I need to get better at this...

There is so much I would like to write about, but I either A) completely forget or B) just haven't had the time to sit down and unload the words on the page.

I know I keep saying this month was crazy and I have all this stuff I need to get done, but Y'ALL, seriously. It's crazy. I actually argued with a girl in my Regression class that next week couldn't POSSIBLY be dead week. But it is! Seriously?! Where did this year go? It seems like just yesterday I was preparing for our trip back home. It's just been a whirl wind of one thing after another.

Let's see, I gave my first oral presentation on the first, finished my first draft of my proposal the following week, finished my poster presentation that I did not get to present due to impending field work, started field work that weekend, layed out my first set of pitfall traps Tuesday, presented my poster at the Bright Ideas Conference Wednesday, and tomorrow I go back out to Louisiana again for the weekend. Whew!

Poor Luna is already tired of me coming and going. She has decided she needs to sleep between the wall and my side of the bed so I can't sneak past her. Like I could if I wanted to anyway. Her "bed" is at the foot of the bed. Out of the way of my infant bladder that must pee every half hour until I fall asleep. But with her laying in her "new" spot, I trip over her every time I have to get up. No bueno. As if I needed help being even more clumsy. Even Serenity is back to snuggling with me at night. I know Buddy is also lonely.

So far field work is going slow, but it is to be expected since I haven't started putting out pitfalls or doing any insect stuff until this week. I wanted to keep around the same schedule as I had last year, but I'm having to work around not only my classes, but my tech's classes as well. Not to mention East Texas has gotten over 12 inches of rain this month and Merryville has gotten well over 9. All of my stands thus far have been flooded and some I haven't even been able to get to due to the shape of the roads.

Two more months of this and I'll be done with field work possibly forever....I really don't know yet. That's the million dollar question right now. What is next. I have no freaking clue. I don't know if I want to start job hunting or keep going with my education. I still have a little time to think about it.

So, I'm going to make my best effort to chronicle this field season while we are out there full time. No promises (like I have readers anyway), but I'm going to do my best to.

Happy Beltane and blessed be!

Copperhead I almost stepped on while trail running with Luna.

Eastern Hognose found at Tucker woods

Worm-eating Warbler mist netted at Tucker woods with Comer's Intro class lab

Tent caterpillar. The favorite food of one of my favorite birds, the Yellow-billed Cuckoo.

Thunderstorms = 80 lb pansy dog trying to get as far in my lap as possible

Poor picture, but Blue Grosbeak on a snag in a eucalyptus stand. 

This stand was just a little bit flooded....

Oh, rubus (aka blackberry)

The blackberry is about shoulder high on me in some parts of this eucalyptus stand

Crazy hail storm in Nacogdoches after my first weekend of field work. 

Sweet Serenity

The eucs have put on about 2-3 feet of growth since I saw them last. That pink flagging is just about head height for my 5'5" self.

Not getting down this road.

Got down the road from above picture the following day only to find this. It was so deep those ripples were more like waves.

These little guys were only about mid-calf to knee high last year and now they are person sized!

A nice row between eucalyptus trees

I'll come back to this stand when I have a machete.

So much for blogging more...

I know I said I would be more attentive to my blog, but I just haven't had ANY  motivation to write anything. At. All...

Other than the last few days, this month as been cold and wet. So wet that as of yesterday both the river to the south and the bayou to the east have been under flood warnings. However, the last few days have been warm and beautiful, which doesn't motivate me to do anything but go out and play. That's not helpful when I'm trying to keep ahead of schedule for my classes/fieldwork prep.

We have decided to go home for spring break (WOOHOO!!) I haven't seen my loved ones in almost a year, which is the longest it has ever been for me to go with out seeing them and by spring break, I'm going to seriously need a break before field season starts up again. That and the universe keeps throwing "Alabama" and "home" related songs and tv shows in my path. Hell, I need a break now, but I'm determined to get as much done as possible before I break. lol.

This semester is going to be a busy one. At the beginning of this month I had a meeting with my projects major supporters and I presented what I had done this past field season and what information I had regarding that data so far. Next month, I present a poster at the Texas Chapter of the Wildlife Society meeting. I'm nervous and excited at the same time. Poster exhibits are during the first day and then on the way home we are stopping by Port Aransas Wildlife Refuge!!! I'm so excited about the stop because I will most likely get to see whooping cranes! The only WILD population of whooping cranes!! I can barely contain myself while typing those words!

