive in color and totally aquatic. I wonder if the remember the good ole days of roaming around on land.

Seeing spots

2010-03-25T17:20:00.003-04:00

The turtle preseason is fully on its way. I hit the jackpot in my secret land that currently resembles glacial lake passaic. See photo at the very bottom. But once you get past the first ocean, it's an oasis of nature that's rarely sees people. I've had a rare owl there on my last brief outing there. I even heard the owl briefly call in the middle of the day, which is unusual but not unheard of. Today I found 5 spotted turtles. The last turtle I even sprinted across part of the lake. Of course it plopped into the water and I thought it was long gone. But a few seconds later a turtle head came to the surface and I grabbed it. One turtle that I did miss (but see it's butt) caused me to plant my butt and sleeved arm up to my elbow in cold water. Nevermind the clipboard that came undone with piles of semi wet paper strewn about. I taught myself a new turtle finding technique. Since I was in crunchy dry vegetation, I could see and hear when a turtle was moving and would sprinto to that location and find the turtle. So it was a great but tiring day and my hand tan is full swing.

Prepare the ark

2010-03-16T19:56:00.003-04:00

From this past Friday to late Monday it rained. The next town over got 7 inches. Mind you before the rain, all the snowpack had melted and the rivers and streams were full or were already flooding. I ventured out on Saturday afternoon and it was not nice. Wind gusts up to 50 mph, nonstop horizontal rain, and umbrellas were mostly inverted. Branches had fallen on powerlines and lake sized puddles were already invading the road I hunkered down at home and relaxed. Then a knock comes at my door at 10:30 pm. I'm in my pjs and see that there's some sort of commotion going on in the basement. I then see that there's an inactive pump and the basement is flooded. It's never happened while I lived here, but I had seen evidence that the basement had been flooded before. I slap on one of my 4 pairs of rubber knee boots with pjs and scope out the situation in my individual basement. Thankfully it wasn't completely flooded and I rolled up the carpet and lifted anything that could be damaged off the ground. But the trough around the perimeter of the basement was full of water and overflowing onto the floor. I had an inch or so in spots. My neighbors were less fortunate since their basements were jammed full of junk that doesn't do well in water.

The maintenence guys then make an appearance and I still don't fully understand the situation. I really can't blame then since they were soaking wet even with rain gear. I also don't recommend using a towel as a rain hat. Point being was that they thought it was pointless to pump the basement since water just keeps coming in. But that they would come around and pump if the water got too high. Thankfully by morning the water had mostly drained or had been pumped and only a puddle was left in my basement. It's still very damp down there and my dehumidifier is making a rare spring appearance. It's all so strange since I've never even had a drop of water down there during large rain events. Not sure why it was an all or nothing situation.

On sunday afternoon, I just had to get out of the house and run some errands. Very quickly I realize that most of the next town over is under water. Here's some shots I took today (Tuesday) and water has dropped enough that they are allowing cars on the main road.

The below road is still undriveable, but it makes a good rafting spot. That's a raft in the middle of the road there.

Here's another road closed. It sure makes you figure out new ways to get around.
Of course I have a ton of field work to do in this town, but it just going to have to wait under the water goes down.

Snowicane

2010-02-25T15:18:00.003-05:00

Update: I really thought the snow would be over and I'd be sitting in my office, not home again. Looks like we've got over a foot and it keeps coming down. My parking area and sidewalks have not been plowed since they won't do that until the storm is over. With the winds, there's lot of drifts. Here's some new pics.

Day 1 below

Snowpocalypse, Snowtorious B.I.G., Snowmageddon, and Snowicane are all new snow terms I learned this winter. Last fall, I had a feeling this winter would be bad and purchased 2 pairs of wintry type snow boots. So here I am looking at snow storm part 1 zillion. After taking work home all week, it finally materialized. Mind you the daily weather report this week has been 2 to 4 inches of snow every night. But it never seemed to really happen until today. Of course there's been a battle between the raging snow storm and the above freezing temperatures. The result is a slushy disgusting mess in the parking lot. I'm off the check the mail in my rubber knee boots before the reported hurricane force winds should kick in. Is it spring yet? Time to grab the nearest groundhog and interrogate 'em.

NOLA last chapter

2010-02-20T16:20:00.006-05:00

Here's the last chapter of my BR/NOLA trip from last month. Two things I wanted to see on my visit were the plantations and the above-ground graveyards. Neither of those exist back home so I tried to see as much as possible. We cruised some graveyards in NOLA and the clouds and sun were just right to make some cool shots.

The next day we headed out to some plantations. First stop was the Audubon State Historic Site. We were immediately greeted by a tom turkey who took a real fancy to Co. He was in full display mode and was so close I could pet him. He had an entourage of very vocal cats, which I also petted. Alas, we were late for the last tour (I blame it on the turkey and entourage), so we wandered the grounds instead. Below is a pic of the main house.
We decided to head over to the Myrtles plantation to take some pics and walk the grounds. I really didn't need a tour since Co had taken one before and I've watched the ghost hunters episode a few times. We encountered some young girls doing their own ghost hunt at the pond. I even got to see Hester tossing some water (or something out of a pail) out back. Below is a pic of the front of the house.

As Co started the car, all hell broke loose. The interior light started flashing like a strobe light, a bonging noise came on, and a clicking noise was happening behind the radio. This ghost carjacking continued down the driveway but as soon as we were on the road, all was normal. The more logical answer is that the big bump Co had hit in NOLA had begun to jar the permanently shut passenger door so that the "open door" sound and light would sound. No idea about the radio noise. But more about that later.

The potential ghost carjacking wasn't enough to stop us from making a stop at the local graveyard. Dusk was approaching so we scurried around to check out the older graves. We got back into the car and everything seemed normal. But as soon as got on the road, the passenger door, which was stuck in the shut position, suddenly flung wide open. I was riding shotgun at the time so I grabbed the door and we pulled over. I mcgyvered a quick fix with some twine and hung onto the door handle for the 30 minute drive home. Thankfully the twine held the door so that I or car contents weren't tossed out onto the highway at top speed.

For my final day, we took another look at the door. I double tied the passenger door to the car and we headed out to River Road. We aborted any long driving trips thanks to the passenger door situation. We stopped at the Houmas house and got a pricey but worth it tour. Our tour guide was rocking the full petticoat skirt but a fleece jacket on top. That and the only other person on the tour was some sort of idiot. He was one of those people that don't listen and then ask stupid questions. If I had more time and memory, I'd relay the lawn dart death interaction between the tour guide and that guy which almost turned into a "who's on first?"

It goes without saying that the grounds and house were beautiful. The super old live oak was giant and you can barely see me standing at it's base.

Making it Right

2010-01-31T16:51:00.004-05:00

I knew one of things I wanted to see when I came down to LA was to see NOLA and the progress of the rebuilding since Hurricane Katrina. We took a quick tour of the Make it Right homes in the Lower Ninth Ward. I had to use my imagination to picture what this neighborhood used to look like. What's left is a scattering of rebuilt homes and brand new Make it Right homes and blocks of fields where homes used to stand. It was amazing to see that the large street trees have survived throughout it all.

The Make it Right homes sure look very cool. I'd love to have one of those homes. I checked out their website and it's definitely worth a peek. What they should do is make the architectural plans or house building available for purchase. The proceeds from that can they go to building more homes in the hurricane ravaged areas. In fact, I'd say that any town in frequent hurricane areas should make some of these hurricane resistent standards mandatory for any new construction.

A peek at spring

2010-01-25T20:29:00.003-05:00

I took a break from the uber cold wintry north and headed to Louisiana to visit Cokane. I was initially greeted by a cold rain and a couple crazed barking dogs. That quickly turned to sunshine, warmth, and breakdancing and bouncing dogs. I also got to enjoy a whole bunch of critters that would considered rare in New Jersey. Nevermind that short sleeve t-shirts were broken out in mid-January.

On the first night, a barred owl was spotted in a tree in a backyard in Baton Rouge. This was shocking to me considering I've always known them as a species that hangs out in big swamps or vast forest. But it seems it's not too surprising. I found this interesting article here.

Cokane and I headed out to the Cypress Island Preserve surrounding Lake Martin. We were determined to see some gators and I was just excited to see some bald cypress swamps and any other critters and plants. No gators were spotted. I suppose they are still hibernating. A couple turtles were spotted basking in this ideal day. Red-shouldered hawks were calling like crazy from all around.

On our various driving ventures, more NJ rare wildlife was spotted. An osprey or two always seemed to be hanging out. We passed a bald eagle's nest on the long and painfully straight drive to New Orleans.

Quick visits

2010-01-14T11:14:00.002-05:00

We had some quick visits over at the camera trap. Each video is short....like 20 seconds and sound is not needed. It's been bitterly cold and that has taken it's toll on the battery. Cold temperatures really drain batteries. The fox makes its quick appearance in the very beginning. The raccoons have a longer roly poly scampering appearance.

Frozen wasteland

2010-01-06T12:24:00.003-05:00

Even though it's winter with subfreezing temps and some snow cover, field work continues. I was in the portion of New Jersey where traffic, tolls, garbage, guard dogs, likely toxic waste, chain link fences with barb wire tops, and unknown hazards abound. So I bundled up and broke out the hand warmers, and off we went. Most of the time was trying to figure out how to get somewhere because of the above hazards, deep uncrossable rivers, and trainlines. We hit an auto terminal obstacle where cars are taken off of trains. We attempted to make contact with the workers to gain access to the area. Apparently it's totally ok to smoke in the outside hallways of buildings there. Lovely! We couldn't get in because the guy we needed was only there in the mornings, but gets to work at 4:30 am if we needed him! Unfortunately, we actually need daylight to do our work.

I tried to tell birdman that this boat was the answer to the deep river crossing problems. But there wasn't a motor, so we passed on that. Nevermind the fact that it just hanging out on land and decrepit.

This frozen lake was a mosaic of shades of light blue and white. Hopefully it's wasn't result of toxic waste.

At one point in the day, we ran into an unexpected surprise. At first glance, I thought I was staring at a black bear stuffed animal. Then I thought it was a dead black cat in circle formation. Then I thought it was a dying black cat in circle formation. It was after subfreezing and not a spot I'd see a cat laying out. I continued to keep my distance but birdman cautiously crept on top of it. It was breathing and we were talking at normal voice...enough for most cats to hear. I thought birdman was going to touch it, but then it finally woke up and ran off in a flash. I guess it was in deep sleep dreaming about mice or something and the typical urban city noise drowned our voices out.

