birthday celebrations

06/20/2007

So yeah, driving the ATV is pretty sweet. You can’t beat a morning commute of a half hour ATV ride as the sun rises over the mountains and sagebrush. Definitely not your traffic on 93 into Boston on a weekday. Just me, my gear, the hum of the ATV, and the occasional startled mule deer.
We moved the birthday celebration to last night because Alex and Tamara were heading out this afternoon to go camping before their day off tomorrow. They made a pineapple upside down cake for everyone and even made a fruit salad and stuck candles in it for me. We sang a few different versions of happy birthday, pigged out, then went to bed. I was on the ATV again this morning at 5 am, doing the morning commute to a different route.
Justin, Matt, and I started veg. analysis today. Last night we all had high hopes of completing three points each. As of right now Justin and I have finished one, and Matt is currently in the process of doing his first. They were a bit more time consuming than we had anticipated… although they should get faster as we do more. Today it took me over 2 hours to complete one point. Two fifty meter transects at specific (but random) locations and orientations, IDing all the shrubs that fall under the line, how tall they are, how healthy, etc. And then for both transects, taking a quadrat and estimating percent cover of grasses, forbs, litter, bare ground, etc. and IDing those as well. The wind is what messes with you… twirling your tape and making you lose papers. Ah, fieldwork. This is definitely different than working in the micro lab. But I like it.
~me