After TCTWS and Port Aransas is the trip home in March. We are renting a car and traveling with our furbabies, so it's going to be an adventure to say the least. 6 days, 3 different beds, and trying to fill as much time as possible catching up with as many people as possible!  Then April...oh April. In April I have to give a 40 min seminar about my project. I'm the first one in the "class" to do this, which I'm kinda glad for since they are usually not as tough on the first person to present. Then by mid-April I need to start field work. This means before April I need to have at least 2 part time techs hired and able to work out in the field both during some days during the week and weekends while going to school at the same time. Craziness. That craziness will end mid-May when I can have a tech go full-time with me on the project, but a new craziness will ensue while we try to catch up on all the surveys and arthropod collections that we weren't able to do during the semester and end field season in June relatively close to last years completion. Whew!!

It may not sound like much, but when I start to think about what all there is to do and when it needs to be done by, I start to panic a little. So, don't be alarmed if I only get to blog once a month at most these next few months. But I do promise I will take lots of pictures and post them here eventually.

Here are some from the past few weeks! Enjoy and blessed be.

Beautiful sunrise right before a dismal cold and rainy day

This weekend's robin egg blue skies

bored and didn't want to work anymore...

Sunset is getting later and later (spring is on the way!!)

3 minutes after the above picture was taken. I love how the sun sets the clouds afire!

Wow. I kinda fell off the face of the Earth for a while huh? Let's see, last I posted anything was the 4th of July and here it is nearing the end of August. A little and a lot has happened since then.

Our friends Brittany and Tia made the long trek from Alabama to spend a few days with us. We were able to show them some of the cool stuff around town, taste some of they yummy food, and use the opportunity to be tourists ourselves. Although we have been here for six months, we really haven't ventured out very much. It was pretty neat to learn some of the history of this little town.

Other than our visitation adventures, it's pretty much been the same 'ol same 'ol 'round here. Most days I feel like I'm running around in circles with my project, but I know I'm doing it to myself. I'll be reading along, making headway and then BAM! I've got to see if there are any other articles about this topic. Next thing I know it's almost 5 and I've managed to download 20 more articles to read. Same thing the next day only it'll be, "what if I did this?" or "maybe I could run a chi-square test on this data" and next thing I know it's almost 5 and I've managed to give myself a huge headache and realize that everything I did was completely unnecessary. This week was, "let's cut birds with a distance greater than blah amount" and "let's do a third cut with a distance greater than this other amount", then "well, now I have to do corrected occupancy sheets for each of those", followed by "well I guess I just can't count so I need to recount the first list so I can correctly count the second and third lists." Hi, my name is Libby and I like to create more work for myself. Oh yea, and I can't count.

On the bright side of this week, Buddy had an interview and had a drug screen. Granted he is not sure how many people this company is looking to hire and there were multiple people interviewed, but we gotta hold on to hope.

This coming week I start my first classes as a grad student! I'm kinda stoked cause I'll get into a better and earlier routine. As the temperatures started getting higher I've been slacking on my walking and I can tell. I don't have as much energy as I did when I got back from field season and my clothes that were starting to get loose on me have now started to "shrink" again. It doesn't help that I pulled something in my back this past Friday (now a week ago) during my stressful tirade around campus trying to figure out why I was not "meeting requirements" for my financial aid that would be coming in the following Monday. I've been trying to take it easy, but that is not easy for me since I don't like to sit still. It's MUCH better than it was during the week! Getting up still hurts, but once I'm up and moving I'm ok. Hopefully with this new schedule (8am classes Tuesday and Thursday) I'll be able to get up earlier on the other days and get back to my hiking routine. I know Luna would be thankful.

I've also got to get back into blogging again. I've got some ideas floating around in my head such as "bird of the week" posts where I blog info about certain birds of interest, or even "animal of the week" with information on animals in the news, or some combination of the two. Also, I'm going to get a little more personal on here. Right now it's pretty black and white and there are a lot of things that I would like to share that weigh on my heart and that other people can relate to.

As per usual, here are some photos from the week...er month between posts. Blessed Be.

"We'll be ok. I do this all the time."

One of the many historical houses in Nacogdoches.
This one is also a B&B

The elusive yellow-billed cuckoo and I have developed a relationship.

Weekends are so hard here

leaf-footed bug in the rain

It only took 3 years, but they are so sweet to each other now!

Maybe because it isn't a "light" beer, but it's decent.

kitty model, Serenity

August sunset in Nacogdoches

Insect identification (warning: there are pictures of spiders!)