Snow weekend

2009-12-20T15:04:00.002-05:00

We got our first real snow in years this weekend. Friday after work was spent doing the outdoor errands that needed to get done. Seems like everyone else had that idea. The snow was supposed to start early on saturday. I woke up and the sun was shining. I checked the weather and for some reason my area was in the donut hole of snow. Snow all around but no snow for us. So I took advantage and cleaned out my car. By afternoon the snow started and kept going. Looks like we got about a foot of snow. The news coverage last night was totally ridiculous. One channel felt the need to extend the snow news to an hour. Lots of reporters in different reporting that it was indeed snowing and that you shouldn't drive. I sure did get a lot done around the house this weekend, but I'll be sure happy to leave the house tomorrow.

Squirrel cam

2009-12-13T16:21:00.002-05:00

The camera has been up a few weeks. Here's what we caught so far.

Can you spot the squirrel in one of these photos? Squirrely came back a bunch more times. I'm certainly getting my exercise in by climbing this mountain to check the camera.

Bear #4

2009-11-19T18:57:00.004-05:00

I was enroute to check my camera trap and was travelling down bear highway as I call it. This is the same road I saw two bears from the car a couple weeks back. I've been down this road a few more times and hadn't seen any bears. I think that's because I was a passenger in someone else's car and we were driving the speed limit. Today, I was solo, driving slow, and looking for bears. I hit paydirt. There was one on the other side of the road. So I pull over and jump out the car. It was big and had two ear tags. It probably means it's gotten in trouble two times. I just hope that three strikes doesn't mean it's out aka dead....but it probably does. Da bear was rooting around in the leaf litter and took a minute to scratch it's butt on a tree. I called over to it a couple times and it only stopped and looked over at me once. Clearly I was not a threat or food to it. I actually was quite boring to it. The only time it got scared was when a tractor trailer went by, but it only scampered a few feet. Most of my photos came out horrible. Apparently, mist, super zoom, target partially hidden by trees, the threat of being hit by a car, and shaky hands always means a blurry shot. This is the only in focus shot. I did manage to shoot two short videos. See the combined effect below.

My first camera trap

2009-11-15T11:33:00.002-05:00

I bought my first camera trap on the company's dime. I had found a potential bobcat den this past week during our big walk about. Bobcats are endangered in NJ so it's important to make sure it's real a bobcat den and not something else. I figured I'd test it out at my parent's place since they have a ton of deer, turkeys, and housecats.

I came back sunday afternoon and 43 photos had been taken. I knew at least a couple were of me setting and removing the camera. Even mourning doves would set the camera off. The only mystery photo is the one above. There's a blurry figure on the ground just to the right of the bird feeder. I think it's probably a raccoon from the size and shape. As you can tell, the housecats are clear as day.

I just hope the camera doesn't get stolen or eaten by a bear. It is along the bear roadway we drove along last week. On Monday, I'll set it up. It seems everyone in my group wants to come along for the setup. I'll be sure to post any good photos...assuming neither of my fears come true.

Three bears and no photos

2009-11-11T19:23:00.004-05:00

Sorry folks, I was not able to obtain photos during my three bear sightings this week. The first bear was seen on foot and by the time I spotted it, the bear was barely visible in the woods. However, it was a lot closer when we first approached the area, but I oblivious to it. Makes me wonder how many other bears I've been oblivious to. Y'know with it's soft and padded paws, they can be silent walkers. The only thing that drew attention to it's presence was a chipmunk scurring across a log and making a ruckus. The last two bear sightings were in the car and moments apart. One bear was hoofing it up a wooded and rocky slope and another was in the was heading to the road. I heard today another bear was on that same road today. It's like a bear convention or something. I'm half tempted to drive that road this weekend to spot a bear and get an actual photo. Although it's tough to drive and bear watch at the same time. I'd that person driving like 5 mph on the non existent shoulder with the hazards on.

I've spent the entire week out in the field hiking many miles. Someone I've managed to keep up the energy to keep going. I kept saying that by friday, I'll need a walker and a wheelchair. Nevermind the predawn wakeups. But I see the light at the end of the tunnel and we should be able to finish up tomorrow. I am demanding at least one bear sighting. I've been spoiled this week since the last bear I saw was a couple years ago. I'm not counting the ones that I've heard or near misses. Here's some photos that shows what sort of hills we've been climbing.

I heart pumpkins

2009-11-02T17:33:00.002-05:00

On Halloween, I and company headed off to the giant jack o' lantern blaze in NY. It was different that I imagined in my head, but in a good way. First off, I apologize to any small child that got knocked to the ground or pushed out of the way in my dark photo frenzy. The photos really don't do it justice. We spent a good 45+ minutes walking a meandering path that was surrounded my oceans of jack o' lanterns and various themes.

All I know is that I came out of there with a ton of ideas for carving my own jack next year. Mind you I've carved exactly one or possibly two jacks in my life and that was only in graduate school. As a child, we were not allowed to touch the pumpkins. My mother said that the pumpkin would last longer if it wasn't carved. I guess she was hell bent on making that pumpkin last until past Christmas.

I also plan on fully investigating the nearby Sleepy Hollow cemetary. But alas, the weather was very wet for this Halloween. Better luck next year.

The less traveled road

2009-10-23T18:42:00.004-04:00

I got my full workout this week just by going to work. I've walked 10+ miles in four days over not the best terrain. I've bled (not loving the massive rose thorn that was completely pushed into my pointer finger on my dominant hand), been bruised, battered, and I am very happy it's the weekend.

Today was supposed to be a solo day, but I'm thankful I had my birdman co-worker with me. The day started off with clearing brush, tree parts, and logs from a woods road (see above pic) that would eventually lead us to the powerline that we were working on. We helped navigate our vehicles past fallen trees in spots where we couldn't move the fallen trees. I lead the charge in my girly suv. I quickly regretted the decision to drive both our cars when I spotted a mucky and watery span in the road. I was 100% sure I'd immediately get stuck or slid into the woods. Surprisingly, I made my way past it with some minor sliding and skidding. Alas, there was a zillion more deep puddles and as I squealed along I sort of felt like I was in a suv commercial. Except, I really didn't mean to be there and was driving a mostly inappropriate vehicle. I had to go fast enough to make it across the puddles, but slow enough to not bottom out or go horribly off-course. We arrived at the powerline and started to gather up our field gear. I quickly realized I couldn't find my cellphone. Birdman called my phone and we didn't hear it ring. It must have fallen out of my pocket when I was brushclearing on the road. We decided to both drive back and I decided that I would leave my car near the beginning of road to avoid having to drive that crazy drive twice. Sure enough the phone was near the closest brush clearing and was inches from being run over on the initial drive down. Phew! I will say that birdman's more capable subura gave a much smoother and assured ride. If we end up doing a lot more work in this area, I may just have to bite the bullet and drive one of the company's mega suvs out there. Aside from the morning's initial hiccups, the day was enjoyable. The area we were in was remote and full of cool rare hawks and woodpeckers. We also enjoyed the different plants and I even found a possible turtle eggshell and owl feather.

We even found this old VW bug way out in the powerline miles upon miles from the nearest road. Pretty soon that punchbuggy will go completely back to nature.

Bloodletting and ladybugs

2009-10-20T17:44:00.004-04:00

I spent the past two days line walking. Many miles were covered and my feet and muscles are feeling the burn. I made the mistake of not wearing carhartt pants yesterday and my knees are now covered with 20+ red thorn pricks. Nevermind my hands that repeatedly and accidentally groped thorny branches.

Here's some typical vistas along the line near my neck of the woods. It's been nice having a commute that's a maximum of 15 minutes. But alas, the more ground covered, the commute will grow.

The next outing will be the most difficult. There's major river crossings (too deep for kneet boots), many miles between parking/access roads. Nevermind the potential for vast and flooded wetlands. I've already been to areas that I'm sure rarely see humans.

By this afternoon, we seemed to be covered in ladybugs. When I got home, there was a zillion ladybugs on my deck. It's an infestation of cute bugs. Sure beats ticks and mosquitoes anyday.

The last of summer

2009-10-05T20:31:00.003-04:00

Chilly morns and eves abound. The insulated rubber boots, jacket, warm mittens and friends have been broken out. I've seen my breath outside on those brisk morns. It's officially the beginning of autumn. By afternoon, the last gasps of summer warmth is present and all the warms layers are slowly removed. Pretty soon the jacket will be a requirement for the entire day.

Field work has been plentiful and I've walked many miles already along the new powerline job. Things have been relatively uneventful. There's been a giant hornet nest that was avoided at the last minute. Sorry no photo for that! Deer have plentiful and a tragi-comic event was witnessed. A seated doe had spotted me, jumped up, and ran head first into a chain link fence. She fell on the ground, but thankfully sprung back up and ran off. If she had only originally remained seated, I would have never had known she was there.

Above is probably the last turtle of the year. This poor thing had an injury to it's shell and I was very surprised to see it considering how cold it had been that morning. Below is a type of daisy I had never seen but it sure it pretty. The flowers are like a good 2 inches across and vivid purple.

The boring zone

2009-09-27T16:30:00.003-04:00

Field work in September has been mundane or cannot be captured well via photographs. Half the time I was battling my way through deeep and thick muck that required hip waders. Taking out a camera was the last thing on my mind. Thankfully I didn't fall in since every step was precarious and at a random elevation.

The boring zone should change this week when another very large powerline job will begin. For better or worse, it'll be close to home. I'm keeping my fingers crossed we won't get accosted by angry property owners or stuck in a pick up sticks mess of cut saplings. Both of which were the norm along other large powerline jobs.

The excitement at the office this week was a photo of a mountain lion attacking a buck that was supposedly taken just across the border in Pennyslavania. Mountain lions do not occur around here so it was a hot topic. I won't show the picture even though it's not that graphic. There has been some mountain lion sightings in NJ and the surrounding states. They are likely released pets or something along those lines. But once these critters do make it here, and they will, field work will have an added danger. The photo was one of those classic my sister's husband's friend's co-worker took this. Turns out the picture originated from a hunter's camera trap in Texas. Phew!

So in the meantime, here's a couple shots at one of my relatively boring sites taken this week. At first, I thought the above head was some sort of stinging insect nest. Nope. Just a freaky unnessary head in the woods. I also saw all sorts of old barn structures. This one had all sort of carving at the top. Likely kids going to town.

Freedom!

2009-08-31T19:06:00.004-04:00

Somewhere in this top pic is a turtlet on its way to independence. Can you spot Almond? Shortly after this pic was taken the few blades of sedge gave way and Almond took a dive into the pond.

I've had Almond and Macademia since the end of April. I kept them in a small plastic container with an actual rock, no filter, and in the kitchen. That meant daily briefly container cleanings. Last time Cashew and Peanut lived in the basement with an elaborate set up of lights, timers, filters, foamy floating rock, and the displeasure of lugging the tank up and down the stairs for biweekly cleaning. Did I mention the lugging of water up and down the stairs.

