Cowgirl Down

Work with any kind of animal for any period of time and you're more than likely to meet up with adversity. Animals, after all, are animals. They have mood swings much like humans. But many, lacking the ability to communicate vocally with humans, give clues too subtle to alert their handlers/owners that it's not a good time to mess about. And even the smallest of misread signals, coupled with a temperamental, impatient animal, can have unfortunate results. Animals kick, scratch, bite, trample, gore, and maul (sorry mom... sic vita est). And did I mention buck?

There's a saying among horseback riders that goes "the hardest part about riding is the ground." The owner of this ranch, along with the horse trainer, have made a concerted effort over the years to cull their stock such that all of their horses are "safe." When the odd horse has come round that has had issues too serious to fix or too unpredictable to prevent, they've sold it right away. Save Halle.

Over the past four or five weeks Halle has become my project, my pet, my friend, and my all-around favorite mount. A gorgeous, 6-year-old chestnut mare, she could be described as broke, but green. Having only been ridden now for two years, Halle still has a lot to learn. But where she lacks the experience and even temperament of an older horse, she makes up for it with her sweet nature and loads of potential. Halle was acquired on trade. Shawnee, a big "starter" barrel horse that Trina (the main benefactor of the ranch) had outgrown, was sold to another family in exchange for thousands of dollars-- and Halle.

At first, Halle was fine. She worked well with Trina, and Marlene (the horse trainer) could see she oozed untapped promise. Then, just over a year ago, Halle cut herself badly while turned out to pasture. The injury took months to heal... months where Halle was unable to work. When she was finally sound enough to ride again, everything had changed. Where once there was a happy, energetic young horse working well under command, there now was a stubborn, pig-headed mare who'd buck, rear, and crow hop when asked to do something she didn't feel like doing.

Marlene rode with her for weeks, getting her to the point where, although she occasionally complained about doing her work, she'd no longer pitch a fit. They chose not to keep her, deciding that the older, more stable horses were better for Trina. She was listed for sale and exercised less frequently, with a once- or twice-weekly tune-up from Marlene. And then I came along.

I needed a horse to work with, to really teach and learn from. I wasn't challenged by their older horses, and I'm not quite good enough to work their hot-to-trot high-performance horses. I'm more than capable of exercising their high-performance horses, but can't work on patterns, such as barrels or poles. So Marlene suggested I start working with Halle. Halle needed the attention, and I needed a more challenging horse. It was a perfect match.

We bonded quickly once I began riding her every day. She'd come when I called, nuzzle my back as I picked her hooves clean, and wait patiently in the arena for me while I worked other horses. When her turn came she was responsive to my cues, and we started working barrels and poles and doing sprints along the fence line. She'd bend to my legs, turn with the slightest pull of the rein, trot or canter off at the exact speed I'd specify. In short, she was a dream. Marlene, Debbie (the ranch owner), Trina, Max (the ranch hand), and Britt (who boards her horse at the ranch) all noticed how great Halle and I were getting along, said she'd been making huge improvements since I'd started riding her, that we were looking great. There were talks of my taking her to barrel races on Tuesday evenings, of keeping her around for a while longer to see if she'd continue to progress.

One afternoon, Halle and I began loping barrel patterns, and her turns were looking good. Another day, we loped two flawless pole patterns back-to-back, and I was on cloud nine. She was really shaping up. I felt great riding her. We just seemed to fit one another.

But then, there were little things that troubled me on occasion. She'd spook sometimes at silly things: the pig, the silhouette of a car through the trees, the goats butting heads... an inexcusable behavior for having been constantly exposed to each of these things for over a year. There were other things, too... She'd pull her turns wide when cantering around the arena, flick her tail when I asked her to lope off, pin her ears and duck her head when riding alongside another horse. I did my best to correct each of these things, and took to wearing spurs and carrying a short crop on her bad days.

Then came the cold snap. Two weeks ago, Nearby Town experienced some of the most brutally cold weather in years. Temperatures were consistently below zero, with wind chills dipping to twenty-five below or more. Coupled with a few days of continuous, light snow, the weather made riding of any kind impossible for around six days. It wasn't until the sun showed face and the arena could be properly cleared of ice that we could get out again.

When I started back on Halle she seemed fine-- at first. She wasn't nearly as responsive as she had been the previous week, and the little, pig-headed behaviors started showing themselves more frequently. The crop and spurs found a permanent place in my arsenal. And for a few days, she was fine. She'd work for me much as she had before, if not instantaneously then very quickly following some gentle encouragement from my spurred heels.

Three days ago, Halle spooked badly in the arena, attributed to long shadows, wind, and Bob (Marlene's husband) roping calves close behind us. I rested easily on her, let her get her head back together, then trotted her out for around twenty minutes, and she was fine. Marlene was pleased. It seemed that Halle was finally past that troublesome stage from a year before.

Two days ago, I got on Halle just as I had for weeks. I'd already worked Cash and Target; Marlene, Romeo and Cryssie. Marlene mounted Peach and I hopped on Halle, and we each went through our separate patterns. Halle responded well. She pushed away from my leg, turned the corners appropriately, and did some excellent pole patterns with me. She wasn't spooky, as she'd been the day before. Marlene and I stopped and chatted, and then I decided that I would do just one more barrel pattern and one more pole pattern before calling it an afternoon and going up to the barn to feed.

Halle hadn't been worked hard. I hadn't pushed her, she wasn't tired or sore or sweating heavily or out of breath. We made a great turn around the first barrel and I pushed her on to the second. She lagged slightly, and I gave her a little kick to give her some extra speed. She crow-hopped slightly, but Marlene and I both assumed she was energetic and excited. We turned the second barrel nicely, and the third. But as Halle came round the final barrel she slowed again. I pushed forward in the saddle and gave her another kick to urge her on. I wasn't asking for rocket speed. I just wanted her to lope.

And evidently, that was all it took to piss Halle off. Instead of stretching out and giving some extra push to the finish line, Halle ducked her head low and threw her back feet up. Once, twice, three times. I thought I had her beat. Marlene thought I had her beat. She hesitated, just a microsecond, then gave another buck-- with a twist. I lost my stirrups. I had one hand firmly gripped around the pommel of the saddle, the other grasping frantically for the reins. In the end, it was the reins that did me in. I'd given Halle some rein when I'd asked her to speed up, and as a result I didn't have near enough to pull her head up and direct her back feet down.

Without control of Halle's head there was nothing to stop the little twist in that final buck from unseating me entirely, and the ground and I met up, if not unexpectedly, then much more quickly than I would have liked. The impact of every ounce of my body weight plus gravity was absorbed by an area of my pelvis roughly the diameter of an orange. I can honestly say I don't think I've ever experienced something quite as painful. Although I wanted nothing more than to lay on the dirt and moan, I stood up as quickly as I could, simply because I had to relieve the pressure off of my pelvis.

Halle had taken off, and Marlene had taken off after her. The best course of action in these situations is to get right back on the horse, to teach them that bucking someone off doesn't accomplish anything, but I couldn't have if I'd tried. Instead, Marlene did. She busted Halle's chops, literally, then nearly ran her into the ground on a short rein and with her considerably sharper spurs. Halle was the last to be unsaddled that night. She went without gain, and didn't get turned out to pasture the day after. The following day, she was the first to be saddled and the last to be un-saddled. Marlene put her though her paces, and then I did, too.

I'm not one to psych myself out about things. I wasn't nervous getting back on Halle. I didn't expect her to buck again. I gave her every opportunity to be the sweet, responsive mare she'd been before. And she was. She was fine. We did some pole patterns, loped around the arena, and I felt just as good on her as I always did, always do.

That's not to say, of course, that the whole incident occurred without repercussions. I will say that Halle remains my favorite horse here. Given a choice of horses to ride, I'd still pick Halle every time. But, at least for now, and maybe forever, I no longer trust her like I did. I can no longer ride her "casually." Every time I get on I'll have to be focused on every thing she does. And for the next few weeks, Marlene will either have to start her before I ride or tune her up several times a week. Halle will have to be ridden with a tight bit, short reins, and a tie-down. And regardless of how much I like her, I can have no mercy when it comes to her slip-ups. So I've lost something there.

Then there's the physical side to being bucked off a horse. The orange-sized area that took the impact of the fall was on my iliac crest along the sacroiliac joint. Although not directly weight-bearing, the area has become increasingly more uncomfortable over the past 48 hours. It doesn't affect my hip, nor does it rub in the saddle, but putting any pressure on the area or working any of the muscles connected to that part of my pelvis is far from pleasurable. I wouldn't be surprised if something in there had a hairline fracture or, if nothing else, a decent bruise.

And of course, there are psychological effects. The biggest damage done was to my confidence and sense of self-worth. I keep thinking there might have been something I could have done differently, either to have prevented the situation entirely or to have stopped Halle from bucking before I lost my seat. I wonder what Marlene thought of the whole situation, and I worry that maybe I'm just not good enough to realize when Halle is doing something wrong, or that maybe Marlene is starting to regret letting me work with Halle at all. Being in pain is no fun, either, and although I'd much prefer the respect of the barn crew to their pity, it seems more or less like nothing ever happened. Even Bob, one of the most sensitive guys I've ever met, said only, "I heard you joined the lawn-dart club."

So tonight, alone in the house, second-guessing myself, feeling bad about no one feeling bad for me, bemoaning my situation, and finding it nearly impossible to relax or take the pressure off my right side, I threw myself a pity party and then decided to update the blog. It's been a while. I'd been starting to worry that my life isn't nearly "wild" enough to merit the title. But I guess getting bucked off a horse counts for something, eh?

