Weekend, Water, and Work-Outs

Yes, I’ve been pretty lazy lately and am *finally* getting around to updating this thing. In my defense, I’ve blown through two seasons of Will and Grace in under a week. Can you blame me for not wanting to break that flow? (Yes. Definitely blame me. Make me feel shame.)

Birthday girl!

Anyways, this (extended) week started out with a nice long weekend with my relatives in Fort Myers! The 18^th was my aunt’s birthday, so I drove down that morning for a three-day weekend with her, my uncle, and my cousin (who flew down from Chicago for the weekend). It was so great spending the weekend with them – we celebrated at a fun Mexican restaurant, went shopping at an outlet mall, my cousin and I enjoyed their hottub, had a couple of their friends over for a nice pre-Easter dinner, went to the outlets again, watched the SpaceX launch on the NASA channel (didn’t know that channel even existed), and I walked away with a whole heap of clothing from my aunt and her coworker. (So for my aunt’s birthday, she gave me free clothing. Seems a little backwards, but I appreciated it!) It was a great weekend.

When I went back to work on Monday I was happy to see that Michelle had found a bunch of nests while I was gone, so our nest search list was super short. And with a few more finds from each of us over the next couple of days, our list was at an all-time low – we needed to find nests in only two territories! Of course, our break from nest searching was short-lived, because more than half a dozen nests were depredated in the next couple days. Win some, lose some. We’re still regularly banding nestlings, and I’m getting really good at the bleeding and banding. The bleeding is fairly easy (with the exception of the occasional rolling vein), and I’m getting a lot of practice putting all of the bands on (metal, celluloid, and Darvik). I’ve also been working on taking measurements of the tarsus (leg), 7^th primary feather (in the wing), 6^th retrice feather (in the tail), and the weight for when Michelle goes on a short vacation. My measurements have to be within 0.3mm (or grams) of hers!

A week-old fledgling

Last Wednesday I came in from the field and discovered that the water in the trailer was out again (apparently a pipe broke somewhere, and there was no estimate as to when it would be fixed). This time Greg had his own place in town (last time the water was out he was living in the trailer with me), so he let me come over and use his shower, which was perfect because our office was going out to dinner and the next day was my day off (I don’t want to be icky for a day of nothing). Fortunately when we got back home after dinner, some prisoners had just finished fixing the pipe and were turning the water on for us (I love the prisoners!!). They laughed when we started cheering and jumping for joy. But seriously, think of all of the things you can’t do if your water is out – no dishes, no laundry, can’t boil a pot of water, no shower, can’t wash your face/hands, can’t flush the toilet (except for that one magic flush that uses the reserves in the back of the toilet), can’t rinse your toothbrush… it’s a pain!

Sandhill Crane with her babies

Crested Caracara

This weekend I made a big decision to finally start exercising. Ugh. Normally I don’t have to do additional exercise during field seasons because I get such a work out just doing normal work (running around chasing birds, walking 8+ miles a day, squat-walking, crawling, climbing trees, carrying 10 gallons of water, etc.), but this is probably the laziest job that I’ve had. It’s been one of the more rewarding ones because the scrub-jays are awesome, I’m actually finding a decent number of nests, and I’m getting experience bleeding and banding birds, but it doesn’t require that much physical exertion. We drive between our territories and the birds come to us (rather than having to go find them) and I don’t have to carry any heavy equipment, climb trees, or really do anything strenuous. So, despite the fact that I’m actually eating decently healthy (or rather, not eating junk food), I’m turning into a chubster. Heffer. Lady Tubbington. Okay, it’s not that bad. But this is the first field season that I’m not naturally just losing weight. Sigh. (To be fair, it may also be because this is south central Florida, where dieting does not exist, eating healthy is weird, and there is a wait for motorized carts in Walmart). So now I exercise and try to eat lots of healthy rabbit food. Let me know if you have any good work out suggestions or recipes. Also, news flash: healthy food is effing expensive!! What the heck. No wonder low-income families get super unhealthy eating fast-food – it’s way cheaper than fruits and vegetables. There are wild blueberries that grow in certain areas on the range. I’m tempted to just spend my days off picking a basket of those rather than pay whatever the heck outrageous price the grocery store wants to charge me. Or grapes. GOOD GOD grapes are expensive. I think I’m going to live on a farm at some point. Cows, fruits, vegetables, cowboys… everything I need right there.