Macademia featured here in these two pics was originally the larger and calmer turtle. Mac also had the pastel shade of orange and the big black dot on its belly. It seemed that Mac wanted to stay a turtlet forever since growth was difficult and at times nonexistent. Mac's shell started out at a little over an inch and ended up about 1.25 inches over a span of 4 months. En route to their new home, Mac mostly stayed still and quiet in its cup and just watched me. Mac was very eager to start a new life and quickly jumped into the water.

Almond on the other hand started out the fiesty runt with that vibrant orange belly. Almond was a voracious eater and quickly outgrew Mac. Al's shell started out under an inch and grew to over 1.5 inches. Al's a biter and out of the water loves to nip at anything that's put in front of it's mouth. I let Al take a bite on my finger months ago and it was precious, quick, and painless. When my BFF Patty came over a couple days ago, I wanted to show her my biting trick. Little did I know that Al meant business. Al grabbed on tight and held on for minutes. It was painful but entertaining. I was taught a lesson and was ready to grab tweezers to try to open Al's mouth back up. Interestingly no mark was left on my finger and no blood was drawn.

The whole drive to their new home Al was scratching and trying to get out of the cup. However, once Al was put on top of the tussock sedge it didn't want to leave and stayed still. Eventually Al fell through the blades and was seen swimming around.

I'll check on them as much as I can before the real autumn kicks in. I'm sure they are happy as clams in their new digs. I've seen babies their size there this year so they'll have some companions to show them the ropes of being wild.

Nearly final destination

2009-08-25T18:07:00.005-04:00

A little before noon, at work we heard the roar of sirens and then later helicoptors. We are all used to it since we are so close to a major highway, other big roads, and a hospital. I was leaving for lunch and encountered the UPS guy at the front door. He relayed the story that a small plane had crashed into the local mall parking lot. When I say local, I mean I can walk there if needed. I rushed back to my desk to grab my camera and headed straight there.

It was a scene as expected. Tons and tons of firefighters, police, and EMTs mostly just milling about. The plane had been foamed and the pilot and passenger, who were reported ok, were long gone.

When I got back into my car, the first song on the radio was "Rock the boat" by Aaliyah, which was the video they were shooting in Bahamas. On the way home from the shoot, their plane went down killing Aaliyah and many others. Weird stuff.

After work, I swung back around the all the news vans were out in full force. Of course, the plane and all signs of the crash were gone.

Real summer

2009-08-23T16:53:00.002-04:00

I was briefly back out doing more plant surveys. They were cut short thanks to the heat and other boring reasons. I can't say I was sad to be indoors during our short wave. I could usually handle the morning but by lunch I'd start get loopy. I'd stop caring and I'd be ready for a nap. Here's some more cool fungi about.

This is a ravaged tussock sedge, which is a clumped sedge. Some small critter must have made a nest in it and I can only assume a bear was determined to get at it.

Tomorrow I head into extreme mosquito zone from what my co-workers have said. Hopefully it won't be that bad but I'm already preparing for the worst.

The teenagers are loitering

2009-08-14T18:34:00.004-04:00

At the Great Swamp, the baby wood ducks have sprouted into adorable teens. They make the cutest cooing type noises as they manically dabble around. At that to the list of something I could watch for hours. I really should have shot some video to capture this, but now I have a zillion not so great photos instead.

For work, the rare plant surveys continue. I was out solo today sweating it out and hoofing up large hills and over rock outcrops. I was in bear and rattlesnake country and in the middle of nowhere. If I fell or something happened, I would be miles from the nearest road and in dense swamp or brush on top of that. I actually did end up falling on a slimy leaning boardwalk over the deeper part of the swamp, but I'm fine. I've fallen three times in the past week. The soles of my rubber boots must be past their prime and worn down. Good times! The goldenrod was almost as tall as me. Love the bees and other pollinating stinging insects at face level! Thankfully I made it ok and I stopped by the black vulture nest on my way out. The teenagers were out lurking on the rocks. I gave them a pep talk and they flew off.

Pre-wash

2009-08-05T18:45:00.003-04:00

Today we were back out doing a rare plant survey. With all this crazy rain this summer, the fungi have really outdone themselves. I really wish I had taken that fungi ID class back in college. But I just make up names for them. Above is "orange slices" and below is "car wash sponge". Not pictured here is "french fries" and "golden french fries."

The weather held steady at hot and humid in the morning. I had heard on the weather report that thunderstorms were predicted in the afternoon. I foolishly decided that this report didn't apply to me and left the rain gear behind. Of course, the heavens opened up in the afternoon and at a point miles from the car. Thankfully we had some warning so cell phones and camera got secured in a ziploc bag. My paper field guides got stowed in a water resistent backpack and we braced for the worst. At first, the rain was caught by the trees and we remained relatively dry. Then the trees could hold no more and we started getting wet. It was refreshing in the beginning. But then the intensity increased and we quickly hit saturation. We were being powerwashed. Nevermind the thunder while we carried large metal sticks in the woods. At first, we were going to finish up our work in the rain since we only had one small spot to do. But once it got to the point we couldn't hear each other talk from a reasonable distance and the ground became very slippery, so we quickly headed back to the truck. We hunkered down for at least 15 minutes and the rain eased. We finished up (without our metal walking sticks, field guides, or camera) for the final leg and even went and did another very small site after that. Of course we stumbled upon another box turtle chowing down on some fungus so I couldn't get a pic of that happy chap.

But here's some pretty cardinal flowers we found in the morning. The pics don't do it justice. The red so vibrant it is almost florescent red.

Mystery plants, berries, mosquitoes, and more

2009-07-30T19:17:00.003-04:00

Today I was out again doing a rare plant survey. Almost immediately out of the truck we were assaulted by swarms of mosquitoes. They didn't care how much bug spray or how strong it was. I did bring my fashionable head net, which helped a bit. I'm sad to say my arms and neck took the brunt of the assault. Thankfully later in the heat of the afternoon, they tapered off for a bit and I could take off my head net. But I will remember this site not for the mosquitoes, but rather for the extremely large and juicy blueberries. There were also black huckleberries (also yum), blackberries, dewberries (which I think I ate but I'm not sure what happens during a berry feeding frenzy), and black blueberries. Yup. There's something called a black highbush blueberry. I didn't totally key out the shrub, but I know it exists so I'm pretty sure I ate some of them. Here's a pic of some of those large and juicy blueberries...not the black blueberries though.

Above is a mystery non-plant. It was growing all over the boulders and I'm not sure if it's a lichen or fungus. It sure was cool looking though.

We stumbled upon this lady box turtle chowing down on some fungus. It was a bit awkward and I felt like we were intruding on her private gorging so we quickly moved on.

Last there were a ton of cool fungus out. These are one of the few pics that came out mostly focused.

A brief escape

2009-07-27T17:05:00.002-04:00

I just got back from my summer Vermont trip. Aside from the usual activities, we headed up to Mt. Mansfield, which is the tallest peak in Vermont. There's a toll road that takes you most of the way. We had a full load and my car wasn't particularly happy with the all uphill and windy climb. But we made it and it was worth it. The weather wasn't great with clouds pouring over the ridge. This made a great howl by the tv towers and the visitor shack on top. We didn't make it all the way to top, but that's fine. The experience was well worth it.

Here's the view from one-third of the way up the toll road.

Here's the view at the highest spot we hiked to. At some points the rolling clouds got so intense the only thing would could see if the spot we were standing on.

Most nights I headed out around dusk to check out the wildlife. I headed down the driveway and spotted something along the edge. At first I thought it was a tree stump. Then I shockingly thought it was a coyote. Then this object jumped up and ran full speed at me. Luckily it didn't bite and was just a shepard mix. We walked to the end of the driveway where I was expecting to find her owner. Nope. Not a soul in sight. I checked the tags and it gave her name "Kayla" and some phone numbers. Unfortunately I had no phone on me. I directed Kayla to go home and followed her. We went up the dead end. The first house had no lights on and no cars in the driveway so we kept going. We finally made it the very large house at the end. Lights were on and I could see a dog bowl on the steps. These were good signs that she had made it home. I rang the doorbell and a woman answered. I asked if that was her dog. Nope Kayla was not home. I asked the woman if I could use her phone to call the numbers. Thankfully someone answered and the dog was from another nearby dead end. The owners said they would come by. Many minutes passed and no sign. So we called again and eventually they showed up. Kayla was overjoyed. Turns out she had been given a bath and was upset about that and took off. They said she would've eventually make it back home but there was no way I'd let her be outside alone considering darkness was imminent and there's coyotes and bears out. The owners had this awesome old fashioned jeep or something like that and we all hopped in. But the headlights were tempermental so I lit the way with my sad flashlight.

2009-07-19T15:03:00.003-04:00

This week I finally got some real field work. It was a plant survey which means identifying and keying out every plant you see along a route. We started out writing down everything, which was way too much work. After all we were searching for endangered plants so we just wrote down the unusual stuff. By the end of the day we still have some mystery plants, which were not in my field guide. Along the way, I spotted this dramatic Canada lily where the flowers open towards the ground. I am crouching below it to get this shot.

About mid-morning I spotted this giant bug on the back of birdman's vest. It was several inches long and I had never seen such a thing. I snapped this photo and showed it to him. We spent some time taking photos and attempting to extricate it off his vest. It mostly played dead and each touch I was expecting it to leap up and attack. I messaged one of my bosses who knows bugs and he identified it as a eyed elater.

Later we spotted the tiniest froglets I had every seen. I caught one and tried to take a photo but alas everyone came out super blurry. The froglet was about the size of a honeybee to give some perspective. When I grabbed it I held it's back legs in place and thankfully I didn't cause any damage to the little fellow.

Below is one of the mystery plants. It certainly seems easy enough to key out. It just wasn't in the field guide.

The big downer of the day was the constant mosquitos swarms. Nothing was going to stop them and I have the bites on my arms and face to show for. I also found two ground bees and hornets nests. Thankfully I spotted them in time and the occupants were relatively relaxed. I'm sure come next month they won't be so relaxed.

A year in the making

2009-07-12T17:37:00.007-04:00

This short video is a year in the making. In retrospect, I really should have taken a photo every single month. Maybe this time next year, I'll repost a better product. Seasonal change is an ongoing process rather than giant leaps.

Tahoe clips

2009-07-03T16:02:00.003-04:00

90 percent of my videos are accidental. They are usually narrated by me saying "Damn. I'm shooting a video." The above very short Tahoe clip is the usual....it's 2 seconds long. I actually wish I shot a normal length video. The below video is my mostly failed attempt at capturing the sound of the wind blowing through the pines. That's not static you hear in the background.

