week and a half... mostly awesome
So, the job is awesome. Yesterday I reported at 4:30am and trapped and banded birds for 8 hours which is a lot more fun than it sounds. There is something super exhilirating about handling birds that you would otherwise almost never see and certainly never be able to catch on your own. It was amazing and they were so beautiful. It was a productive day.
On the other hand.... today: Veg. Monitoring. Setting out plots and taking an inventory of NOT THE SPECIATION but just the KIND of plant... graminoid, forbes, etc. Takes a total of 10 minutes once we actually reach the spot which generally aren't more than 2 miles off the trail or road. We had 2 plots to do, so complete with hiking time, etc it would take us MAYBE an hour to complete.
We get done super quick and the guy who had signed the vehicle out decided to dick around for another hour, literally. Finally we went back to the office and got our next plots for stem counts on this endangered sunflower that grows on base. There's a total of 96 of them but they take only a few minutes for each plot (unless it's a super hardy spot and there's 100+ stems and even then...)
At this point we had split into two teams and the guy driving our vehicle happens to be probably THE stupidest intern working with us and what happens??? HE GETS US LOST. It's a former nazi POW camp and before that it was a former artillery range so it's one big grid which is what you see on the hardcopy of the map. We had a GPS with us but it was haywire and lagged too much to be of any use.
So here we are on winding dirt/mud/hidden artillery ridden roads with "unexploded" warning signs all around us going way over the speed limit in a huge top heavy truck floating around corners and I keep telling the moron we need to go south but he passes all the damn intersections and doesn't listen to me (I presume because he's from fucking Grundy County TN and doesn't listen to girls, especially after the comments he made this morning regarding girls.) So we go every direction but south and end up in the middle of a rifle range with security gards at the top of the tower with us in their cross hairs.
Finally the idiot listens to me only after the GUY in the back seat tells him to go South and LOW AND BEHOLD we find the train tracks and follow them to the main highway where we proceed, late, back to the main office.
I was late leaving work today.
I'm never getting in the car with that guy driving ever again.
Also, in the past three days I've found COLONIES of ticks on me. EW.
On the other hand.... today: Veg. Monitoring. Setting out plots and taking an inventory of NOT THE SPECIATION but just the KIND of plant... graminoid, forbes, etc. Takes a total of 10 minutes once we actually reach the spot which generally aren't more than 2 miles off the trail or road. We had 2 plots to do, so complete with hiking time, etc it would take us MAYBE an hour to complete.
We get done super quick and the guy who had signed the vehicle out decided to dick around for another hour, literally. Finally we went back to the office and got our next plots for stem counts on this endangered sunflower that grows on base. There's a total of 96 of them but they take only a few minutes for each plot (unless it's a super hardy spot and there's 100+ stems and even then...)
At this point we had split into two teams and the guy driving our vehicle happens to be probably THE stupidest intern working with us and what happens??? HE GETS US LOST. It's a former nazi POW camp and before that it was a former artillery range so it's one big grid which is what you see on the hardcopy of the map. We had a GPS with us but it was haywire and lagged too much to be of any use.
So here we are on winding dirt/mud/hidden artillery ridden roads with "unexploded" warning signs all around us going way over the speed limit in a huge top heavy truck floating around corners and I keep telling the moron we need to go south but he passes all the damn intersections and doesn't listen to me (I presume because he's from fucking Grundy County TN and doesn't listen to girls, especially after the comments he made this morning regarding girls.) So we go every direction but south and end up in the middle of a rifle range with security gards at the top of the tower with us in their cross hairs.
Finally the idiot listens to me only after the GUY in the back seat tells him to go South and LOW AND BEHOLD we find the train tracks and follow them to the main highway where we proceed, late, back to the main office.
I was late leaving work today.
I'm never getting in the car with that guy driving ever again.
Also, in the past three days I've found COLONIES of ticks on me. EW.