I'm a Mac

I know, I know... It's been weeks since my last post. I will concede that I am less inclined to do weekly blog postings now that I'm no longer working regularly in the field. My "interesting" experiences are fewer and farther between, and I get just as tired writing about grad school applications as I'm sure you all get reading about them. But I have more excuses this time round, and it all starts with a virus.

A couple weeks ago I was surfing the internet looking for replacement wheels for a dishwasher rack (don't ask) when my trusty, five-year-old Dell laptop sunk into protected mode and sent up notification of a viral infection, a dastardly rogue anti-spyware program that took control of my internet explorer, prevented access to task manager and my registry editor, and made a host of pop-up adds explode on screen. I went through the basics of removal, but to no avail. Not even my previously undefeated Symantec antivirus software could catch the culprit.

I spent three solid days doing everything I could think of to remove the malicious software, finally succeeding in regaining control of my internet and registry editor, so that I could at least use it to submit applications. But all the while the processing speed became slower, to the point where even opening up MS Word was taking nearly half an hour. That's when I saw the advertisement for Apple's Black Friday sale online.

I'd been planning on buying a new laptop before graduate school, sometime in the late spring or early summer, if I were to get accepted someplace. I knew I'd need a faster computer with a larger hard drive to handle the punishment of five or more years-worth of intense studying, report-writing, fact-checking, and online journal-researching. My long-in-the-tooth Dell may be able to keep up for a while, but the threat of it giving out at an inopportune moment and having to rush to try and save things/get a new computer set up all while keeping up with my studies was not a scenario I ever wanted to face. So a new laptop pre-grad school was already in the plan.

Of course, as is typical of my brain, I started thinking... If I was planning on getting a new one anyway, and there is a sale on Macs on Black Friday, and my Dell is struggling just to start, and I still haven't been able to get rid of the nasty virus, then why not now?

Well, the obvious answers to those questions would be a.) because you don't have a job and because it's almost Christmas and because it would be a huge expense, and b.) why wait? Of course, I chose answer b. The Dell had been good to me, but I wanted something with faster processing, better graphics, a larger hard drive, and better customer support. I didn't want to have to deal with antivirus software and system checks and, heaven forbid, another rogue anti-spyware program. Plus, Macs are sooooooooo cool! So I bought one.

So much for upgrading my DSLR. :(

And that, more than anything, is the biggest reason I haven't posted an entry here in several weeks. My Dell crashed and was more or less unusable, then I had to wait for my new Mac to be delivered, and then I had to port everything over and get accustomed to using it.

By the way, the Mac is awesome. I've been running it on battery power for the last three hours, listening to music, watching videos online, and writing up documents, and the gauge says there's still five hours left on the charge. It's fast, it's sleek, it's shiny, and it's incredibly intuitive. The controls take a while to get used to... some of the quick keys are different than on a PC, and the command button is used as opposed to the control button to do things like cut, copy, paste, etc. So it's taken me a few days to find the appropriate keys. But the touch pad is awesome. It recognizes how many fingers you're using and thus allows you to scroll, go back and forth between pages, rotate pictures, and open applications instantly. Very cool. And I've found Firefox to be head and shoulders above internet explorer.

So if you're thinking about getting a new computer, I highly recommend you go for a Mac.

Anyway.... It's been snowing here for the past few days. Not heavily, but enough to make the streets slick. It's been cold, too... down below zero at night with terrible wind chills. It's very pretty down here when it snows, and it's fun to watch the horses run and roll and play and become dusted with coats of white. Not much riding happens with the weather like this, but it's good to have a few days inside.

Watch-- now it will be 60 degrees and sunny on Christmas.

I've completed five of my six (planned) applications, the last of which, for U of New England Place, isn't due until January, although I'll likely try and finish it next week if I can. I'm so sick of applications I could vomit. I found Ivy League School's 1000-word limit challenging, but it was nothing compared to UC Somewhere Else's "4000 characters (including spaces)" restriction. How on earth am I supposed to tell UC Somewhere Else anything in 4000 characters (including spaces)?

Now comes the waiting game. I'm just going to keep my fingers crossed and hope for the best. Most schools make admissions decisions between February and March, although in some cases it may be as late as mid-April. If I'm a particularly good candidate I should hear sooner rather than later... Schools will often admit their first picks early (late January or early February), then wait until March before sending out the second batch of admissions letters to the rest.

If I'm really lucky, I might even get invited to go a visit a school sometime in January, almost a sure sign that the school is planning on admitting an applicant. If not, I may be on the ropes until April. Occasionally, schools with admit one group of students, wait until they find out how many students are planning on attending, then, at the last minute, admit a "reserve" group of students to fill any empty spots. This happened to my best friend last year, who applied to seven schools' mathematics programs. She was accepted to one school in early March, but didn't receive admissions decisions from several other schools until April, only a few days before the acceptance deadline (April 15th). This left little time for her to decide on a school, and more or less made it impossible for her to visit schools before choosing. No fun at all.

For most of the programs to which I've applied, the acceptance rate is on the order of 10% or less. So please, if you're up for it, think good thoughts about me getting into grad school. I'd really, really like to take my pick of places. Ivy League School, U Big City, UC Somewhere, UC Somewhere Else, U of New England Place, Yet Another UC... they'd all be good. Especially Ivy League School. Or U Big City. Or UC Somewhere. Yeah... one of those. C'mon grad schools! Accept me! Plus, think about how fun it would be for you to read an entry here about me getting accepted to School of My Choice! I would probably even add graphics and lots of these: !!!!!!! and these: :).

Cowgirl Up

The past two weeks things here have taken a slight turn. After slogging through a couple weeks as roommate to a woman with a warped sense of reality, I moved... again. Yeah. I'd really like to be finished moving for a while. The move was a short one, just across the street, and I'm now living in the basement of my tutor-ee's house.

My junior year in college I got an offer to do an hour's-worth of tutoring in basic chemistry over a break from classes. I decided it couldn't hurt to earn a few extra bucks, never realizing how awesome the arrangement would become. After helping out with chemistry I offered my services up for any other subject- the sciences, math, some English, etc. As a result, I received consistent work once or twice a week for the remainder of my college career. And I became pretty good friends with the family, a single mom and her 16 year-old daughter.

I kept in touch with them this summer while in Wyoming, and they were the ones to suggest the arrangement with the crazy woman across the street when I returned home. They felt bad that things hadn't worked out as planned with the house, so they offered me a way out and invited me to move in with them. After a strange series of unpleasant events across the street, I decided my living situation couldn't get any worse than it was and made the move. Long story.

So now I'm comfortably arranged in the basement with the mom and her daughter. And five dogs. And four cats. And a llama. And four goats. And two pigs. And six calves. And two miniature ponies. And two normal-sized ponies. And a fish. And my three rats.

Oh, and did I mention the 13 horses? As in the 13 performance horses used on a regular basis for competition in rodeos? Those horses?

Yeah. Much nicer over here on the other side of the street.

I've been busier this past week than I was the entire time I was in Wyoming. On top of grad school applications (which I'll hopefully, someday, be finished with), I've been walking dogs, pitching hay, mucking stalls, feeding horses, and riding. And riding, and riding, and riding. Thirteen horses and two ponies take a lot of work, and to keep them in good condition they need a lot of exercise.

Which is where my newest brand of pseudo-employment comes in. Yes, I continue to tutor, to run errands and do odd-jobs, and to walk dogs to cover my room, board, and incidental expenditures. But on top of that I've been requisitioned to help work the horses, at least two every day, to keep them in good shape and prevent them from picking up bad habits. During week one, my butt had never been so sore. During week two, I fell back into my groove, dug up a recollection of a proper seat from deep in my muscle memory, and starting building back muscles that I haven't felt in years.

This weekend, to benefit some of the lesser-used steeds, our group (the girl and her mom, myself, and the horse trainer) took three horses to a gymkhana (a casual rodeo, more or less translated into "games on horseback") to compete. I rode Cash, an antsy quarter horse cross who needs work staying calm at the starting gate. Having never before been in a rodeo, I got a five-day crash course in the events, then entered in the senior's (14+) novice class. We competed in four events: barrels, pole bending, flags, and a "mystery event" that turned out to be "turn and burn."

Most people are at least somewhat familiar with cloverleaf barrels. Pole bending consists of weaving in and out amongst a series of six poles. In both events, knocking over a barrel or a pole will result in a time penalty. Flags is a straightforward course where the rider races in an oval pattern around the arena, first planting a flag in a bucket of sand and then picking another flag out of a bucket before returning to the gate. Turn and burn is a long stretch followed by a complete circle around a barrel before the return (the worst event, since most horses are trained to go only a half-circle around a barrel, not a complete turn). All the events are done at speed and are timed.

Cash and I placed fourth in barrels and second in flags, out of 10 and 15 riders, respectively, in the novice class. In turn and burn Cash got confused about making a full circle around the barrel and pulled wide, and in poles he spooked coming around the first end pole, which a). cost time for me to reset him and b). threw his stride off, which resulted in a downed pole and a time penalty. Ah well...Can't place in everything in your first rodeo after only five days of practice, right?

So I guess thus far, I've been doing pretty well for myself without a job. I'm loving being back home with my family and friends, and I'm living well as a "ranch hand" on a horse ranch. Funny that I spent nearly half a year in the "Cowboy State," and it's only after I leave that I get to cowgirl up.

17 Days

The world is a very strange place. Just a few weeks ago I spent most days alone, hiking through sagebrush or winding between dense stands of ponderosa pine. I would wake early, work, return home in late afternoon, and spend the remainder of the day leisurely, searching for schools, writing emails, reading... Yet somehow, even though I was working overtime and fit the other bits and pieces in elsewhere, I never felt as if I had all that much going on.