Cabin #3

2009-06-25T18:24:00.007-04:00

I just got back from my jam-packed Cali vacation/ Cokane's wedding. The first day I flew from NJ to San Fran. It was a 6 hour continuosly turbulent flight that would be immediately followed by a 3.5 hour drive to Tahoe. I already knew I'd miss the wedding rehearsal, but I was hopeful that I could make the rehearsal dinner. I left the airport a little before 4 pm. Unfortunately it was mostly a 10 mph crawl along Route 80 to Fairfield. Bay area folks, is this normal??? At that point, hours had passed and I decided to venture into the hills of Napa to get to my pitstop at Davis. It was pretty much all twists and turns along hills alternating from being blinded by the sun to dark woods. Gorgeous scenery that I really couldn't enjoy. I get to Davis at 8 pm and after that there was no traffic. My 3.5 hour drive turned into 6+ hours. I was dead tired and my eyes were bloodshot when I stumbled into Tahoe. Even in my tired delirium, I did enjoy the scent of pines and hearing the wind blow through them.

The next morning I headed to Cal Neva for the wedding. I happily checked into Cabin 3, which is Marilyn Monroe's cabin. For those who didn't have the privilege of seeing my Pepto Bismol pink childhood bedroom, it was usually covered with posters and pictures that changed throughout the years. During junior high, there was a ton of Marilyn posters and pics. Although the posters and pics have come down, I still am a follower. So I was super excited at the prospect of sleeping in a place that she spent time in. Cokane gave me the brief synopsis of the supposed haunts of the cabin. Ghost hunting is another favorite of mine, so it was a double bonus.

After the wedding reception, I scurried back to the cabin. Most everything in the cabin is not original. So that was a downer. The two things I wished had been updated was to make the cabin non-smoking and fix whatever plumbing problems were going on in the bathroom. To say it reeked would be an understatement. Cal Neva folks, here's my wish for Cabin #3. Replace the 1990's country decor with authentic 1950's/60's style decor. You must have pictures somewhere that you can use as a template. Make the cabin non-smoking and fix the plumbing. Fix the deck and put some furniture out there. Put up some of those authentic pictures of the rat pack and the Cal Neva. Then you can really charge a lot for the cabin, but it would worth it.

I quickly realized that my blooshot eyes were likely due to allergies. My nose also was running like a faucet. I went to bed a little after 1 am and was in the not quite asleep phase for awhile. Around 2:30 am, I rolled over onto my belly. Then it felt like the bed was shaking. I flipped back over and tried to sort out what was going on. Then I realized my pulse was going double time. I've had that problem before when I take decongestants, but I hadn't taken any. I also had very little caffeine in my system. I knew there was no way I could sleep with my pulse going so quick, so I watched like an hour of trash tv. The rest of the night was a restless, but unremarkable night. I woke up super early and opened all the windows again and took a mostly unpleasant shower. My eyes were still bloodshot and it felt like there was a weight on my chest. I decided to head out of Tahoe quickly in hopes of feeling better.

By the time I got to the coast, which was a few days later, my eyes were clear and that weight on my chest had been lifted. I am not a doctor and the brief google search didn't pan out any clear info. Whether it was allergies, reaction to the smoke/sewerage scented room, the spiritworld, something else, or a combination of things, I'll never really know what caused my pulse to go crazy.

Wee one

2009-06-14T14:08:00.004-04:00

Turtle season is winding down. This weekend I only went out to two sites and the weather was not ideal. It was very cloudy and on the cool side. It was pouring a few miles away. The first site I found this little one. I had been shoving my hand in a mucky hole and noticed it in the mud nearby. I grabbed it and was not able to confidently identify it since it pulled istelf into its shell. I consulted my supervisor and she was unsure as well. So we waited a few minutes to see if it would come out of its shell and reveal it's true identity. No such luck. She suggested putting it on the white pages of the notebook since she's had luck that way. Still no movement so I started walking through the marsh with the open notebook and wee one on top. I felt like a waiter. I must have walked around at least 20 minutes and progress was slow. After 10 minutes, one foot was out. Then another. From my observations of my baby painted turtles, I've seen this vibrations of the limbs. They start moving them in and out a wee bit. This is a sign that the limbs will come out. I added a small snail to the notebook in hopes that a friend would help. The snail ended up on top of the turtlet and still no real progress. Finally all limbs were out but the head was still mostly in and it started walking around like that. Finally the head came out just enough and the telltale mark was seen. It was a super rare turtlet. It was put back where we found it and off it went into the muck. Live strong wee one!

A Great Personality

2009-06-10T19:54:00.003-04:00

The weather hasn't been too cooperative for successful turtling. I did get out today for a few hours and thankfully the weather held. This site is huge and in south jersey. I'm used to north jersey sites and this site has very deep water and muck. Plus there's the floating effect of walking on a mat of vegetation that doesn't quite hit solid ground. Every step that's taken is met with thousands of bubbles and ripples of vegetation and water going out in every direction. Did I mention the random bottomless pits? So every step is calculated and tested before full commitment. It's so deep that I bought hip waders. I sort of feel like a pirate.

The super rare turtles at this site are the most unattractive. Their shells have been deformed or eaten away presumably by the acid in the soils. We are not sure what is going on here. When I spotted this lady, at first I thought she was dead from her appearance. Second, I wasn't sure exactly what species she was. But all worked out and she put up a good fight while I measured her and took notes.

This weekend I noticed a large dead snapping turtle along the road in my local wetlands. It didn't look run over but each time I went by it was in a slightly different spot. Today it was fully on the road and pretty beat up. I guess some scavengers have been moving it...either that or kids have nothing better to do. Monday after work I drove by and spotted two small turtles on the road. At first I was excited, but that quickly turned south when I realized they had both been run over. In years past, I've helped a bunch of turtles cross the road in the area. It just might be time for some turtle xing signs to go up.

Ehn!

2009-05-31T18:27:00.003-04:00

There's only a couple more weeks of turtling. I spent a good chunk of sunday out and about. I found two super rare turtles, so that always makes it a good turtling day. The feisty one, pictured here, shows why it's hard to take notes, measure the turtle, and hold the turtle. Note the claws of the back legs digging into my fingers and the "ehn!" expression.

Here's an abandoned church that I often pass while turtling. It has a graveyard, which I'm sure is just as interesting. One day I'll have to come back to further investigate. Check out the large boulder blocking the basement entrance.
The dame's rocket is in full bloom. I always love watching the cycle of wildflowers and shrubs that go throughout the seasons. What I don't love is the cycle of annoying bugs. Today my head was constantly being orbited by some blackflies.

Small, smaller, and smallest

2009-05-25T15:38:00.002-04:00

This extendo weekend I spent some time turtling. I ventured out to a couple sites, one of which is close to the homestead. Both turtling outings had less than ideal weather. It was way too hot in my book. That means the turtles would not be out basking, but rather hiding in the mud and water. The home site had previously resulted in a bunch of dead turtles. I was hopeful that my luck would be much better.

I spotted a small spotted turtlet within a few minutes of getting there. It was puttering along in the water but i managed to grab her. This site is mostly bottomless, so foot travel is slow and methodical.

This site has a bunch of fallen trees, which I use to shimmy along the deeper water areas. Balance beam was never my strong suit in gymnastics and the thought of bottomless pits on either side is enough to get my vertigo going. The smaller turtlet was spotted in one of those pools. I managed to grab her without taking a header into those pools.

The final spotted turtlet was found much later. It was just relaxing in the shade in a puddle surrounded by cattails. So I found my three turtles and headed back to the car. All and all it was a good day.

50% skill, 50% luck

2009-05-23T16:22:00.003-04:00

The super rare turtle quest has turned out well this season. Most of my super rare turtle finds have been made under great duress. It's been at the end of the day when I'm tired, hungry, thirsty, feeling depressed/cursed, etc. A recent time I was out with two of my bosses and they were finding turtles left and right. They had a bunch of hatchlings and I was coming up empty-handed. Cue the internal cursing and damning! One boss found a turtle within a minute of coming into a site I had only ever found one turtle. It was my nemesis site. Then we hit one last site at the end of the day. I was running on fumesand ready to quit all super rare turtle searching for good. I think we've all been in that place before. Let's just say I was going to call this post "Frustration!" Then within 10 minutes at this final site I spotted a super rare turtle underwater. Jackpot! I searched another 30 minutes. Nothing. It was getting so warm I could tell my face was totally flushed. My water was dwindling and very warm. Yum! I'm turning back to head towards the car and I spot a super rare turtle partially hidden under the tussock curtain, as I call it. He appears to be standing motionless and all appendages are out. I grab him and realize that another turtle was below him. I think we all know what was going on here. I grab her and she's mad as hell. All appendages are flailing and he's completely pulled in and motionless. He could have been asleep for all I know. The happy or unhappy couple is pictured here. I think you can figure out who's the girl. That's my second two for the price of one this season. I seen to have the rated r turtle luck.

So in all, I believe that most things in life require 50 percent skill/knowledge and the other 50 percent is luck/karma/x factor. When I'm searching for turtles, it's that x factor of finding them. I always feel like I'm zigging when I should be zagging when I can't find them. What if I went to the left when I should have gone to the right! But that luck eventually has to change.

Trying to make lemonade

2009-05-17T13:39:00.006-04:00

This week was mostly spent outside. My hand tan is unfortunately already in full effect . Most of the week was turtling. Things didn't go quite as I had hoped. The first two days were spent in allergy hell. I guess it was the location and having to kick up a lot of pollen by bushwacking the skunk cabbage. I was exhausted and had a non-stop sinus headache while outside. Thankfully I had a reprieve by the Wednesday, but I paid for it by falling on a rocky slope. I got a bruised ego and skinned knee out of it. Who knew that binoculars bounce? Apparently they do. Did I mention that I seem to be tick magnet this season? Yup that's still going. I just love pulling them out of my hair after I brushed and checked my head.

Even though the quest for the super rare turtle has been a tough go, I was able to find a less rare larger turtle. Of course, they are huge and pretty easy to spot. I'm just glad I didn't totally skunked (finding no turtles) as we say in the biz.

Just another weekend

2009-05-10T20:23:00.004-04:00

Super rare turtle quest continues. Things have been slow considering the wacky weather we've had this spring. This weekend was gorgeous and I tried to take full advantage. I headed to the swamp to check on the spotted and painted turtles. The few turtles I did see were chowing down on the veg. No a single turtle was out basking. I saw this water snake who took extreme measures to find a spot to bask. It's hard to tell from this angle, but this guy was basking on top of a shrub with like a foot drop to the water. Don't move otherwise you'll fall in! Following the swamp visit, I tried to check out a new turtle site. Unfortunately it was along a brook that was completely flooded out from the extreme rain. So mission was aborted.

