A Week of Creatures

Finally a day off! I just worked an eight-day week, have today off, and then nine more days of work to look forward to (yes, we’re working on the 4^th). To be fair, I did this to myself in order to get a three-day weekend to go up to Washington D.C., so it will all be worth it.

Anyways, last Saturday I FINALLY got to go swimming for real! Liz and Joey, two of the SCA interns working for the refuge, invited me to go swim in a nearby lake with them. I met them in the parking lot and then we walked a half kilometer down to the water (the water level was really low). The beach was incredibly nice – decent scenery, very soft sand, warm water with refreshingly cool current (good, because REALLY warm water brings on the brain-eating amoeba… not even kidding), and the beach was empty (there were a number of boaters, but we had the land). We swam and relaxed for a couple hours, and then Andrew (another SCA intern) showed up from setting up a hog trap. They were going to the Cedar Park Rodeo that night, so we left a little while later.

This week I encountered lots of creatures. I saw my first black widow of the season (great, more things that can kill me!) – she had trapped one of those black beetles in her web.

We also found a GIANT grasshopper on our sliding glass door. That thing was as big as my hand.

I almost ran into a huge black and yellow garden spider. He had built a web right across a little path between some shin oak bushes, and I was walking into the sun so I could barely see. Thankfully I saw him just in time, because he was big enough (size of my palm) that I would have had a major freak out trying to get him off of me. I went around the bushes to take pictures from the other side of his web. I was going to be bold and take a picture with my hand next to him (for size), but the wind kept blowing his web toward me which was NOT okay considering I was squatting down to get him level with my face. Giant spider and face do not mix.

I saw my third rattlesnake of the summer, and this one was moving! I had been looking for a male BCVI with his fledglings, and after waiting around a while I finally heard them pretty close by, so I was figuring out the best path to get to them. I was standing on a rock and couldn’t see the ground because the grass was so tall. I didn’t want to just step down because there’s always the worry of messing up your knees when you don’t know how far it is to the ground. I’m glad I paused, because I heard something moving in the grass next to me. Normally I just kind of assume it’s some kind of insect or lizard or something, but this time I turned around to investigate. I looked over and saw a meter-long rattlesnake slithering slowly into the tall grass a meter away from me in the direction that I was trying to go. Heck NO was I going to jump in that grass! And once again, he didn’t rattle.

Last interesting creature encounter was actually a BCVI. I had just checked his nest and found the female incubating four eggs, so I ran over to where the male was singing so that I could map him (they like getting an idea of territory ranges before and after the birds have a nest). A couple minutes after I found the male, a female popped up out of nowhere and they copulated! But he already had a female with a nest… so he had a second female! It was really lucky that I saw this, because it will save a lot of confusion later when we see him hanging out in several territories (kind of like that mess of birds from a couple weeks ago).

This week Chelsea, Marisa, Dianne, and Jeremy all went to PK to do veg… for two days. That sounded absolutely terrible, so I was glad that I got to stay behind and keep doing territory stuff, as nice as PK is. While they were gone I went to the Bluebonnet Café with Michaela and Tatiana (a temp field tech who was only around for a week of training, then going to join the Oklahoma crew). Western omelet, hash browns, Texas toast, and German chocolate pie. Oh my gosh, that pie was so good! Definitely better than the peanut butter pie I had the first time. We totally ate the pie before the meal, which was good because then I saved half of the omelet and hash browns to have for breakfast the next morning.

Wednesday Liz and Joey invited me to go with them to Blues on the Green in downtown Austin. It’s a free concert series every other Wednesday in the summer. We met one of Liz’s high school friends there, who had brought some of her friends. It was a really fun evening – music, free swag, shirtless guys putting way more effort into Frisbee than was probably necessary, and being in a city again! We didn’t get back to their bunkhouse until midnight, and then it was another 20 minutes for me to get back to the Flying X. Was definitely great to finally have a real night out, but man was I hurting the next day.

The others finally got back from PK on Friday, but Michaela left to help at another site for a few days. On Saturday, Marisa wanted to pick up some wine for her parents, so she, Chelsea, and I went to the Flat Creek Winery which was only 20 minutes away (and only 5 minutes from the beach I went to with Liz, Joey, and Andrew). For $10 we tried 6 wines and got a wine glass to keep. They had a couple of absolutely delicious wines, but being a poor field tech, I only bought a bottle of the second-best wine (half the cost of the best one). After that we met Jeremy and Tatiana at the Bluebonnet Café, but we needed to stop for gas along the way. Marisa knew that her tank was almost empty when we left the house, but she said she would fill up at this sketchy little gas “station” on the way to the winery. For some unknown reason, she saw the gas station on the way to the winery, said “there it is”, and kept driving… with the AC on full blast. After leaving the winery, we watched the gas warning light turn on and the needle hover dangerously close to the E. Her car gives an estimate of how many miles are left, but when you’ve got the AC running and you’re going up and down hills that number drops quicker than normal. We rolled into the station on fumes, with something like 6 miles left in the tank. I love that my dad taught me to never let the gas drop below a quarter tank. Definitely prevents those moments of panic. Plus, it was over 100 degrees outside… I was NOT pushing that car. Oh, got a slice of pecan pie warmed up – was a very close second to the German chocolate pie!

Earlier in the week we heard on the radio that a cold front would be moving in on Sunday that would drop temperatures to 100… DROP temps to 100. He was definitely right – there was a storm on Sunday morning. It sucked because 10 minutes of rain and I was soaked to my skin for the rest of the day. However, the sunrise was BEAUTIFUL, and not just right where the sun was. The whole sky looked amazing, with all the clouds and changing light. Definitely worth the storm… until I started slipping and sliding into the canyons instead of gracefully hiking my way down. There is really nothing graceful about what we do, actually.

Today, as I said, is my day off! I managed to sleep in until sunrise ( :-| ) which was fortunately another good one, so I ran outside to take some pictures and then hopped back into bed. I left for Austin a bit later to hit up REI for some gear for Peru. I think I will only ever go to REI in the hour after opening, and only on weekdays. I got help immediately after entering the store, and had three other people offer to help in the time that I was there. Compare this to a Saturday afternoon when I stood next to an employee for over 20 minutes before it was finally my turn. Since I’m in downtown Austin, I figure I’ll wander around and explore the shops and whatnot. Depending on how long I’m here, I may stick around to see the REAL bat bridge! Nine straight days of work starting tomorrow… wish me luck.