Since I've moved to Nearby Town, though, it's as if there aren't enough hours in the day. I get up only moderately later every morning. Most days I go immediately to feed the horses, then the dogs, then the cats. Afterwards there are hosts of other things that need to be taken care of. My "roommate" will have some question about the complexities of technology (Why can't I take pictures anymore with my camera? Because your SD card is full.), my across-the-street neighbors (my pseudo-employers) will ask for the completion of some task, an errand to run or a horse to exercise or an animal to feed or a subject to tutor. And then, after all the stuff that happens at the whims of others is completed (an absolute necessity in order to keep myself afloat without a job), I have my own bits to take care of.

Grad school applications.

I know, it must be getting old for you all to read every week now for months. Grad school applications, grad school applications, grad school applications. Perhaps you didn't realize just how involved and extensive the application process can be. I took the GREs in April, started researching schools in June, contacting prospective advisers in July and early August. I maintained contact with promising leads throughout September, worked on finding fellowships through the end of October, and I've just now started working on the actual applications. Which just happen to be due starting the 1st of December. Which is only 17 days from now.

The applications themselves, of course, are no joke. Each school wants answers to its own questions, essays formatted to its own specifications. 1-3 pp., 2500 words or less, 4000 characters including spaces. Each school wants copies of GRE scores, transcripts, recommendation letters, all at different times and in different numbers and sent to different places. Keeping it all straight is enough of a mess. The hardest part? Trying to make myself stand out.

I'm not great at selling myself, at identifying characteristics that might make an admissions panel take a second look. Many of the students applying likely have similarly strong academic backgrounds and research experiences. Many students will likely have more research experience, perhaps some have already been published. What do I tell the admissions committee there? I'm working on it, okay? And some schools leave no room for explanations.

Ivy League School, for example, which has been my school of choice since I began the whole process, is cutthroat. With ILS, there is only one essay. 1000 words to explain why I want to go to ILS, who I want to work with, what I'd like to work on, and how my academic background and research experiences make me a suitable candidate for admission.

Schools like ILS, Yet Another UC, U Big City (all schools to which I'm applying) accept, on average, only 5 to 7 students a year to their ecology programs.

Yeah.

I'm screwed.

Dear Ivy League School,

I'm so adjective, I verb nouns.

Sincerely,
Jax

Another Week, Another Move

Nearly another week has passed since my return home, and my time in Wyoming seems very far away. Every once in a while I'll see some sagebrush, or hear the far-off echo of a distant train, but otherwise little reminds me of my former life. I have occasionally thought of Capone, and of the dogs at the Weston County Humane Society. Otherwise, the entire experience seems to be quickly fading.

I miss living alone.

Last year, my senior year of college, my best friend and I rented an apartment a few blocks east of campus. It was an old, run-down place with plenty of cracks and creaks and came complete with a treacherous staircase. It had its charms, though, and we both liked living there. I certainly didn't mind living with my best friend, either. There were times I greatly enjoyed the company. Especially when she made cookies.

But there's something about living on my own, alone, that I really appreciate. It's a type of independence and solitude that's hard to otherwise gain. Hiking by oneself is extremely short-term, camping by oneself is somewhat dangerous. But an apartment with a good deadbolt in a decent part of town is worth its weight in gold. Feeling sociable? Invite someone over, meet a friend for lunch or a movie, visit the parents, hit the town. Want to stay in for the night? No problem. Just lock the door, pull the shades, and the world is yours and yours alone.

I wish I could do that now.

Just a week after my return home, I moved a second, albeit less complete, time. After transporting the great majority of my belongings to and then from Newcastle, I packed up my bedroom furniture and my more often-used clothes and transported them all to Nearby Town, a small town on the fringes of My Home Town (MHT). I was offered a "deal" of sorts by a friend of a friend. A woman looking to move to several hours away needed a house sitter to watch her horses, dogs, and cats while she stayed up north in a search for an appropriate place to live.

Initially, this sounded like a good idea to me. I've been house sitting since I was 11, and I thought that having my furniture along seemed like a bonus. The original plan was this: I would live in the house for a month while the woman stayed up north, possibly returning to Nearby Town one day a week. Good deal, right? A whole month of house sitting, with only a few awkward days co-inhabiting with someone I don't know.

And what ended up happening? Well, the woman left on Monday, and came back yesterday. With all her stuff. To stay. Here.

What?

After only three days she'd placed an offer on a house, and returned to Nearby Town. She told me all about the place, showed me pictures and then proceeded to tell me the two possible outcomes: One, her offer is accepted and she is allowed to move in December 1st, leaving about three weeks of awkwardly uncomfortable co-living time (I would continue to house sit until her house in Nearby Town is sold, to keep it in "show order"), or two, she is outbid (by one of the two other offers on the place) and will then wait until the spring to look again for another home to buy up north.

Meaning....? If the offer isn't accepted, where does that leave me? There is absolutely no reason for me to stick around here if she's planning on calling off the search until spring. When I agreed to all this, I thought that I'd be here by myself the great majority of the time, with her only stopping by occasionally.

I am so sick of moving I could vomit. I find it hard to believe that she wont get outbid on the house up north, and I'm certainly not planning on staying here if she's going to be around.

Things are no better on the job-front. Every single one of the 18 biology-related jobs for which I've applied have turned up negative. I don't even know where to go from here.

I miss being in school, where crap like this never happened. It's why I'm trying so hard to make my graduate school applications shine. I'm feeling a great deal of pressure to make them as appealing as possible. They're all more or less due on December 1st, and I can't imagine how badly it would suck if I didn't get in. It's hard enough to have to wait until March to find out, one way or the other. I'm already tired of not being in school, and I really don't want to have to face another year of stuff like this.

What Kind of Day Has It Been

I had good intentions to update this post this weekend, after I first returned home. I assumed that Saturday, after all my things had been unloaded and stored, that I would spend the evening leisurely contemplating the events of the past five months, and that Sunday morning I would be ready to write it all down. But Saturday evening I was more concerned with making a visit to Chipotle, and Sunday I couldn't quite convince myself to write anything. Also, I had to make another visit to Chipotle.

Despite the fact that my life has suddenly become much less interesting, my brain is saying it's Thursday and it's time to finish this post.

Last Friday I said goodbye to the BLM. You may remember my very first post here, in which I mentioned that on the first day of my internship, my boss was not at work. How ironic, then, or perhaps just fitting, that he should also be absent on the last day of my internship. Dwayne left on Thursday afternoon, after he'd been assured that I'd turned in all my equipment and finished the reports for which he'd asked. He and I never really "clicked," but we did get along well enough, so we amicably went our separate ways. And, in a gesture I've interpreted as a parting gift, Dwayne let me write and send official government correspondence, complete with letterhead, signatures, and pre-paid postage. Cool.

Friday morning our office was nearly empty. I had little to do, since I'd returned nearly everything to Dwayne and had already completed all my work. I whittled away the morning breaking the government rules about internet use in the office, reading and sending personal emails, running pointless Google searches, and looking for job openings. I emptied my desk, returned various borrowed items, took down my posters, and picked out my three favorite deer and pronghorn sheds to bring home. R brought in a chocolate cake (mmm... chocolate cake) and M took me out to lunch (mmm... lunch).

And that was that, really. I had a brief meeting with the field manager, Tulip; an attempt at a proper evaluation. Nonetheless, I was given the opportunity to voice my concerns, and the two of us had a good conversation about the benefits and drawbacks of the program, and all the things the internship could stand to improve. I turned in my keys, bade everyone well, and left.

The next morning, I loaded all my things, vacuumed out the apartment, and made the long drive home.

Several people have asked me what it's like to finally be back, how I felt to be leaving Wyoming. I was obviously enthusiastic about returning home, leaving the tiny, dirty town of Newcastle far behind. My mom asked me recently if my time in Wyoming now seemed a bad dream. So it might surprise everyone, much as it did me, to find that leaving Wyoming and my job with the BLM wasn't quite as easy as I'd imagined.

Don't get me wrong... For the most part, I couldn't stand the BLM's multiple-use land management policies, the bureaucracy, the ridiculous, languid pace at which tasks are completed. Nor could I stand the town in which I was living, the incessant, unrelenting noise from the trains wearing down my last nerve, the ever-present sour smell from the oil refinery, the brooding, suspicious people, the endless stream of hunters.

There were times when I was terribly lonely, when I wanted nothing more than a companion with which to go hiking or camping or visit nearby tourist attractions. I butted heads with landowners, bit my tongue in the office, forced myself to appear neutral in the face of competing interests. There were countless times in the field when I wasn't sure where I was going, when I got lost or turned around. There were times I'd drive into places not knowing whether I'd be able to get out.

I drove on washed out roads and into narrow, steep canyons. I climbed up and down canyon walls and the nearly vertical edges of crumbling drainages. I fought with broken posts and rusty barbed wire. I trespassed far more times than I would have liked. I slipped across hills, slid into ravines, jumped across creeks, and received more than a few cuts and bruises from meeting up unexpectedly with stumps, rocks, and yes, even the ground.

So... why do I feel like I've lost something?

Perhaps because, in the end, the internship represented a lot more than the sum of its negative parts.

Wyoming is gorgeous. Take away the fencing, the train tracks, the highways, get rid of the cattle, the hunters, the far-right-wing, anti-environment, hostile landowners, the oil and gas rigs, the weathered, beaten-down farmhouses... and what's left is incredible. Stunning. Endless stretches of fragrant sage... hundreds of species of flowers, each week a new one blossoming... towering, ancient cottonwoods. Groves of spruce and ponderosa pine...tracts of quaking aspen.... miles of canyon bottoms laced with grasses and gentle rays of sunshine. Every time I hiked off somewhere and dropped out of sight of the man-made world, I felt completely at ease, almost deliriously happy.