While packing up pitfall and fogging equipment I wouldn't need again till next field season I peeked into the freezer that is in the cage (wildlife storage area) and looked at the multitude of insects some of my fellow grad students have collected for their field season. Their collection jars are about 4x the size of mine, do not contain alcohol, and are just about slap full. Since I have no where near as many insects as they do, I figured it might save everyone time if I just identified my own insects/arthropods. My defense: 1. Two grad students still have 5 boxes of insects to be identified, 2. undergrads are working on insect identification for the two grad students who currently have insects to be identified, 3. another grad student is also collecting insects for his project, 4. I have way less insects than they do (mostly because I did not collect mine with an attractant (like a light source for night flying insects)), 5. I only have to identify them to order or family, and 6. how awesome would it be to say, "Yeah, I identified all of my insects."

Little did I know how difficult it is for an insect lay person, such as myself, to even begin to start identify these little guys! For example, I didn't know the best way to identify spiders to their family is by eye arrangement. I do now! P.S. I do not like spiders one bit and staring at them through a microscope in order to see how their eyes are situated on their head has made for an interesting time to say the least. After the first two days I kept feeling like something was crawling on me. Today was my third day and I'm little over half way done with one of my boxes! Luckily I only have 3 boxes and one of those has hardly any insects in them. Although by the end of the day I'm tired of staring at bugs and inhaling smelly rubbing alcohol (I'm sure it'll be like formaldehyde soon enough where I just don't smell it anymore), I'm starting to see insects in a whole different light (figuratively and literally).

Yes, looking for a spiders eyes through a microscope can be horrifying. Especially when you see their fangs!

But, the coloration on some of them is just amazing, dare I say almost beautiful. It's also amazing how some of them are designed. Just a slight variation in the wings on a fly like insect can mean different species, families, or even orders of insect. 80% of all the animals on Earth are insects! Crazy!



This weekend I was reading the blog of a professor from another university who has his grad students do blog posts from time to time. According to what I read, I will not have as much time to myself as I thought I would. I guess I need to get it in as much as possible while I can. Though it also has me wondering, is my project just too simple? Should I add something to it? Should I be doing more? And I really have no idea.... I guess that's something I'll have to think on.

Here are some pictures I took today while enjoying some of my "outside" break time. Enjoy and blessed be!

summer tanager

brown thrasher in the sun

singing brown thrasher in the sun

And that's a wrap!

We finished our last three stands this morning! It couldn't have come at a better time. Brittany's drivers licence expires next week so she had to go back this weekend and on top of that the rain chances for today and tomorrow have been increasing with each passing day. This was my commute home:

This is what it looks like right now:

And the rest of the week:

This rain would have set us back at least two days and we may not have been able to finish by Saturday so Brittany could get back home as planned. So, needless to say, I'm ok with my decision even though it came with the price of working everyday since last Monday, getting up at 3am every morning save one, and driving almost 5 hours each day. 

The funny thing about today is I ended up dehydrated enough to be sick. Both Brittany and I did so well hydrating while out in the field. We would remind each other to drink and even take extra stops to hydrate if we were especially hot. Though today in all of our excitement we didn't do so well. I didn't even finish half my powerade. It didn't occur to me that was what was wrong until Buddy mentioned it a little while ago. Oops. Glad it was today of all days though! 

So, what's next? Tomorrow Buddy and I are going to have a date day, Wednesday I'm going to clean the apartment and unpack my things away in an organized fashion, and sometime after (read:Thursday) I'm going to start back on data entry. I'm registered for three hours of thesis writing for the summer II semester, so I'll start on my proposal soon after data entry. Sounds fun right? Ha! Unfortunately, this is the major portion of my field...writing.

I probably won't get excited until I start data analysis, which is still kinda boring and goes over most peoples heads. But, I'm going to do my best to throw it in here so even the layest of laymen can understand. What's  the point of science if it's so damn difficult no one wants to understand it, right? Then no one would get how nifty science is. For now I'm going back to relaxing on the couch with the hubby, drinking powerade, and loving on my furbabies. 

Good morning from stand (13) 26. Although this picture was taken Thursday or Friday this was our final stand of the season! 

Brittany's last meal in Nacogdoches at Butcher boys. Her favorite was the sour cream, cheddar, bacon burger. The sad face is because she couldn't finish it. 

Good morning from the road beside stand (08)17. It's the stand to the left and one of my favorite tall pine stands we worked in. 

Bunny friend! This little guy wasn't near as shy as some of it's brothers and sisters. He stayed on the road watching us walk up on him for a long time. 

The dark green path is our trail in as our boots and jeans soaked up all the dew. This is stand (13)2. 

My favorite sight after crossing the Sabine River...both signs.