Then today I headed out to three sites that don't have many rare turtles, if any at all. I wasn't 100 percent sure I wanted to make the effort today, but then I got word that a co-worker found a super rare turtle there yesterday. So I immediately bolted out the door and scrambled there. I saw another co-worker had beaten me to the punch, but he didn't find any. He reluctantly left and thought I would find the turtle as soon as he left. I ended up spending a long time, but I came up empty handed. I headed to another site that I love, but it only has one lonely snapping turtle, which is the not the object of my search. I greeted snappy and went about my thing. Again, I came up empty handed. The third site I had never been to. I thought I had found the best place to park and walk in. I battled my in and went about my search. Nothing! On the drive out, I decided to do an immediate drive by and of course there was a fantastic place to park right next to it. Rats! Well there will be a next time.

A Tale from turtling

2009-05-03T16:38:00.004-04:00

I've been out turtling as much as I can...weather permitting of course. The weather this spring has been whacky to say the least. We've had possibly record breaking heat followed by near freezing temperatures. It's now raining and cold and more of the same is predicted for most of the week. Not good turtling weather.

But given the hectic work schedule, I've had to make lemons out of lemonade. That's why we had to go out turtling at a very large site on the insanely hot day. We started out early to avoid the heat, but that didn't matter considering we had to spend about 3.5 hours out there. The vegetation was very dense shrubs peppered with swamp rose. I forgot my garden clippers so getting through was even more difficult. To add to the mess, every once in awhile you would stumble upon a bottomless open pit, which had to be carefully navigated. Boredom and exhaustion came early. No turtles were spotted. I did spot a couple water snakes and a newt....that was my excitement. To add insult to injury, dozens of ticks were continuously invading me. Each time I crashed through and even brushed up against a shrub, at least 5 ticks would hitch a ride on me. Of course, I was the only one in the group that had this problem. I did spray myself with bug spray, but since I didn't wear hip waders (opted for the lighter and cooler rubber knee boots...if you can call them that), I was the object of their affection. A few hours in I hear a co-worker yell to another "mumble mumble bear heading mumble mumble." I immediately jump out of my heat/boredom coma and come rushing towards the action. From what I learned is that all the skunk cabbage had been eaten in one area. I know exactly what that means....beartown. My co-worker then spotted a boulder and thought it was a good spot to rest on. Turns out the bear was resting on the other side! My co-worker did a silent and quick retreat and another co-worker unknowingly came upon the scene. Other co-worker made some noises and whistles and the bear took off.

So I am borrowing my hedge clippers from the family for the next visit....if that happens. If it does happen, you can all guess where I will be heading towards first. Don't worry, I won't be bringing it any snacks. I just want a peek....after all 3.5 hours is a long time for turtling.

Introducing Almond and Macademia

2009-04-27T19:00:00.003-04:00

Well, I'm a foster turtle mommy again. My co-worker found some painted turtles hatchlings coming out of nests in the ground. He harvested the 11 hatchlings and had been taking care of all of them on his own. His backyard pond has been drained so it isn't good habitat for the hatchlings. So here I go again! I certainly enjoy watching them and bonding with them, but I hate all the cleanup that goes along with it. It's no fun lugging all the water, tank, and all the fixins up and down to the basement and the every other week tank cleaning. So I'm downsizing their home in order to reduce the cleaning burden. Their new home is a medium sized tupperware with some pebbles for basking spots. I plan on buying a larger tupperware in order to accomodate their light. I figure they won't need a heat lamp. It certainly is warm enough and even warmer in the house, rather than the basement. Almond aka Al and Macademia aka Mac are relaxing on the deck right now soaking in the unseasonable warmth and hopefully some natural sun. I plan on releasing them in early fall back to nature.

Here's Mac in a quiet moment. Mac has a dot on its belly and is slightly bigger than Al.

Al was even more uncooperative during the photo shoot. Al has a nice orange belly thanks to the dried krill food.

Death cometh

2009-04-19T19:29:00.003-04:00

This week marked the beginning of the super rare turtle quest for the year. The weather was awesome on friday and saturday. On saturday, I hit the local area which was also known for a lot of spotted turtles, which are super cute. The wetland is remote and I have a cross a river, which makes it even more challenging. Plus, the wetland is most likely bottomless. So you are basically walking upon a network of plant and tree roots with no solid ground for quite a distance. I hit the area quite late on saturday. It was hot and the sun was starting to set. All was pretty quiet and then I spotted a large dead snapping turtle. It was sad to see, but I didn't think much of it. I was slowly making my way around the perimeter and I see what I think is a glistening blackened leaf. Then I realize it's a turtle belly. I see another proper side up turtle near it. I'm thinking woohoo although why is the turtle upside down! I slowly amble my way over since walking is difficult and I try to correct the belly up turtle. It doesn't move. It's stone dead. Then I poke the other turtle. It's dead too! Both are marked spotted turtles. I really don't understand. I then sadly continue on and see another medium sized dead snapping turtle. So it was a pretty sad journey and it seems like they deaths were pretty recent since they didn't smell or almost looked like they could be alive. I did see a live painted turtle on the river,

On my way out, I saw this carpet of wild leeks. I've never seen so many leeks in one spot.

New residents

2009-04-13T16:28:00.002-04:00

During the last big wind and rain storm awhile back, I noticed some new residents. They were a pair of American crows. At first, I wasn't sure if they weren't just two crows up to crow tricks, which includes pillaging nests. Nope. It turns out it's their own stick nest. Most of the time you wouldn't notice them. But then it comes time for their incessant cawing on nearby limbs to keep away any other crows. But of course, other crows are curious and always looking for a fight. So smackdown ensues. Hopefully their nest will be sucessful. I haven't seen any crow-lets before.

A good start to spring

2009-04-05T16:12:00.007-04:00

Update: My coworker went out to the site with the "root cellars" (actually old wells) and that bitten up tree. He ran into two bears, which quickly ran off when they spotted him.

This past week I got to spend two beautiful days alone out in the field. The beauty of being alone is that you can go at your own speed and enjoy nature as you go. Tuesday was the best day of the bunch. Unfortunately it was one of those days were photo opportunaties didn't quite work out. I spent the morning searching for salamanders, turtles, and other herps. Things were going relatively normal until I decided to walk back to the car along the edge of the pond. It had recently rained and I was surprised to have not seen any spotted salamander eggs, especially since my co-worker had found an adult on the shore the past week. Then bam, I spotted an egg mass and then another and another (see horrible pic above...all those clumps are egg masses). Then I spotted a pile of egg masses. They looked freshly laid since they hadn't had a chance to absorb water and grow so big. The pile of egg masses looked like coral. Then I shifted my focus under the water and I saw at least three big adult salamanders running/swimming like hell away from the pile. I grabbed one and it was the skirmiest, biggest, and slipperiest salamander I ever held. My snake stick was in the other hand so I had to handle it with only one hand. I battled my way back to shore, but I eventually lost the battle and the salamander dropped out of my hand and into the water. Mind you when I had first spotted the first egg mass I was at capacity with the boots. I had about an inch from the water line to the top of my boots. Well that all went to hell and one foot got quite wet and my arm sleeve was drenched once the commotion started. I tried to go back and get another salamander but the water had become so clouded and the salamanders were wise to the invasive giant.

Other morning highlights was seeing a spotted turtle, a painted turtle, and hearing a pickerel frog call. The the lowlight of this site was getting a deer tick biting into my belly. That would be two deer ticks bites this year and from this same site! Thankfully I seem to be ok.

The afternoon I headed to another site, which was part of a state park. It had beautiful woods and a nice stream. Also there were two old structures along the stream, which I imagine were used to keep food cold....or something like that. I also found an old homestead and piles of junk. All of this was again time suckers.

When I had first stepped foot on the site, I noticed what appeared to be porcupine poop. I also noticed this action on a tree, which was right next to some old bear poop. So I was on medium alert for some bear action. I'm pretty sure this is gnawing from either squirrels or porcupine. I guess they like birch beer as well.

Team Spring

2009-03-29T16:01:00.003-04:00

My cuz, I, and her foster black lab Quentin headed out to Hacklebarney on Saturday for some hiking. Quentin is my cousin's mom's boyfriend's dog. Since Quentin's owner is away on business so often, my cousin and her hubby are taking care of him. Quentin is the endless welcome wagon to any person or animal and will happily jump in any person's car or join a new family. We met a couple awesome dogs and their owners on our hike, which happily joined into a friendly dog run-about. The scenery was nice and it was a hike where most trail signs were ignored. By the end of the day though we were wondering where we were in Hacklebarney. We tentatively followed a "parking area this way" sign, but I was beginning to think we may be headed to a parking area on the other side of the park. But we lucked out and we didn't have to double back.

Following our hike, we were all in need for some refreshments. I had a farm in mind but it was sadly closed. So we headed to another local farm, where they have farm animals out and about as well. We were greeted by a large loose goat. I was imaging the goat head butting Quentin, but the goat was only interested in food. We let Quentin meet most of the farm animals. The kids were so cute.

March Madness

2009-03-21T18:34:00.003-04:00

Work has went from almost nothing to insanely busy in a span of about a week. Spring has sprung and field work has been kicked off. Hawk, owl, salamander, and frog surveys are up and running. The crush of this new work has led to some office drama...as usual. There's been way too many chefs in the kitchen syndrome where everyone has an opinion about everything. I'm so done with the office drama that my operating mode is mind my own business and let the others shoot themselves in their own feet.

Good posts should follow now that I'm back out and about. Here's a spotted salamander my co-worker found while we were out at a site. All I found was some sort of old hooked axe in the woods. I'll be sure to take a pic since it's sitting in my basement.

I hear you Stains!

2009-03-08T17:35:00.003-04:00

I am slowly recovering from the plague that hit the office. I have occasional congestion and the cough has lingered. To compound the recovery, one of the trees that I think I'm to is starting to bloom. But on nice days like this, I have been out and about outside. Today I took my first bike ride of the year. It was nice to combine a workout and being outside. I'm trying to work off the winter weight. Of course that means any sort of no-no food is an instant temptation. So I've become a bit like Stains the dog as seen here.

Quarantine!