There were good people, too. Ally, who willingly works for the BLM full-time. Neela, who runs the Weston County Humane Society. Amanda, who came to walk the dogs there nearly every single day. Steve and Bob Carter, whom I visited with several times. David, who doesn't own a phone but was more than happy to show me around his property when it came time for me to trespass there. The Mills, who unlocked gates for me more than once. Paul, who was always grateful when I gave him a courtesy call. Ed , an absentee landowner who called me once from Iowa to warn me of a particularly temperamental bull on his property. Perino, Christensen, Simmons, and Popham, graciously giving their permission for me to traipse out on their land every week to look for grouse. Oil Roustabout Guy, who I often ran into and chatted with on Fridays when driving out to find 45. And of course, Russell Davis, who very nearly restored my faith in humanity.

And, aside from the people I met and the nuances of my job is this: my five months in Wyoming provided me a great deal more responsibility, flexibility, independence, and freedom than I've ever had. I spent nearly half a year entirely on my own. I saw things that most people will likely never see, drove on roads most people will never drive, traveled to areas few people have ever traveled.

As I made the drive back home, rain lashing down on my windshield, I surprised myself by thinking wistfully of the places I'd visited over the course of the summer... roads I'd taken, creeks I'd crossed, hills I'd summited, drainages I'd followed... places where the radio signal for NPR was good... places where the radio signal for NPR was bad...places I'd found my grouse... places I'd stopped just to be... places where I wondered "WTF am I doing out here?"... places where I'd never felt better. And as I thought back over everything I'd done and everything I'd seen and everything I'd felt and every place I'd been, I found myself wondering, just what kind of day has it been?

Eight Days from Home

Eight days. Eight short days separate this moment in time from my departure from Newcastle. Leaving this place is something for which I've been waiting the last five months. To say that I'm excited to be returning to home would be an understatement. And yet, despite my anticipation to finally be going back, I can't shake this uneasy feeling of uncertainty, insecurity.

I would love nothing more than to say that as soon as my things and I are back at home that I'll be set and secure to spend the next nine months comfortably enjoying my time, waiting to enter grad school. But the truth is, my immediate future is anything but certain. Some problems do seem to be slowly working themselves out- I think I've found a place to stay, for instance- but there remains a chance that the next nine months could be much the same as the last five.

As I see it now, there are two likely possibilities for me. One, that I return home for a brief period of respite, only to have to move again within the next month or two for work, or two, that I stay at home but end up having to take a low-paying job that I hate just to get by. There is the third possibility, of course, that I'll find a great job doing something wildlife/environment-related at home, but I feel my odds for such fortune are slim at best.

I suppose the best I can do for now is focus on the near-term future. Namely, my sights will be set on March, when I'll hear if I've been accepted to, and subsequently make visits to, grad schools, and August, when I'll (hopefully) be making a more permanent move elsewhere to begin my graduate studies.

In the interim, I've been finishing up things at work, wrapping up loose ends in the field and trying to fill long stretches of time in the always-boring office. This week I had two days of work on a 300 acre parcel of BLM land along the Wyoming/South Dakota state line, known as "Mallo" for its proximity to a summer camp of the same name. Mallo is considered one of the nicest pieces of land managed by our field office, and with good reason. The area sports a 2.5-mile hiking trail, a meadow, extensive aspen groves, tracts of white spruce along a narrow drainage, and one of the last remaining stands of old-growth ponderosa pine in the Black Hills.

Despite only having two days of work at Mallo, I had to bide my time to get there. The cold, wintry weather from last week persisted through the weekend, with additional snow falling heavily west of Newcastle. Tuesday's forecast looked more promising, but Tuesday morning dawned grey and cold with freezing rain and high winds. Finally, on Wednesday I decided to take my chances. I am, after all, running out of time.

No freezing rain on Wednesday... or at least, no "freezing." Though the temperature hovered near the mid-forties, it poured down rain all morning, and between the rain and the six inches of snow on the ground, it made for a day that was cold enough. Especially because the Gore-Tex on my hiking boots just isn't up to scratch. Despite the slightly uncomfortable weather, I enjoyed my time on Wednesday, and enjoyed today even more, when the weather cleared and the sun shone for the first time in days.

You might be tempted to think that the forest is relatively empty. A few birds here and there, perhaps, but not much else around. After all, take a hike around an area of forest and you're not likely to see much. Birds, the occasional squirrel, maybe some deer droppings... Nothing to suggest that there's a lot of activity. But walk that same tract of forest after a good snow, and your opinions might change.

A fresh coat of deep, white snow betrays even the most inconspicuous forest occupants. Deer trails and turkey highways, rife across hilltops, bypassed here and there by the tracks of lone elk. Small, clawed fox prints run along the meadow's edge, near the tracks of a rabbit. Around the bases of trees, the characteristic rodent stride, red squirrel, chipmunk, and the prints of mice, so close together they resemble tiny, crisscrossing train tracks. Near one tree, the larger prints of a porcupine. Along the trail in one spot, the dinosaur-like marks of a ruffed grouse. Then, perhaps most impressive of all, the tracks of the Black Hill's last remaining apex predator. The mountain lion.

The pug marks of the cat- a large one, probably male- are spread across a hilltop, wavering, circling, stopping briefly to spray his strong scent on a tree, then returning downhill to the cover of spruce in the low-lying drainage to the south. Later, more tracks, along the old logging road, along the trail, near the fence line, his path marked intermittently by spore, an obvious sign of a newcomer staking his territory.

Had I the time, and perhaps a friend with me, I would very much have like to follow his trail down into the drainage. The tracks on the hilltop were fresh, only an hour or two old. The chance to see an elusive animal is hard to resist, and the odds were good that he'd taken refuge in a tree not far downhill. Despite my longing to glimpse such a prince, my common sense is strong enough to win over temptation, and I reluctantly moved on.

Now I have only two days of fieldwork remaining before my internship ends, both to be spent tracking the sage-grouse. Leaving the sage-grouse behind will likely be the hardest part, perhaps the only hard part, about leaving Newcastle. I'm happy to have two tracking days left, to get a last chance to see where the grouse are spending their time, and if they're starting to move towards a winter range. The best part about my last two tracking days? Pronghorn and deer season both ended today, which means I and the other denizens of the prairie will be, for the first time in weeks, safe.

Will Work for Money

Over the course of a single week, things have changed. The weather went from sunny and low nineties to snow in just a few days. No gradual transition into wintry weather here... after a couple brief weeks of pleasantly mild days, we've dropped into the twenties and thirties, and have had light snow every evening for a week. But of course, there's always work.

With my vegetation surveys finished, I determined that, aside from weekly grousing, I only have two days of fieldwork remaining. (These days will have to wait until next week, when the snow is supposed to let up.) After tallying all the overtime hours I've worked and haven't yet used as flex time, I figured that I could stand to take five days off. What better way to take that time off then to use all five days consecutively at the end of my internship? After talking it over with Dwayne, he conceded that I could finish a week early. So my last full day in Newcastle is, officially, two weeks from tomorrow, on October 23rd!

I have plans to move back to home on October 24th.

The end is in sight, and my freedom from this town is almost tangible. Just two weeks, and I leave the armpit of Wyoming far behind. I'm anxious to leave, glad to be headed back to someplace with people my own age, mountains, non-oil-refinery-tainted air, food, and a house that isn't a half block from a train crossing. Yet my departure from Newcastle signifies something undesirable, too: unemployment.

Living at home is better than living in Newcastle. Having a job is better than not having a job. Is having a job in Newcastle better than not having a job at home? A tough question. Right now, my answer would obviously be that the latter is much preferable to the former. But what happens if I end up living at my mom's for two months and can't find someplace to work? Then a job in Newcastle might not look quite as bad. Or maybe it will... I don't know. I really don't like Newcastle.

I've spent the past few weeks scouring the internet for job openings, and applying for everything from a interpretation position at a national park in Florida to a naturalist internship at a science school in Colorado. So far I haven't heard anything, but I keep hoping that one afternoon after work I'll check my email to find that someone has contacted me about setting up an interview. I've become accustomed over the past 4-odd years to not living with my mom, and to be perfectly honest, I never planned on living there again. Job = money = rent. No job = no money = no rent. Pretty simple.

Monday is Columbus Day, and since I work in a federal office, I get the day off. Apart from the continuous job search, I'll be starting my graduate school applications. I have no idea how to even begin writing a personal statement, but I shouldn't have too much trouble filling in the basics. Right now I have five schools on my list: UC Somewhere, UC Somewhere Else, U Big City, Yet Another UC, and Ivy League School. I'm still keeping my fingers crossed that I'll hear from two or three more professors before the application deadline on December 1st. Not aiming high or anything....

In a convoluted way, I'm starting to link the outcomes of my job search and graduate school. I feel as if finding a job is imperative for a successful application. Not that I can't get in somewhere without working for the next nine months, but rather, I'm worrying that if I can't even get something as simple as a job, then how am I going to convince an admissions committee that I'm good enough for a competitive PhD program?

A Night Out

Two posts in one week!

HAPPY WORLD VEGETARIAN DAY! This is the first day of Vegetarian Awareness Month. I heart being vegetarian.

As September slipped towards October, I had one last big project to finish, the vegetation surveys I've been working on for the last three weeks. The tedium of measuring tract after tract of grass and sage should not be underestimated. Although the weather has been lovely and the deer and pronghorn out in droves, I was beginning to yearn for the day when I would finish veg surveys.

I'd been progressing nicely, much more quickly than I'd anticipated, but one last hurdle loomed. Nineteen survey points lay in northern Crook county, many less than 10 miles from the Montana/Wyoming state line. With a two- to three-hour drive between the field office and the southernmost survey point, I knew I had only two options: spend five or six days with a five- or six-hour commute to complete only three or four surveys per day, or spend two long days in the field separated by a night's camping. In the end the choice was obvious. I hate driving the same long route day in and day out.

