Day 22: Round and Round

Today there was no escaping from the northern survey. I don't recall if I have mentioned this previously but The Wilds is located on reclaimed strip mines. The famous "Big Muskie" bucket would tear through the ground for coal. When there was no more coal to be had, the mobile strip mining factory would simply move to a new part of the property.

When the land was reclaimed in what is now the north property of The Wilds, the laws were different than they are today regarding who the land can be left. Today the land must be returned to its original contours. The north is a landscape of dense deciduous forest coating drastic elevation changes. 

The trip to our survey site was some of the most challenging hiking I have ever done. If we found a clear path to walk, it was not clear for very long. We climbed over downed trees, ducked under autumn olive bushes and broke through about a million spiderwebs to finally reach our lake.
After all the travel to reach our hidden lake, it turned out to be quite a let down. I observed a large school of blue gill fish as well as a gigantic large mouth bass. Both turtles and frogs eluded my gaze all morning.

Finishing the survey we began the march back to our truck. The details get a little foggy from this point. Someone tells someone else they are always right. Someone makes a left turn when they should have made a right. Perhaps our GPS unit went on strike at some point.

The only sure thing is that Lake Team spent the next 3 hours hopelessly lost in THICK cover. Climb up one hill, slide down the steep grade on the other side. Thorn bushes mixed seamlessly with chest high grasses to cover the lowlands. No radio service, no easy way out.

Lowlight: Bloody, sweaty, and exhausted, we crept up to a lake. Strangely enough, it looked identical to the lake we had surveyed in the morning. Oh, wait, it WAS the lake that we surveyed in the morning. We had managed to spend three hours traveling in a complete circle. 

Highlight: The only highlight of a day like today is when the sun sets, you are able to crawl in to bed and the entire experience becomes a distant memory. Thankfully we only have a few sites left to survey in the dreaded north.

Day 4: Rain Delay

Day 4 got underway with a good old fashioned rain delay. After packing up the worlds smallest backpack with all the essentials for project data and sample collection, marching to our field site in the pouring rain, the radio put an end to our excursion. Lightning had been spotted in the storm making a pond survey unsafe so we hiked back to the trucks.

The rain delay turned into paper writing time. It's been so long since I had to write an actual research paper that I am having some trouble getting started. Coming here I was really excited about the field work, not so much the paper writing. When I later found out that the restoration ecology group was outside planting trees throughout the entire storm I decided that I should not complain about how boring research papers can be at times.

After an evening spent watching the sunset and counting stars in my backyard, a bunkside conversation with my roommate may have given me a new idea for an additional research project this summer. It's too early to really say what I plan to do but I think it could be a fairly good one. I guess I'll find out when I pitch it to Joe in the morning.

Highlight of the day: An email from my mother who is "technology challenged" written in half-caps. The email stated that my father told her I was writting a blog and she would like to read it. Please excuse me while I take the time to finish my reply email...MOM, if you can read this YOU ARE DOING IT RIGHT...

Lowlight of the day: After returning from lunch, all of the floor mats in the classrom had disappeared. With all the rain there was no way to dust for fingerprints but I suspect the kids camp councilors.

Final Note: If you want to see my backyard and other instagood things that I see this summer, check out my new instagram widget on the right side of the screen.