2009-02-26T16:15:00.003-05:00

That's the sign that should posted outside my office and home right now. We were struck down by some virus early this week. Half my work group has been out sick for multiple days. I started feeling symptoms late sunday and by monday morning my sore throat, tiredness, and aches and pains were in full effect. I still had hope that I could kick it and thought the others were working outside. Come tuesday, cue the sinus congestion, sneezing, and occasional cough. I then found out that I was the only one who made it to the work from my row of cubbies. Even birdman, who never takes sick days had been out monday and tuesday. I told the higher ups that I would be taking the rest of the week off using vacation time since I had so much time. By wednesday, everything had kicked it up a notch. I didn't get a full night of sleep thanks to my ailments. I was either in bed or on the couch all wednesday. I knew that my cough was the result of draining sinuses, so I was hesitant to take anything to stop it. But trying to sleep last night, I had it with the non-stop cough and pulled out the big guns. I had some ancient prescription "do not drive or operate heavy machinery" type cough medicine. I had barely one dose and boy did it do the trick. I don't think I coughed once at night and was able to mostly sleep through the night. When I did wake up in the middle of the night, I felt very relaxed (no aches/pains) and don't have to cough. It was a lovely and restful 14 hour sleep. Today I'm feeling less congested, but everything else is still present. The cough has kicked it up a notch. I have a doc appointment tomorrow so hopefully I'll be on the road to recovery by that time.

Owl paparazzi

2009-02-22T15:51:00.002-05:00

A couple rare owls have been roosting along a dead end road not that far from my house. Even if it was the common great horned owl, I'd be checking it out since seeing owls are not a common experience for me. The owls hang out in evergreen trees literally along the road. You don't even have to get your feet dirty. The first I checked them out I was only there for like 15 minutes and two cars drove up and joined in the fun. As I was leaving, I could see that two kids from the second car were running full speed towards the owls. I was cringing at what the owls must have thought. I was sure they would fly off and that would be the end of the owl show. But when I went by today, they were still there in the same tree. The bf and I were mulling about in the road mostly gawking at the obscenely slow car show that was going on. A mercedes was driving at like 1 mph with two cars behind it. One car ran out of patience and passed it. The other car suffered behind it. Finally the mercedes was at us. I expected a "Hey. Do you know where the owls are?" type chat. Nope it was "I shouldn't have to tell you but you shouldn't walking around by the owls. You should only observe them from your car." The bf and I really had no response since there's no reasoning with the insane. The bf and I were being respectful, quiet, and gave the owls their space except for the couple quick photo shots. Plus if the owls were so upset, then it was easy enough for them to fly off or move away from the road. Then the mercedes popped it in reverse and was about to ram the car behind it. The long suffering car behind it finally had enough and passed it. We headed back to the car and watched the benz turn around and head back again at 1 mph. We saw one of the following cars had parked so we joined them. We comiserated on the insane benz antics.

Both outings had troublesome weather conditions. High winds on day one for the pic below. But I think it came out kind of cool. The top pic was during the rain on day two.

A preview of spring

2009-02-15T16:12:00.004-05:00

Last week, we had a brief taste of spring. The weather was unseasonably mild and sunny. It seemed like everyone was outside enjoying the brief respite from winter. I scrambled to go out in the field to this nice mature wooded site in northern New Jersey. We were looking for owls and potential nests. It was a site where the walking was easy and the prickers were kept at a minimum. No owls were spotted but several stick nests and one tree cavity were noted. We'll keep our eyes on those when the season officially starts in March.

This very large wooded site and the warm weather had me on alert for bears. There just has to be some hibernating bears on this site, but I didn't see any signs. Maybe up in the higher hills which we mostly avoided. Apparently some bears will wake up in the middle of winter if the weather is warm. They will come out and look for food. Once the weather turns wintry, they head back into hibernation mode. I'm predicting at some point in the future that bears will no longer hibernate in New Jersey. The easy access to garbage and the warming trend will make them a year-round presence.

One thing of interest during my outing was this large tree that is propped up. Either the ground subsided or perhaps the tree grew partially on top of a rotting stump. After awhile the stump would go back to nature and voila you have a tree that's raised up. These are all just theories of course. I also found this interesting rock with all sorts of pastel shades. The picture does not show it well, so you'll just have to try to visualize it.

After our warm spell, we had over a day worth of insane wind. People were killed by falling trees and trees were down everywhere. It was so windy at the office that I thought someone was humming when I first walked in. Then I realized it was the wind howling through the cracks and heating/a/c roof units. It also sounded like someone's cell phone vibrator was going crazy from the wind. I don't know if this wind vane was the casuality of this storm or that's just the way it's always been. But this sad weather vane that I made the bf take a photo was at East Jersey Olde Town. My camera just couldn't get a good far away shot. While at Olde Town, everything was given a prefix of "olde." We didn't take the tour to see the insides of the old buildings so I peered in the windows instead. So there was ye olde electric outlet, handicap ramp, card table, folding chairs, a/c unit, etc. It was a bit of a bummer to see the insides mostly filled with folding chairs and other modern day office junk. But what can you do.

Hibernation mode

2009-02-09T13:45:00.002-05:00

Winter hibernation mode has continued. Field work has been slim to none with nothing of interest to report on. In addition, it feels like every week there's a mini winter storm event. The bf and I have ventured to Great Swamp a bunch of times in past month. Rough-legged (that's pronounced legg-ed for you non bird nerds). We've also seen at a great distance some other interesting but I only really enjoy rare birds at a close proximity.

This weekend I attempted to have a stay-cation where I didn't do anything. During vacuuming, I randomly pulled my back. So I'm tending to a sore back. Then I noticed a large puddle underneath the kitchen sick. Turns out the sprayer is leaking and dripping down below. Dad was summoned and he bought a new sprayer which turned out to be cracked and also leaking. Old leaky was put back on and now lives lying in the sink to avoid creating a new puddle below the sink. I can't say that lying underneath the sink did any good things to my back. But I guess that's how it goes.

Aside from the bad weekend events, spring was still trying to get a head start. It broke 50 degrees on sunday and the windows were open and jackets were optional. Given my back situation and attempts at relaxation, I started and finished the daily coyote book. I highly recommend it to anyone.

Neverending Xmas tree

2009-01-20T20:37:00.006-05:00

Update: The tree came down on January 31. I could have held out at least another week or so. Needles were still not really shedding unless manhandled. But all is down and the tree is now secret wildlife habitat.

Many years back I had a Christmas tree that I swear lasted until nearly Mardi Gras. The needles just wouldn't drop and it finally turned yellow. It found a new home in the woods behind my parent's place. I think it held its needles for a year. Looks like I have another contender. It has barely shed any needles and continues to drink an ample amount of water everyday. I enjoy having a tree with its lights and ambience. If I could I would have a decorated tree year-round indoors. So if don't be surprised if come February the tree is still around.

Mixed bag

2009-01-11T21:24:00.005-05:00

Work has ramped up after the holidays. I've even managed to do some field work in between the winter weather. Winter field work isn't as bad as summer field work. It just takes a lot more preparation and clothing. Moving around and writing takes significantly longer. The good news is that the multiple layers of clothing makes any thorns a non-issue.

Here's some scenes of my latest outdoor adventures. Not pictured is the large amount of feral cats at this site. The cats seemed to relatively happy considering the situation and the cold temps. The site was next to a senior center so I'm sure they are getting their bellies full from the blue hairs living in it.

After the latest snow, I ventured out to check out turtle mecca. It suprised me that it still smelled like a swamp. Gotta love that swamp gas. Santa gave me a kick ass mammal tracks book and I'd like to learn how to track critters. Unfort I couldn't make out any real details on these tracks. Better luck next time.

Meet 9 point

2008-12-28T15:43:00.002-05:00

There's a hot stud that's been hanging out by my place. He likes to come around in the afternoon and check on the fallen bird seed. He has four points on one antler and five points on the other. You can see the one bizarro antler point that points straight down. Today he was hanging out with a much smaller buck and they ran off together. I guess it's back to male bonding time after the rut.

Snow Day!

2008-12-19T12:13:00.002-05:00

It's snowing! We are under a winter storm warning with a potential of 4 to 8 inches of snow. I'm guessing we'll be on the lower end of that. The flakes started nice and fat and now they are barely noticeable. I'm hoping that doesn't mean sleet and rain are on their way. Boo to that.

I'm fortunate to have the ability to work from home. Almost everyone in my company can do that. I mean the technology is there, so why not use it. So why is that some people still insist on coming in. Must be that annoying martyr syndrome again. There are still some people that are technologically challenged but let's get with the program. It's not that hard to log on to the server from your home computer.

In preparation for the snow, I went to check on one of my secret and "illegal" bird feeders stashed in the bushes. It was gone. No doubt stolen by raccoons. I went around the nearby woods edge to see if I could spot it on the ground and noticed an almost identical bird feeder hanging (with food) in a tree along woods edge. I knew it was not mine. So someone else has a dirty little secret like me. I also hung up my other bird feeders on the deck and the birds have been going crazy for it.

Some thoughts

2008-12-16T19:29:00.006-05:00

I haven't had any eventful field work or weekend outings lately. As you can see, winter is here a bit early and it's snowing as I type. So here's some thoughts and things going on.

I survived the company's holiday party and the accompanying bad news speech. Somehow I was at the table with the president and other major higher ups. Also present were two admin staff who were trying to start some major gossip about two married co-workers (not married to each other). At least that's who I think they were talking about since they wouldn't completely spill the beans. I'll keep my skeptical eye on that situation, but right now I'm a non-believer.

No raises and decreased bonuses again this year. Fantastic! Today I was just told that they won't be supplying tissues to us anymore. What next? Bring your own toilet paper? Work has been slow to come through the door but I'm always looking for ways to organize, market, or improve the office. I've been trying to keep busy. Aside from the lack of tissues, another thing that really irks me is that sick people still come into work. I'm not sure if they want to be sainted for their valiant effort. But seriously, you will only spread your disease to others and it's not like we are busy. So stay home and get better!

In non-work news, I've been battling somewhat of a medical mystery. I've spent way too much time and money at doctors and pharmacy and getting poked and prodded this month. What I have learned is that everyone should do their own research. Don't totally rely on doctors, because your ailment may not be their #1 speciality. They don't explore alternative or most up-to-date treatments. Plus these days, any sort of test is farmed out to a lab....so annoying. You can't even get a stinking x-ray at a doctor's office anymore. The internets are a fantastic place and I'm keeping my fingers crossed with my self-diagnosis and treatment. So far the kartek diagnosis and treatment has been the most successful. In theory, I'll hear the results of my tests tomorrow. If I was wagering, I'd say that the tests would all come back normal and provide no new information. Then I'd be back to square one...just poorer and more frazzled.

The Slow times

2008-12-05T19:44:00.002-05:00

Work's been slow. I'm sure a lot of people are saying that. So the few times I can escape the mundane slow moving office, it's a treat. Here's some forgotten pics I took on my day two at the big farm estate. It sure was cold that morning as I crunched through the ice in my car and on foot. The rain had stopped in the middle of the night and froze on all the plants making it appear like winter. For some reason, the dried goldenrod mesmorized me. I guess it was extra white and in the best dried shape before it slowly decomposes over winter.