So Monday evening I packed my sleeping bag, two days-worth of food, my camera, and my latest library book (A Naturalist and Other Beasts: Tails from Life in the Field, by the world's most eminent field biologist, George Schaller), and prepared to spend two full days in northern Crook county. Tuesday morning I departed early from the field office, making good time to my first survey point, only two miles from the Montana border.

I spent the remainder of Tuesday (and I mean the remainder) trekking across the plains, traversing private land and state trust land and bits of BLM to 13 different survey locations, dutifully stretching out my 50-meter tape at each one, recording species' percent composition and diversity and measuring the heights of sage brush and various grasses and forbs.

Around 6:00 PM I stopped for dinner, parking the Durango along the banks of the north fork of the Little Missouri River. I was pleased to find a variety of birdlife there, including American pelican, double-crested cormorant, western grebes, the ever-present Canada geese, and, fantastically, a group of around 300 sandhill cranes, taking a brief rest from their southward migration. I was tempted to remain by the river until dark, but knew if I wanted to get home at a reasonable hour the following day I'd need to keep working.

I reluctantly continued on, laying out transect after transect until the sun had set and I could no longer see. I packed up my field gear and drove south to a nearby tract of forested BLM land, trying to park the car in the most inconspicuous place possible. I pulled up under a few ponderosa with intertwining branches, rolled down the windows, folded down the back seats, and unrolled my sleeping bag in the back of the Durango.

It was still fairly early, only around 8:15 PM, so I spent some time stargazing (most of the sky was obscured by the light from the nearly-full moon), then read by headlamp until I was tired enough to sleep. I was tempted to psych myself out, being admittedly nervous about spending a night alone in an area that, although rarely visited, has public access. But I quickly fought down any misgivings, knowing I was safer in the car by myself than I would have been in a tent with another person. It was a warm night, and as a result I slept fitfully, first too hot, then not warm enough. Eventually, however, I awoke to find the sky lightening gradually in the east.

I checked the time on my watch: 5:45 AM. I got up, packed up my bag, raised the seats, and started my work again, taking advantage of the earliest light possible. As I'd completed so much on Tuesday, Wednesday's fieldwork went quickly. Just six transects laid between me and completion of my surveys, and my early start allowed me to finish by 11:30 AM. I was back to the field office by 2:00 PM, and made quick work of my end-of-the-month reports before finally leaving to head home.

I was glad be back to the apartment, but even happier to finally be finished with the repetitive vegetation surveys. And all-in-all, the trip was a success. I completed my fieldwork, the weather was great, the wildlife abundant, the solitude peaceful, and my survival refreshing.

Yesterday afternoon as I returned home it began to rain, and early this morning the rain turned to the season's first snow. The snow continued into the early afternoon, small, wet flakes that refused to stick to the ground. I had planned on grousing today, as I'm taking tomorrow off. But rain and snow makes many of the roads in the national grassland so muddy they become impassable, so I spent the day in the office catching up on data entry. It was a good decision on more than one count. When Dwayne arrived at the office, he reminded me that today marks the first day of open season on pronghorn. He suggested I not go out for several days... evidentally, people around here are just clamboring to go out and kill something right now.

My Least Favorite Season

Last Friday I ventured out, as I do at the end of every week, to track down my collared grouse. 45 was comfortably in the same area I've found her the past three weeks, hunkered down in greasewood alongside Skull Creek. After finding 45, I drove forty miles to the southwest, to Cellar's Loop, where my other four birds reside.

I started my tracking there with 64, my wayward female, whose wanderings miles from the site of her initial capture left me clueless about her location for nearly two months. This week she had ventured east and south, now comfortably on Simmons Ranch.

After flushing 64, I drove deeper into the grassland, to a area known fittingly as "Wildlife Draw." I turned the car down a bumpy two-track cutting through tall sage to a basin where my third female and my only male have spent most of their time. As I started down the two-track, I flipped on my receiver, tuning it casually to 94, reassured, as always, to her the faint, consistent pulse indicating that she was nearby... beep... beep... beep... beep... beep. I listened carefully to the signal, deciding that she was likely still a quarter- to a half-mile away, and stopped to check on the male, 254, before driving much farther in.

As I turned the dials on the receiver to pick up 254, my heart dropped. His signal was there, and loud, indicating he was nearby. But it was fast, nearly chaotic... beepbeepbeepbeepbeepbeepbeep. A mortality signal. The collars are programmed to give a faster signal when the animal hasn't moved for a period of 24 hours, indicating death.

I parked the truck, my hands shaking. I grabbed the receiver, an antenna, and a pair of gloves, not relishing the thought of finding my only male disemboweled somewhere it the sage. I followed the signal up a hill, reminding myself that predation is a natural part of wild life. But as I summited the ridge, everything changed.

Below me, in the basin, I saw a flash of black, a dog, trailed by two individuals in bright orange, one carrying a gun. I sped up, desperate to find the male, terrified that his death was not natural, but a consequence of an inhumane and unwarranted "sport." My heart raced as the signal turned me towards a truck parked not too far away. Was I really fated to find the dead bird stored in the cab of some hunter's pickup?

Perhaps you can imagine my relief when, a few minutes later, the signal again indicated the male was somewhere in the basin, and not near the truck. I followed the signal, getting closer, and closer, and closer, the signal becoming louder, the direction narrowing to a single line. Had the hunters shot the bird and left it? I approached the area where I knew he must be, slowing my pace, scanning every space in and around the sage. I took one step, then another. Then, suddenly, three grouse rocketed upwards from the sage, all wings and feathers, chucking indignantly at my intrusion.

Out of habit, I quickly scanned their necks as they flew away. Wait! There- on that male! A collar! My collared male! He was alive! I was reassured that it was in fact my collared male as his signal became fainter, gradually fading as he disappeared from view. How strange... The collar must be malfunctioning, but my male was alive and safe. I breathed a heavy sigh of relief.

As I trekked back toward the two-track, I noticed that one of the hunters, a woman, had returned to the pickup, and was eyeing me suspiciously. I decided to counter her gaze with the least suspicious action possible: I walked over to talk to her.

"Hi there," I said. "Are you after grouse?" Please say no...

"Yes. Are you hunting grouse?"

Damn. Does it look like I'm hunting? I'm holding an antenna! "No. I'm with the Bureau of Land Management. I have three radio-collared grouse in this area, and I'm tracking them down."

"Oh, is that so? How often do you find them?"

"I come out every Friday. I was actually really nervous a few minutes ago. The collars on one of those birds I just flushed over there," I said, pointing, "was giving me a mortality signal, and I thought he was dead."

"My husband shot a collared grouse yesterday. Maybe it was that one."

Wait... what? "No, he was alive. Where were you yesterday?"

"We were right here. He shot it over there," she said, gesturing vaguely to an area about a half mile away, near some cottonwoods.

"Was it a male or a female?"

"I don't know. You'd have to ask my husband."

"What did the collar look like? Do you still have it?"

"Um... it was small, and black, and had a little antenna on it. We took it to the Forest Service office in Newcastle yesterday evening."

Oh no... Oh no, no, no... I just found 254, and I know 94 is nearby. But what about 14? She's been near those cottonwoods twice this summer. Could it really be...?

"We had a great day yesterday," she continued. It's so pretty out here. We saw lots of those antelope [pronghorn], and the weather was nice. Plus my husband got his limit... two birds! That one with the collar was pretty small. He said he normally wouldn't have shot it but it was far away and he couldn't really tell, so he just fired. But he got it! There are so many around here, it seems like. He's hoping to get another two today. He usually comes out with friends, but no one could come this year so I came with him...."

She kept talking, about the weather, about her husband, about Wyoming Game and Fish. She occasionally asked me a question or two, about the BLM, or what I was learning about grouse, about the upcoming decision whether or not to list the species as endangered. I wanted to tell her what I really thought- that it's ridiculous to have a hunting season on a species that may soon be listed, whose habitat and numbers have been threatened and declining for years. But all I could muster were rote answers, trying my hardest to be polite, all the while wondering if there was any chance that another group had collared grouse in this basin.

After the woman had exhausted her store of small talk I took my leave. She invited me to return later on in the afternoon to talk to her husband, who would have more details about the grouse shot the day before, but I knew there would be no need. I would either find 14, or I wouldn't, and either way I would have my answer.

I drove out of the area and circled around the outside of the basin, driving into Christensen Ranch and up onto a hillside with a summit overlooking the entire draw. I had visited this hillside nearly every week since June, taking readings of the locations of all three birds in the area, helping to pinpoint the places to which each bird had traveled since my last visit. I had never, ever failed to pick up signals on my birds from this hilltop. I ascended the hill, receiver in tow, already set to "14." I crested the hill and turned around to face the basin, steeling myself. Deep down I knew, even before I flipped the switch to turn the receiver on, that I would not find 14 today, or ever again. I raised the antenna and swept it slowly in an arc, hearing only the soft grinding clicks of static.

You may have read at some point, or perhaps heard, that it is considered "unscientific," or perhaps "too subjective" when researchers name their study animals instead of assigning numbers. After all, the point of science is complete, unbiased objectivity, records and data unfettered by anthropomorphism and human emotion. What they don't tell you is that the real reason most researchers don't name study animals is because it's easier to lose a number than a name, less painful to learn that "23" or "157" has died or been killed than "Henry" or "Tulia."

So ironically, after being sure that 254 was dead, terrified that he'd be shot, then immensely relieved at finding him alive, I was blindsided with the information that 14, a grouse who hasn't been on public land in months, was gone.