Groundhog day

2008-11-25T15:37:00.003-05:00

The state is out verifying the wetland boundary we delineated eons ago at that big farm estate. Since a lot of time has passed, a bunch of our wetland flags are missing. They either got clobbered when the farmer mowed the fields or removed by others. I have a short list of suspects who might have removed the flags since I could see a large truck had ridden along the wetland boundary and now all the flags are missing. Coincidence, I think not.

So I'm back out there to find the old flags and replace them with shiny new ones and assist the surveyors in re-establishing the flags I can't find. Rain was predicted for most of the day so I was surprised when I got the game on phone call early this morning. Sure enough it rained intermittently all morning and the surveyors hunkered down in their truck because their equipment can't get wet. I got to head out there first since the surveyors first had to find some stake in the ground and wait for the rain to let up. Boring. A herd of deer ran across the field and the red tailed hawks were startled to see a human about. It's always nice to be the only person in a spot surrounded by wildlife.

I slapped on full rain gear and went on a mission to find the old flags and replace them with new ones. That took most of the day and the rain mostly stopped around noon. Good thing, because my maps were getting soaked and falling apart.

The half dirt/half gravel road quickly began to flood and the more dirt areas became mud pits. It was the most off roading I got to do with the RAV-4. Overall, the new tires worked well. It was more controlled chaos than uncontrolled madness. I did drive into a too deep muddy rut slightly off the road and had to back out. After that muddy ride, I decided to hoof it in the muddy spots. I really don't know how I'm going to get all that mud off my car. It's inside the door jambs too.

After the rain stopped, there still were a lot of clouds. It's that heavenly sky time with sunbeams poking through. Iin the far distance, one sun beam made it to the ground and was moving with the wind. It looks like an alien spaceship was shining a beam of light to earth in search of it's next abduction victim.

A rainy vaca

2008-11-17T16:44:00.004-05:00

I just got back from another relaxaton in Vermont. It much needed as usual. Unfortunately, it pretty much rained the entire time. There were a few hours of non rain here and there but we only saw the sun once for about 5 minutes. That severely limited any sort of outdoor activities. There were more obstacles for horseback riding so I dragged my riding boots up again for no reason. Another snafu was we had no heat the first night. It was a cold night as well. When we pulled up at 1 am, there was already frost everywhere. It was not a good night for sleeping. I woke up early and started a fire in the wood burning stove and a few hours later the heat guy came and fixed it in a snap.

In the few moments of non-rain, we hiked up to the waterfalls and enjoyed the pleasant outdoors. I snapped these few shots there.

In the distance, you can see the mountain is covered in clouds and mist.

The dogs spent most of their time relaxing or playing. Two dog toys were sacrificed this weekend. They all sat down and curled up like this. It was too cute not to take a shot of the dog triangle.

The Yellow Room

2008-11-12T14:35:00.000-05:00

Surfers have the green room. Well I've decided that I get a yellow room. It's when the sugar maple yellow fall foliage is in full yellow glory. There are parts of the woods where it's almost all sugar maple and everything is just blazing yellow. The forest floor is yellow and the leaves are glowing yellow with the sun peeking through. Pictures don't do any justice of course.

At the same site of the yellow room, there was a nice gurgling stream.

Natirar

2008-11-09T16:42:00.003-05:00

Just some pics from my latest visit to Natirar. If I was a jogger, it would a great place to jog.

I took a zillion pics underneath this bridge and none of them came out focused. I guess the camera couldn't handle the angles of the bridge so that it just would give up.

Hacklebarney

2008-11-07T16:28:00.002-05:00

It's nice to see after all these nor'easters and windstorms that there still are some leaves on the trees. The bf and I swung by Hacklebarney and area to get some apple cider (for me!!!) and to check out the trails. We went straight for the small waterfalls so he could take some fancy pics of the waterfalls. I played photo assistant and took a couple shots on my point and shoot as well. The waiting around proved to be good people watching as well.

Lakota Wolf Walk

2008-11-02T19:40:00.004-05:00

Following our attempt to get to Raccoon Ridge, a diner run, and refueling, we headed to the Lakota Wolf Walk. The parking area was packed and we decided to walk to the Wolf Walk rather than being driven in the bus. In theory, it wasn't that far and was through the woods. We huffed and puffed our way up the hill. Mind you we just came from a long hike, so our legs and lungs were already burning. But we made it and the wolves were seen lounging about or occasionally running along the double chain link fence. There were four enclosures for each of the wolf packs/types. They had ample woods, a small pond and a water trough. The wolves knew that it was time for doggie treats and they headed to the fence. They were rewarded for their appearance with a doggie treat and a pet through the fence by the tour guide. I still can't pick my favorite wolf let along my favorite wolf pack. We then got to try to make the wolves howl. Of course, it didn't work. But our tour guide called forward his howliest wolf (a puppy) and then howled to the wolves. Howlie started right in and soon enough it became a case of the crying baby syndrome. More wolves chimed in (the other half of the wolves couldn't even be bothered to even sit up and continued with their naps) and just when you thought there were done another wolf started in and the whole cycle began again. It was very cool! Each wolf knows its name. I could've stayed there all day just watching them. Unfortunately, it is very difficult to take focused pictures through a chain link fence. The camera focuses on the fence and the wolves get blurred out.

Reluctantly, we left the wolf area and headed over to hear the fox and bobcat talks. The foxes were cute. I don't know why I didn't take any pics. I did have a bad vantage point (thanks to our late arrival) and was disheartened from all the blurry wolf pics. So that's probably why. But one of the foxes was super enchanted with the tour guide. He wouldn't leave her side and just gazed at her for at least 20 minutes. The promise of occasional treats and dinner! We heard a bunch of cool fox stories. I won't retell so you guys will have to go there and hear them for yourselves. Then the foxes were put away so the bobcats could come out. They were super cute and apparently are ferocious. More funny bobcat stories ensue. The entertaining part was watching the tour guide try to avoid being bitten by Cache the male bobcat. Below is apparently an action shot of Cache coming close to attacking. Did you know that a bobcat can take down a deer? Yes. It's true and crazy!

Almost Raccoon Ridge

2008-10-30T19:14:00.000-04:00

The bf and I started on a long outing to Raccoon Ridge and then onto the Lakota Wolf Walk in Warrentucky this past weekend. I was more excited to see the wolves (aka "woofs" per a comical guy from an Alaska reality show). I had been to Raccoon Ridge the year before. The walk is long (2.5 miles one way) along the Appalachian Trail, but I enjoy seeing the striped maples and the different colorful scenary. I am also always hoping to see bears. Plus I get a workout that's far more visually interesting then any dvd of mine. We made it to a nice vista which was about 2/3 the way to Racoon Ridge. Actually the last time I was there I saw more interesting birds at a closer distance at this vista then the actual Racoon Ridge. Raccoon Ridge itself is a great 360 degree vista of NJ and PA, but being in such a great spot means it's totally freezing with wicked winds. I think we had spent like 15 windswept minutes up there last time before retreating the warmth of the woods. Plus the hawks were so far it was difficult to determine if it even was a bird. So after deciding not to go all the way to Raccoon Ridge, we spotted an immature bald eagle at a close distance at this vista. It even came around a couple times (did we look that bad off????) so we could correctly identify it.

Here's the striped maple. I managed to harvest some seeds. Hopefully I can some to sprout this year.

Here's typical woods with a nice red lowbush blueberry understory.

A Nor'easter in October

2008-10-28T18:25:00.006-04:00

When I woke up late this morning, I knew it was going to be rainy. I check the weather frequently and had one last check while chowing down on breakfast. I knew I was in for a day of rain and that it would probably snow in the Catskills and Poconos. I can't recall a time it snowed in October except for an occasional flurry. It was raining cats and dogs until about 11 am. Then it switched over to snow. Cool beans I thought. Then it started sticking and it kept snowing and snowing. Sidewalks and roads turned to a slushy mess of signficance. Then the plow and salt trucks go by. I venture out to lunch. Ice scraper is in the car of course. I decide to pass on the scraping and use my wipers to push most of the snow away. Just walking to my car my feet are completely soaked. The umbrella is basically useless since it's horizontally blowing wet snow. My scarf blows off and a huge chunk of snow falls into my purse. I have a slushy ride to lunch and my tires are working gangbusters. On my way back into the office I decide to grab my ice scraper. It's in the trunk and since my trunk opens like a regular building door, a huge wad of slushy snow falls onto my privacy shield in the trunk. It basically covers it with about 3 inches. I attempt to brush most of it off while more snow falls or blows in. Sigh! I scramble back in and try to dry out the inside of my purse and my feet. I then hear through the grapevine that Interstate Route 80 is closed for 15 miles in both directions. More stories of various road closures ensue. What in tarnation is going on. Then my coworker gets a photo of the situation about 20 miles west of us. The picture looks like a blizzard had hit complete with plowed snow banks. I decide to leave early before the slush turns to ice. It took extra time even the roads were fine. But I am sure not ready for winter after today.

Hazards of Autumn

2008-10-27T14:14:00.003-04:00

It's that time of year where all the sticky and spiny seeds are out. I'm not as vigilent as I should be and often leave the field covered in seeds. As you can tell from my glove, my site visit to PA ended in a bumper crop. My glove wasn't the only victim. All elastic bands of my jacket and sleeves were covered as well. While sitting in traffic on the way back, I passed the time by removing the seeds from my jacket. These seeds were covered in minute spines which I didn't pay too much mind to until I got home. There I discovered numerous spines in my fingers. Most of them are still there since I wasn't able to remove. They were so small and hard. I just hope they will work themselves out over time.

Deserted Village of Feltville

2008-10-19T16:35:00.005-04:00

The bf and I once again set out to explore the wilds of NJ. This time is was to the Watchung Reservation, which I never really been too. I had an ex-bf who used to live in it and we'd always get stopped by the cops when I was dropping him back at his house. Union County was having some sort of weekend festival at various historic sites and had a larger event going on at the Deserted Village of Feltville. It wasn't as dramatic as I hoped. There was a small graveyard with a few gravestones from the Revolutionary War. This one was the one appealing. The rest of the Village was a smattering of run down homes and homes that people still live in. I can't even imagine having various hitchhikers and tourists wandering around my yard, which I'm sure happens all the time. The big highlight of the trip was getting freshly pressed apple cider and it was free. It tasted amazing and I would have drank all the samples if no one was looking. But I restrained myself. The question I was asking myself was whether a juicer would have the same results. Probably not since the ancient press is more natural.
Here's a house that's probably in my price range. It's a bit of a fixer upper, but who doesn't have a house where there's weeds growing in the porch. Pots are so overrated.
The dark-eyed juncos and white-throated sparrows are back. I was overly excited to see them. Fall is officially here!
Here's a house somebody lives in. Hope they don't mind us snooping around their yard.

Junkyard minus the dog

2008-10-18T16:23:00.003-04:00

My company got hired by a town to review an environmental report prepared by an engineer. It's an engineer we work occassionally with so we can't totally slam them in our review. But I will say that environmental reports should not be written by engineers who know nothing about wetlands, plants, wildlife, etc. It's a fine line that I will have to walk in my review. It's also a shame that the applicant (a major company that we all know) is not getting the best advice. It'll be a great project if the engineer can get it together. Really anything is an improvement from the auto junkyard it is now. It's surrounded by development and forested wetlands along a major river.

We had our site walk with the property owner, the engineer, and the township and we got there early. We went from nasty junkyard to forested wetlands in a few feet. It was surprisingly quiet and nice in the wetlands. The only downside was the auto parts strewn all across the landscape. We saw in the far distance this big hulking rusted structure. What was it? A giant tank, a trailer, a bus? I was right. It was an ancient bus.

So the big question is what will they do with these auto parts and vehicles in the wetlands and floodplain? To remove them will require heavy machinery and the removal of trees. It's painstaking to dismantle by hand and remove in small parts. There is massive amounts of parts out there. It could fill another junkyard!

Wildcat Ridge - The Bat Cave

2008-10-14T20:43:00.006-04:00

The second half of our Wildcat Ridge outing was spent at the bat cave. There's bars in front of the cave to keep people out. That's a good thing on multiple levels. Why do humans think they have a right to go everywhere? Some things should be left just for the animals.
The most striking thing about the cave was the cold draft just walking up to it. There was a nice rift adjacent to the cave. You could see a cold breeze coming from their too.

We decided to bum around the area until dusk to see if we could see the bats come out of the cave. September is supposed to be the prime month and we felt that we were close enough to September to give it a shot. Nevermind the unseasonable warmth. We weren't the only ones with that idea. The observation deck was full and we decided to climb the hill to get another vantage point above the cave entrance. We waited and waited and nothing. Then it got dark so we scrambled back down to the deck. We waited some more and then about 10 people complete with flashlights start approaching us. They were from a nature group and their leader was one of those annoying know it all types. Now if they had gotten their earlier (during daylight) they would have read the very informative sign that says you should stay away from the cave entrance to avoid disturbing the bats that are trying to fly out. Nope. This massive group heads right to the cave and decides to hang out. Everyone back at the deck starts grumbling about this and finally someone decides to put a stop to this. The group heads back and we decide to back off and reassess the situation. It's now almost an hour past sunset. We take off disheartened having seen more planes than bats in the sky.

I did some research and it looks the bats should already be hibernating in the cave. They will be back out in April and so will we.

The bars and surrounding rocks were covered in bat guano. This pic doesn't do justice at all.

Wildcat Ridge - Saint Patrick's Cemetery

2008-10-12T17:34:00.005-04:00

The bf and I had an outing this weekend to Wildcat Ridge. There were two things to check out. First, the abandoned Saint Patrick's cemetery and second the bat cave. The trails are not really marked and after a few wrong trails we managed to find our way there. It's about a mile from either two parking areas. We chose the parking area that limited the amount of hill climbing. It sure is strange to find a cemetery in the middle of the woods. The whole area was used for mining and the path we took was an old mining road. It's clear that someone in the past few years has brought up the painted wooden crosses to help mark the forgotten graves.
A lot of the graves were from Eastern European families.

Here is some sort of interesting marker.

The majority of cemetery is really getting wild with lowbush blueberry and other shrubs starting to take over. It hides most of the gravestones. As you can see below, only one gravestone with a cross is visible.

So not naitch

2008-10-07T17:55:00.004-04:00

My latest research project is finding new car tires. Like every major purchase in my life, I heavily research it in order to avoid immediate buyer's remorse. I have flashbacks to a certain tire I previously owned which was total crap even when brand new. I've exhausted all the tire review websites, consumer reports, and various car blogs. I've visited countless tire stores where I was repeatedly reminded that I was just a girl. The guys immediately assumed that I did not know my tire size and all other important facts. I usually let them work on the computer trying to find my tire size, except my car comes with two sizes. I have the bigger tire option. So then they would try to run out to my car and I'd stop them in their tracks. Originally I wanted more off-road tires and when I told the guys that, eyebrows and questions were raised. Do you REALLY off-road? I am an environmental consultant. That usually shut them up. In the beginning, I'd play stupid (No. I really haven't looked online or have any tires in mind) and ask them to show me a tire that would be good. Yesterday, I eliminated my second choice when I got to put my hands on it. It was a real off-road tire that still does crappy in snow and ice. It didn't feel right. About 50% of my decision is based on real facts/reviews and the other 50% is based on my feeling. On my VW Golf, I had snow tires that I kept on year round. I was very happy with them and was 100 times more confident driving the Golf in snow than the RAV4 where the ABS brakes would engage even when it hit the smallest slush spot.

So the winner is..... Nokian WR G2. They are marketed as all weather plus, which means they are fine year round. Plus they have the special mountain symbol, which is reserved for better snow tires. It's a new standard I suppose. The thing that sealed the deal is below.

"Nokian Tyres is the world’s first tire manufacturer to introduce a production method using earth friendly oils. The WR G2 is manufactured using only low aromatic, purified oils. These purified oils keep Nokian tires from polluting the environment as the tire gradually wears down. The WR G2 also features a new rubber compound made from cool silica and canola oil, reducing rolling resistance and thus improving your car’s fuel efficiency."

I dunno if this is just another bogus wanna be green marketing ploy. But it's the icing on the cake for me. I've put my order in and talked the guy down $20 per tire. They have to be special ordered. The same company at a different location was selling them for cheaper. The tires are pricey but for me it'll be worth it. I'll let you know how they work out....right now about anything is better than the 3 bald tires and one giant brand new spare.

I'd win the multi-tasking award, if there was one.

2008-10-02T18:07:00.004-04:00

The wetland rules as I know them change on monday. So this week was spent manically trying to get as many wetland applications to the state before monday....that means everything has to be there friday. I got an epic 8 projects submitted this week. It was multi-tasking to the max. The most troublesome project was a very high profile project where everyone (client, engineer, lawyers, etc.) seemed apathetic to the deadline. I guess they thought we could snap our fingers and we didn't have any actual work to do nevermind copies to make. I sent more emails with the red exclamation point than ever.

I thought everything was done or completely under control until at 6:30 pm tonight I got a call from the head secretary. A hand delivery of application materials was supposed to be dropped off by 5:30 tonight. I had left at 5 pm and the package was not there yet. I left a message for my boss venting my frustration about broken promises. Then while cooking dinner (again the multi-tasking) I sent a mass email out basically saying "what the hell?". Thankfully, I got a response that they will be dropped off tomorrow morning. I'll believe it when it actually happens and I'm so done with broken promises.

In the midst of the late morning insanity, I knocked over a very full hole puncher. It burst open and deposited a zillion holes on the carpet. I said something like "I can't deal with that and besides we have cleaning people." The other secretaries agreed and couldn't be bothered since they were in my same boat of insanity. A few hours later I spotted my boss/senior vice president in front of the human resources person/president's secretary. She goes to me "you know there IS a vacuum in the ladies room." I go "Frankly I don't have time to vacuum." and my boss and I scurried away to discuss the latest crisis. He agreed that I should not waste time vacuuming and that the cleaning people would take care of it that night. I was going to direct any future vacuuming inquires to him since he's one of the big bosses. Later on, I saw one of the secretaries vacuuming and I felt bad and offered to take over. Together we sucked up the holes.

To top it off, I got a call from the Township Fire Department asking when I was getting my chimney swept. I told them in a couple weeks and they said that I should let the condo association know....i.e I've missed some sort of deadline. I'm guessing the condo association goofed on our deadline, which is December 31st. It was dryer vents which had to be cleaned by June 30th, which I did. The condo association certainly knows how to rile me up with their jerk behavior. I'm sure they are chomping at the bit to issues fines all around. Since I have the day off, I'll be sure to swing by and throw the couple of pieces of paper that shows that they are wrong. I'd hate to have people like me get unwarranted fines from the condo board. On top of that the Fire Company can issue hefty fines as well. Again, unwarranted since we have until December 31st to comply. I sort of knew this was coming from their horrible monthly newsletter that stated that the condo board was reporting any person who didn't comply with the fireplace/dryer vent to the Fire Department. I thought perhaps they meant people who didn't comply in 2006, which was the last chimney sweep.

You are probably wondering why I used the same photo so many times. That's because lovely blogger wouldn't provide any breaks between the paragraphs no matter how many lines I left in the compose window. Thanks blogger! Way to top off my week.

"Astonishing" news: bears are in NJ

2008-09-29T18:30:00.004-04:00

I'll pretty much watch any show that has a live bear as a central story. I got sucked into a show that was trying to figure out if some ancient giant bear had survived in Alaska by breeding with grizzly bears. A monster bear if you wish. Cue the montages of random hunters who had killed strange bears and their trophy photos. There's the polar/grizzly bear hybrid and the polar bear way inland. They only hang on the coast so it was strange to see a bear inland...kind of like Lost. Then my favorite part was "astonishing" footage of a mother black bear and her three cubs shot in a New Jersey backyard. Of course, there were interviews with the concerned mother who was living in a brand new house who had bears walk through her backyard. Funny thing. If you build a house in bear country, you will have bears around. It's not their problem when they are enticed by your garbage or bbq. They are just like us. If there's an easy option they will take it. But somehow these bears are labelled as a threat. Something must be done...i.e. hunt them down. Then there's the footage of a NJ hunter stalking with a bow and arrow through his backyard woods. They spot a bear in the distance in the woods and the hunter goes "If it looks over here, be very still and quiet." Why? Are you afraid it might see you and attack? That's unlikely. Are you concerned it might run away? Of course, the bears runs off once it spots them.

What I do know is that black bears are about to become a large problem in NJ. Their population is exploding. It should be mandatory that residents in bear country have bear proof garbage containers. People say a yearly bear hunt will solve the problem. The real problem is that the bear hunt only takes place in remote woodlands where the bears are living lives relatively untouched by people. It's the problem bears that live in developed areas that feast on garbage that should be the target of any solution. Maybe I'm foolish, but I actually want to live in the heart of bear country. Maybe it's the grass is always greener on the other side, but it'd be the closest thing I'd get to living in real nature.