I love autumn, but the coinciding hunting season is something I wish would never happen. I feel as if enough deer, elk, pronghorn, rabbits, badgers, skunks, foxes, coyote, raccoons, and birds are killed on the highways every day. It will only get worse as we approach October, when rifle season opens. I can only say I'm glad I'm almost done with my fieldwork. Dealing with hunters isn't something I handle well.

Autumn

This week marked the official beginning of fall, the autumnal equinox. Monday morning dawned chilly, grey, and windy, and I spent hours fighting with sixty-mile-per-hour gusts, trying to keep the measuring tape in a straight line over sagebrush and prevent a host of data sheets from being blown away. Tuesday was much the same, and it wasn't until yesterday when the weather finally struck a balance between the intense summer heat and the impending cold of winter, tempering to a blissful 73 degrees with a slight breeze.

Autumn has always been my favorite season, a gradual transition marked with cold nights (great for sleeping), gorgeous days (great for fieldwork), and some of nature's most incredible displays. Waterfowl and songbirds begin their migration southward, bringing unique visitors to stock ponds and riparian corridors. Pronghorn, elk, and deer enter the breeding season, utilizing their ornamentation, grown since early spring, in an unending battle of strength and willpower, all for the chance to reproduce. And as the amount of light in the sky decreases, deciduous trees kill off the chlorophyll in their leaves, giving the other pigments- yellows, oranges, and brilliant reds- a chance to shine.

This week has been relatively mellow. Despite freezing, intense winds on Monday and Tuesday, my fieldwork has been relatively easy this week. I'm still ensconced in the tedium of vegetation surveys, but the finish line is on the horizon. Monday marked my last day in the southern part of Niobrara county. As a result, my surveys during the last three days have been much, much closer to the field office, cutting my driving time from two and half hours to less than an hour. Next Monday I have a final day of surveys close to 'home' in Weston county, then two marathon fieldwork days near the Montana border. Should things work out as planned, I'll be finished with veg surveys next Wednesday, and I'll have the opportunity to take next Friday off.

After that, I'll only have a month left before my work here ends.

For your enjoyment, here is one of the photos I took over Labor Day weekend (as always, there are others at www.flickr.com/photos/jaxzwolf). I might head over to South Dakota and Custer State Park this weekend to see if I can't track down some ducks, or perhaps, if I'm lucky, chance across some good old-fashioned rut action.

Devil's Tower

Another Week, Another Post

Surprisingly (or perhaps not), I feel I have very little to say this week. The last seven days have passed without incident, droning ever onwards as any other mundane set of circumstances. I map routes, I call landowners, I drive places, I collect data, I drive back, I come home, I check my email (to find that no professors- prospective grad advisers and former college professors alike- have yet replied), I read, I go to bed. All the while I feel a little lost here, as if somehow I'm stuck in a different plane, marooned in a strange little town amidst an endless sea of prairie while the rest of the world keeps pace with itself.

When I write these entries I often wonder if I'm not just talking to myself. I know that a few other people do read this, but "this" has largely become a strongly one-sided conversation, and I wish, sometimes, that there were more of an exchange, a give and take of sorts. A little existential tonight, I suppose, but it's how I'm feeling.

I find myself contemplating if the rest of my life will be like this- me off in some distant, remote place, far removed from the lives of family and friends, writing about my "adventures" and wishing, instead, for instant messaging, or Skype, or a satellite phone call, in lieu of an endless tirade written about, and largely to, myself. It will be the price I'll have to pay, I suppose, to do what I love. I wonder how often field biologists deal with this particular brand of loneliness... Or perhaps I should call it "alone-ness," as that's more of what it truly is.

This week I started vegetation surveys, which have been both much better and just as bad as I expected them to be. The good? This week they've mostly been in places with which I'm familiar, making navigation less challenging and saving time driving. Additionally, we're far enough past the growing season here that it's nearly impossible to key many of the grasses out to species, which means I've been able to group various species into broad categories- another huge time saver. The bad? Even with broad classifications, vegetation surveys are extremely tedious (not to mention boring, at least to me), and the sites are all still two hours or so from the office.

Still, things have been progressing more quickly than I initially imagined, and, barring car trouble, inclement weather, or "Do-It-Now" assignments from Dwayne, I should be able to have the veg surveys finished by October 1st. This will require two marathon work days on the Montana/Wyoming border, split by a night camping... Not something to which I'm looking forward, but I'm desperately trying to think of a way to bribe Ayme into coming along to make it less painful. Ayme, if you happen to be reading this, please come along to make it less painful. I'd appreciate it. Thanks.

I have 31 work-days left in my internship. Six weeks and one day. Maybe less, if I finish my work and finally get the chance to take all the time I've accrued from working long days, off.

Then comes the real trouble, however: What am I going to do then? It's a terrible time to have graduated, to be out of school. The economy is crap, hundreds of thousands of people are out of work, and nearly all of them are clambering for jobs, making it hard for a recent graduate to find anything. I'm simply out-competed, instantaneously, by people with more experience. Not to mention the fact that I'm looking for employment during an odd time-slot, from November to August, since (if everything goes according to plan) I'll be heading to graduate school. Who needs someone to work from November to August? No one.

I'm looking mostly for internships, temporary jobs geared towards the young and inexperienced, those who will work for lower wages and no insurance and have to consent to being pushed around a lot because they're young and inexperienced. But internships geared towards someone with my particular skill set are hard to come by in winter months, since fieldwork largely ceases between late September and mid-October in the northern hemisphere. Internships in related fields (naturalism, environmental education, wildlife rehabilitation, etc.) tend to be unpaid, last only three or four months months, or have two sections, one in spring running from January to July or August, and one in fall from August or September to December. It puts me in an odd spot, done with my current internship too late to work the fall sessions but far too early for the spring. What would I do with myself for two months without a job?

So most evenings I come home, walk Capone, and instantly afterwards hit the internet, scouring websites and search engines and forums and Listservs tyring to find something, anything in which I might be interested, for which I might be qualified, that will carry me through the winter months... at the very least until April, when fieldwork generally starts up again.

Then, of course, I have to hope that I actually will get into graduate school somewhere, so I don't have to worry about finding yet another job at the end of next summer.

Like I said, a bit existential tonight, and scattered, too, now that I read back over this, but it's really all I've got. Perhaps if I can think of something cheerier, or more interesting, I'll post it this weekend...

A Tale of Two Families

This is a story about two families, living in Wyoming, just on the western edge of the Black Hills. Both families have ranches, run cattle in Black Hills National Forest, grow their own hay. The couples that manage the ranches are older, in the 65+ age range, have been married a long time, and have grown children, and grandchildren. The families, in fact, are neighbors of sorts. Although there is a house that separates the ranches, the land owned by the first family abuts the land owned by the second, east of the county road.

In many respects, these families are very similar. They live in the same country, face the same hardships, and make their livings in the same sorts of ways. This is a story about two families, and how, despite their similarities, each family managed to shape the course of one of my days, in very different ways.

On Tuesday morning I returned to work, dismayed that my five-day break seemed to have slipped by so quickly. Although I'd greatly enjoyed the time I'd spent with my mom, I felt almost cheated when she left, as if two and a half days should have been three, or four, or five. I spent most of my time Monday attempting to stave off the feeling of terrible loneliness, and trying to convince myself that two months really isn't all that much time.

Tuesday was an office day. I knew I needed to deploy bat detectors, as well as make preparations to begin vegetation surveys. I went through the list of the eighty sample locations for the upcoming vegetation surveys, frustrated to find that many were at or near places I'd already visited, doing raptor nest checks, prairie dog colony surveys, and setting out detectors. Had I know this beforehand, I might be well into the vegetation surveys already, and would not have to spend the time returning to those areas.

While I was digging through files and phone books writing down phone numbers for all the people I'll have to call before starting veg surveys, I made a point to find out who owned the land west of the two canyons I'd need to visit to deploy bat detectors. I'd noted earlier that the only way into the northernmost site was from Beaver Creek Road, which runs along a valley at the western edge of the Black Hills. I looked at a map to plan my route in, then checked to see who owned the land (and the roads) I'd need to cross to get to the BLM land along the state line.

There were just two families- the Vore family and the Davis family- which owned the routes into Kinney Canyon to the south and North Thompson Canyon to the north, respectively. I called both houses, and, somewhat surprisingly, spoke with someone at each house. It's not unusual for me to leave messages and never hear back from anyone.

At the Vore's house I spoke with Susan, quite obviously the matriarch, who was quick and perfunctory and wanted to make sure that I wouldn't be driving across their land, but rather on established roads. I assured her that I knew where the roads were, and wouldn't drive on anything that wasn't an obvious two-track or better. At the Davis's I spoke with Russell, hard of hearing and seemingly confused, who had to ask me several times to slow down and repeat myself. Our conversation ended awkwardly, but I felt okay, because I'd been able to speak with both landowners and was thus assured that I wouldn't be antagonized- after all, they knew I was coming.

Wednesday morning I set out from the office in good spirits with both bat detectors, a map, my GPS unit, and a plan to visit Kinney Canyon first, since setting up the detector would require a half-mile hike in from the road. I passed the Vore's house, noting that someone there was gearing up for a horseback ride, and continued on north of their house to the road I was supposed to take to get near the canyon. I pulled in and travelled a very short distance to a pile of old branches, logs, boards, and bits of what appeared to be a windmill. Then, the road disappeared.

It's typical for two-tracks to become hidden among tall grasses, especially if they're infrequently used. I parked the Durango at the pile and got out, walking uphill, to see if I could pick out the two-track from above. To my dismay, I couldn't see any sign of any kind of road leading away from the pile. I double-checked my map and GPS, aligning them with the landscape to try and decipher where the road should be, but I already knew that the road was gone. Since I was on private land, I knew I'd have to turn around and find a different way in.

As I drove back towards the county road, the Vores, in their truck with their horse trailer in tow, pulled up and blocked my exit. I assumed they wanted to make sure it was me out on their land, so I wasn't terribly concerned. A woman exited the truck as I approached, and I stopped and parked the Durango.

"Are you Susan?" I asked.

"Yeah."

"I'm Jax."

"And what? Are you lost?" she snapped.

At this I wasn't sure what to say. I wasn't lost, I just wasn't quite sure where to go. I pulled out my map and showed her the area I needed to visit, at which she bristled.

"You said you were going into Thompson Canyon."

"North Thompson Canyon, yes, but I also need to get into Kinney Canyon, here," I said, pointing to the map.

"Right now I'm on this road, but it ends right here," I added, pointing again.

"You can't drive there! That's our pasture!"

"As soon as I realized the road was gone I turned around. I need to find a different route in. Is this road," I said, pointing again to a route a little further north, "still there?"

Susan grabbed the map from me, and as she turned to go back to their pickup, I could hear her husband from the driver's seat yelling angrily, "What the hell does she think she's doing out there? Doesn't she have a GPS?!"

I was now very uncomfortable, and sat nervously in the Durango while Mr. and Mrs. Vore argued over my map in their truck. Some number of minutes later, Susan returned, and said, sharply, "Just past the next cattle guard is a road into Thompson Canyon. Take that road in. STAY ON THAT ROAD."

"Okay. So these roads south of that canyon, they're not in use, or they're gone?"

"If you drive up that way you'll be driving through our pasture. That's OUR pasture. STAY OUT OF OUR PASTURE! Stay in the canyon. You can park somewhere there and walk to wherever you need to be. I guarantee you it'll be a long, hard walk, though."

"Alright," I agreed. "It's nothing I can't manage."

"Those bats must be pretty damned important," she spat, and stormed off to rejoin her husband waiting impatiently in their truck.

They backed up their truck and trailer and motioned for me to pull out in front, then proceeded to tail me until they were assured that I was going to take the proper road into Thompson Canyon, at which point they tore off and sped away to the north.

I was a little disappointed that my planned route was gone, but it was nothing compared to the sting I felt at the obvious displeasure of the Vores. I've become accustomed in the past few months to planning routes only to find that roads no longer exist, and although the road into Thompson Canyon was much farther north of Kinney Canyon than I'd intended, the detour would really only add an additional mile and a half or so to my hike in. Setting out the bat detectors was the only thing I'd planned for the day, so I wasn't short on time. But all the time in the world wouldn't erase the fact that two people I'd never met in my life were likely permanently soured to both me and (possibly) the BLM, simply because I'd driven up what I thought was an easy route in.

I was uneasy the rest of the morning. As I climbed up the southern ridge of Thompson Canyon and then carefully picked my way down several drainages into Kinney, I felt more alone and on edge in the forest than I had since my very first few days in the field, more than a year ago, when I'd started in on my thesis research. I kept looking behind me, with the eerie sensation of being followed, and every time I'd stop to work out the easiest path down a difficult route, I'd think of the cold glares of the Vores as they sped off, clearly inconvenienced by my ineptitude.

After the trek down into Kinney to set up one detector, I trudged back out, not looking forward to returning to the county road and then continuing northward to set the other. As I pulled up to the entrance road into my second destination and got out to open the gate, I checked the Davis's house closely... it didn't appear that anyone was home. Still, I was on alert, never knowing if and when I might run in to Mr. Davis out on his pasture. Just how clear was I on the phone the day before? Did he really know I was coming?

I made it into North Thompson Canyon easily enough, set the detector near the road, and drove out without being noticed. It seemed the Davis family really was out for the day. As I drove back southward and passed the Vore's ranch, I crossed my fingers that they, too, hadn't yet returned home.

Last night I slept poorly, dreaming of returning to retrieve my detectors to find that the gate into the canyon was locked, or that Mr. and Mrs. Vore were standing guard in Kinney Canyon, or that they both were waiting in Thompson Canyon to make sure I stayed on that, and only that, road. Even worse, I then dreamt of angry phone calls made to the BLM, complaining of my incompetence, that I'd trespassed on land on which they'd forbidden me to drive, that I'd ruined their good pasture.

I got up early this morning, not looking forward to returning to the area. The Vores were already gone by the time I passed their house. I was relieved, but not completely. It wasn't until I drove up into Thompson Canyon, parked, and started hiking back into Kinney Canyon that I felt I could let my guard down. I tried my best to release the unpleasant feelings that had been plaguing me since the previous morning. It was a good morning to be out, especially in the canyons, where the high walls cast shadows all day long, keeping the canyon bottoms cool.

I made a relatively quick hike in and out to get the first detector, then returned to the county road and started heading north to retrieve the other. I noticed immediately that, today, the Davis's house was occupied. What's more, when I got out of the truck to open the gate, I glanced over my shoulder to see someone crouched down alongside the barn. I entered the pasture, then got out to close the gate, when the figure stood up, and saw my car. I thought the best thing I could do was acknowledge that he saw me, so I gave a quick wave and got back in the truck and drove slowly off. I was only slightly comforted when the wave was, seemingly reluctantly, returned.

Once I reached the summit of the south ridge of North Thompson Canyon, I relocated the second detector, took it down, and stowed it's various pieces and parts, then turned and made the trip back down to Beaver Creek Road. A group of horses had been turned loose in the main pasture sometime after my initial visit, and I slowed on my way out to introduce myself to a curious buckskin, who quickly lost interest when she saw I didn't have anything tasty to give her.

As I neared the gate, I saw that the man was no longer next to the barn, but rather standing stock in the middle of his driveway, staring straight at me. I kept my composure, but was silently pleading, Please, not a repeat of yesterday, please... I opened the gate, drove through, and stopped and got out to close it, all the while acutely aware that the man was still staring. Once the gate was closed, I decided to give a final wave. My wave wasn't returned... this time, he beckoned me to come across the road. I nervously got back in the car and drove down the driveway, stopping next to him.

"Now, you must be Jax," he said, and, smiling, shook my had warmly.

"Mr. Davis. It's really nice to meet you."

"Did you find your way up there alright?"

"Yes, it was no trouble at all. You have some really pretty land."

"Well, come on over and sit a while. It's a gorgeous day."

I parked the car, turned it off, and got out, following Mr. Davis to the yard in front of his house and a bench swing underneath an ash tree. As I sat down, Mrs. Davis came out of the house to move a sprinkler, introduced herself as Loraine, and told me she hoped I was having a good afternoon, before returning inside.

We sat on the swing for more than an hour, talking. I quickly found myself with a cat in my lap, purring loudly while I scratched her ears and chin. Mr. Davis asked where I was from, what I did for the BLM, how long I'd be in the area. When I told him I was a wildlife biologist, he regaled me with stories of all the pronghorn, elk, turkeys, and all manner of other creatures he'd seen on his land over the years, of elk getting into his good alfalfa one winter, of the sharp-tailed grouse that had long since disappeared.

We talked about this summer's grasshopper plague, and the controversy over the wolf hunting season that just opened in Idaho. He told me about his children, nieces, and nephews that lived in the area, about trips to Yellowstone and encounters with bears in the park back before it became illegal to feed them. I listened to it all, enjoying the purring cat, the shade of the tree, the wonderful breeze through the yard, and Mr. Davis himself, who simply radiated friendliness.

When the two of us finally came to the consensus that it was time for us to return to our respective work, he wished me well, and told me that if I was ever back in the area to feel free to stop by. I told him again that I was glad to have met him, genuinely, and walked back to the car. As I unlocked the doors, a woman pulled into the driveway, quite obviously related to Loraine. She, too, greeted me happily, wished me a good afternoon, and told me cheerfully that I should feel free to take some grasshoppers with me. I promised that there were already several in the car, and that quite a few more were certain to hitch a ride on my way out, and we both laughed. As I drove off his property, I waved a final time to Mr. Davis, who waved back, smiling.

Two days, two detectors, two ranches, two families, and two very different outcomes. I'll likely never understand why the Vores were so angry. Perhaps they'd fought that morning, or had trouble with the government before. Perhaps they'd had issues with trespassers in the past, or didn't trust someone so young. Perhaps they were just unhappy people, taking it out on whomever crossed their path. All I can say with any certainty is that the Vores were unnecessarily aggressive, cold, and unforgiving, and my encounter with them soured my entire day, whereas the Davis's were warm, open, and friendly, and left me feeling great about myself and the world.

Never underestimate the influence you may have on a complete stranger. A single negative gesture, comment, or reaction may leave someone you've never met reeling, starting a domino effect which could very well lead to many unhappy people. Something as simple as a smile, on the other hand, even if you're not really feeling up to it, can have a much nicer results.

: )

T-Minus Two Months and Counting

After a week of eleven-hour workdays, increasing levels of job-related frustration, and the growing awareness that my boss has little appreciation for the work I'm doing (typical, I'm sure, of most jobs), I wanted to make this week a little easier on myself. With Labor Day approaching, complete with a free day off work, I decided to take Thursday and Friday off, too, and treat myself to a five-day weekend.

I set myself up for what I thought was to be a mellow three days- two days where my only task would be to deploy bat detectors at three of my last five locations, followed by the necessary weekly grousing on Wednesday. I assumed that setting out the detectors wouldn't take much time, and that afterward I could catch up on data entry and other office work. Not surprisingly, even that seemingly simple task ended up taking an inordinate amount of time.

I was well-prepared to set out detectors. Last Friday I had enough time after grousing to map out routes into the areas where the detectors would need to be placed, determine who owned what land, and to contact all the landowners, so that Monday morning I would be set to go. And in fact I was set to go... until I got out to a two-track just a mile from two of the three sites and found it to be in terrible condition. I've driven some rough roads this summer- unmaitenanced two-tracks, dirt and gravel roads, rocky, narrow inclines traversing canyons in the Black Hills... But I hadn't yet come up against something that threatened to maroon me in the middle of nowhere. Until Monday.

The road I needed to take had washed out, almost completely, at the bottom of a steep slope in an area surrounded by hillocks. Little gullies had formed, complete with dried-up pools and water-filled pits, the perfect width and depth to snare a tire or contribute to high-centering. The spaces between the gullies, pools, pits, and hills were so narrow that I couldn't find a decent path through. What should have been a relatively quick in-and-out deployment turned into a three-hour-long saga of intense manual labor towards road maintenance. Our vehicles are well-stocked with a variety of tools: shovels, Pulaskis, axes... I ended up using them all, carving out the side of a hill, filling in some of the holes, and trying to level out my intended route. I then spent about a half-hour gathering old planks from the remnants of a nearby fallen barn to try and make a bridge of sorts over the largest part of the impending ravine.

Though not really dangerous, the eventual drive was harrowing... Getting stuck somewhere is seen in most offices as the apex of ineptitude, the most pathetic thing you can do to yourself in the field, if for no other reason than the fact that it costs one of your coworkers a lot of time coming to winch you out. I made it through, but I did not relish the idea of having to come back.

I continued on to find the two-track nearly gone, and in places I had to rely entirely on the topographic map on my GPS to reassure me that I really was in the area the road ran (or at least, the place the road used to run). Eventually the path became easier to see, but it was obvious it hadn't been used in at least a decade: 6- and 7-foot-tall junipers were growing right in the middle of the two-track, junipers on opposite sides of the road had grown together over the tire ruts, and ponderosa pines had extended their branches out at windshield height over the old path. I spent almost as much time winding in and out of and around the trees as I had digging my way in.

I finally made it to my first detector location, had a relatively easy set-up, and continued on to set the other. The road had become clearer and less overgrown, so I was feeling good. And then I ran up against the worst gate I've ever faced, which, based on the number of gates I've had to fight with this summer, is saying a lot. What ensued was an epic battle of wills, with the rusty barbed wire and old wooden posts of the gate largely winning. When I finally did manage to (roughly) secure the gate back in place, I realized my success was tempered by the fact that I would have to open and close it again on my way out, and yet again the following day when I came back to retrieve the detectors. Damn you, gate!

Although I should have had plenty of time left for office work at the end of the day, I didn't end up getting back to the office until after 3:00 PM, meaning I ended up yet again working more than eight hours. Not wanting to face "the road" a third time, I decided to try another route the next day, technically the other end of "the road" that came into the area from the opposite direction. After printing off more maps, calling more landowners, and driving out to the area the following morning, I found that the other end was, in fact, gone, without a trace, completely overgrown and impassable. So I made the trek back around to the other side of "the road" and once again braved the wash-out, trees, and, yes, the gate, too.

Luckily, the third location really was an easy in-and-out, and was situated next to a pond rife with Northern leopard frogs and minnows. The pond also sported a muskrat and some type of Scolopacid (a sandpiper of some sort, or one of its close relatives).

The week continued to improve, as yesterday, after nearly two months, I finally picked up a signal on my other long-lost female grouse, and after about two hours-worth of hiking in the interior of Thunder Basin, I managed to find her... right next to the highway.

Of course.

I did find her, though, for which I was happy. In fact, I found all five of our radio-collared grouse, something I wasn't sure I'd ever be able to achieve in the course of a single workday. So the week "ended" well.

Now I'm enjoying a luxury: five days off. Although one day is nearly gone already, I have four more to look forward to. I spent most of the day today engaged in my typical weekend chores- cleaning and doing laundry. I invested much more time than usual cleaning, and I threw some cooking in, too, because my mom is coming tomorrow to visit! Why anyone would want to spend any time at all in Newcastle is beyond me, but I suppose my being here probably adds a modest incentive.

Just in case you were wondering, we'll be spending most of our time in South Dakota.

Ghost Towns

This week has been one of the longest I've ever had, and I honestly can't believe I still have to make it through Friday before I get a chance to sleep in and relax. My fieldwork the last four days has been anything but strenuous. Having finished raptor nest checks, I had no long hikes... In fact, I had little hiking at all. What I did have laid out was a series of surveys for burrowing owl and mountain plover at four prairie dog colonies. Perhaps you're starting to wonder why I'm worn out, but stick with me and you'll soon understand.

Prairie dogs are thought of as keystone species in grasslands, essentially meaning that even a relatively small population can have a disproportionately large impact on the surrounding ecosystem. As prairie dogs feed and burrow, they alter the landscape. The feed on grasses that they pull up (or down) by the roots, as well as certain forbs and shrubs. They're so tough on the grasses that they create an environment in which only certain species of plants can survive. Often these plants are the absolute best suited to the prairie environment: tough, water-conservative, and nutrient-rich. The surviving grasses are of such high quality that they attract other herbivores- pronghorn, deer, rabbit, mice, gophers, and birds. The herbivores, in turn, attract predators, and viola! Ecosystem extravaganza!

Since prairie dog colonies are generally species-rich, they're excellent places to look for burrowing owl (which, as the name implies, live in underground burrows), and the rare mountain plover. My job was to drive out to a prairie dog colony just after sunrise with a strong pair of binoculars and a spotting scope, sit out there, and watch. Easy, right?

Yes and no. Getting to the prairie dog colonies, of course, involved finding phone numbers and contacting land owners. It also involved an inordinate amount of driving. Two of the four colonies I had to survey are located far north in Crook county, not far south of the Wyoming/Montana state line. When the colony is located two to two and half hours from the field office and I need to get out there not long after sunrise, it makes for extremely early mornings. I've been getting up around 4:00 AM this week to be out on location between 6:30 and 7:30 AM. Suffice to say that tomorrow, when I go grousing, I'll be getting up at 6:30 AM, and I'll feel like I'm sleeping in.

It wasn't enough, however, for me to drive out to the colonies and check for birds. Outside of the long driving hours (followed by trying to sit still for a few hours while scoping out the towns), there wasn't much involved, so I decided last week that I would try to double up my duties each day and to set out our bat detectors after surveying. This decision was largely motivated by the fact that the northernmost location had four bat detector sites withing close proximity.

The thing about the detectors is that they have to be set up one day, left overnight, and retrieved the next. It was easy enough for me to set the detectors when I surveyed the nearby colony, but that took care of only two of four sites, and I had to retrieve them, too. This meant a week that looked like this:

Monday: 5:00 AM wake-up. Drive to far southern Weston county, survey Fred Draw dog town. Afterwards, drive to far northern Crook county, set up both detectors.

Tuesday: 5:00 AM wake-up. Drive to far northern Crook county. Survey Cedar Creek dog town. Move both bat detectors.

Wednesday: 4:00 AM wake-up. Drive to far northern Crook county. Retrieve bat detectors. Re-set one that didn't work the night before. Drive south to Cabin Creek dog town. Afterwards, drive further south near Carlisle to set up bat detector.

Thursday: 4:00 AM wake-up. Drive to mid-Niobrara county (near a town called "Dull"... how fitting) to County Line dog town. Afterwards, drive to Carlisle area to retrieve one detector, then to far northern Crook county to retrieve other detector.

After all the driving and surveying and driving and retrieval and driving, I've worked 11 hours days four days in a row now. I would love to take tomorrow off, but alas, I cannot. I have to go after grouse once a week, which means that if Friday rolls around and I haven't been out, I don't get to take the day off.

Was I successful this week? Sort of. Two of the four colonies I visited turned out to be prairie dog ghost towns. I haven't talked to Dwayne in more than a week, so I'm not sure how the sites I visited were selected, or how long it has been since someone has visited, if at all. They're easily visible on satellite photos, but the presence of burrows, sadly, does not guarantee the presence of prairie dogs. Both Fred Draw and the County Line dog towns were almost devoid of dogs. Each had only a handful of active coteries (a term for you to Google) surrounded by hundreds of acres of empty, unused burrows.

Prairie dogs, despite being ecological engineers, are susceptible to two things: ranchers and plague. Ranchers (and other random WY inhabitants) love to shoot and poison prairie dogs. The USFS tries desperately to stop people, through signs, patrols, and heavy fines. Shooting prairie dogs isn't allowed on BLM land, either, but I get the feeling that the BLM looks the other way for ranchers that lease BLM parcels to graze their cattle. Regardless of the culprits or the means, what's resulted is the extirpation of prairie dogs across the majority of their range, and several species are now endangered.

The other prairie dog killer is sylvatic plague. Sylvatic plague is the rodent version of bubonic plague, and the disease is transmissible to humans. Sylvatic plague can wipe out a prairie dog colony in a fairly short amount of time, and, unfortunately, studies have shown that colonies stressed by losses to ranchers and the intense grazing of cattle are more susceptible to external parasites, including plague-carrying fleas. In the end, ranching is a lose-lose situation for the dogs... If they're not exterminated by the ranchers directly, they'll often fall prey soon after to sylvatic plague.

Needless to say, a town devoid of prairie dogs means a town devoid of other animals, too, including burrowing owl and mountain plover.

I did manage to find some burrowing owl, at the Cedar Creek dog town, which also sported plenty of pronghorn, a ferruginous hawk, a golden eagle, a badger, and countless songbirds. Sadly, neither of the two active towns I visited were large enough to support the critically endangered black-footed ferret.

Yesterday I was talking on the phone to one of my friends from college. She asked what I'd been doing lately and I outlined the various things I've been engaged in at work over the past month. After listening she paused for a moment, then commented, "Your job is really weird."

I would be inclined to agree.