May 31st - Relaxation Day!

Well, I didn't really accomplish anything today and that was my intention.  I slept in (it seems anymore my "sleeping in" is about 9:30am) which felt amazing and was much needed.  I know you can't ever really "catch up" on sleep but it sure felt like I did. 

I then spent my day performing a variety of little tasks such as sweeping and cleaning the windows -- it's the least I can do since Mary lets me stay here free of charge and always feeds me like I'm one of her own!  Every morning when I leave for work -- "Do you have your lunch?"  She's so sweet.  One day we were talking and I told her how peaches are one of my favorite fruits and the next day she came home with a bunch of peaches!  :)

Anyway, back to my day of relaxation...I spent a huge chunk of my day sitting in various locations throughout the house reading this highly addictive book entitled "Black Hills" written by Nora Roberts.  ATTENTION ALL FELLOW WILDLIFERS: Read this book!  It is an incredible story about of two young kids that end up falling in love but then they go their separate ways: one becomes a police officer and the other becomes a wildlife biologist and establishes a wildlife refuge in the Black Hills of South Dakota and quickly becomes the target of something evil...and well, I could go on and on about the plot but I won't...I mean, I don't want to ruin it for everybody and I'm only halfway through it myself.  So, these various locations that I sat in to read this AMAZING book included the front porch, the back porch, the living room, and my bedroom...and dare I even say...the bathroom??  No, I didn't read it in the bathroom -- sorry to disappoint you...

Mary came home from her job around 5pm and took her usual evening nap before which she told me if I get hungry before she wakes up to just snack because she will be making soup...mmmm...well, she slept until 8pm and here we are waiting for the infamous soup to cook at quarter to 10pm!  It's ok though, I don't mind...

 One of the many areas I was reading today (the back porch)

 The view from the back porch (Canaan Valley)

A watched pot never boils...

May 30th

Let me just start off by saying that today was a BEAUTIFUL day!  The sun was shining and there wasn't a raindrop in sight. 

I was all excited to see how my bait cubes held up against the infamous mice on the Elakala Trail -- they outsmarted me AGAIN!!  They ate the bait right out of the cubes that were hanging from the ceiling of the trap!  Mice 2, Briana 0. 

Since the pesky peromyscus won't leave my traps alone, I will be moving them (all 10 of them) to a new location -- the Shay Trace Trail...it will be interesting moving 10 traps by myself...

Meanwhile on the Yellow Birch Trail the flooding continues!  I wore my rain boots again today specifically for this reason and it made no difference at all.  The water was so high it came up past my boots and I spent the rest of that trail with soggy, squishy feet.  It reminded me a lot of last summer and how we crossed the Rio Grande everyday and everyday (except for when the river was dried up) the water went in our boots.  Except then I didn't mind because it was so hot outside, I actually looked forward to it!

Canaan Loop Road was highly active and I had 8 out of 10 traps triggered with hair!  I also saw a black-capped chickadee and a northern cardinal while there.  I came across a giant slug which I so nicely named Slug-Zilla, and noticed about 4 new pink lady slippers in this one spot on the trail.  I finally re-hung trap 6 (it was knocked down before I started working here) and looked at the first bunch of photos from the trail-cam -- no squirrels, and just one deer.

Water monitoring did not happen yet again...it's starting to make me anxious because I need to get it done but everyone that can help me do it has something come up and we have to reschedule! 

It's officially the weekend and all the traps are closed until Monday!  Sleeping in tomorrow, there is just something about not having to set your alarm that is very liberating!  :)

 I caught a homo sapiens in the wild on my trail camera -- very exciting stuff here!

 DEER!

 You win again mice...

 The water was really flowing today!

 SLUG-ZILLA!!!  AAHHHHH!! RUN FOR YOUR LIFE!

 Very pretty pink lady's slipper -- it's in the orchid family!

I caught a whisker today!

May 29th - New Bait Method Day!

Today started off pretty slow because of the recent storms, and it was raining some more when I first got into the office -- you never realize how much you take rain for granted until you live in the Southwest (I lived in New Mexico for three years).  I started off by making some more phone calls to some local newspapers for the Climate Change Impacts Initiative - a weekend conference hosted by the Friends of Blackwater about the impacts of climate change on the Allegheny Highlands.  Tom Rodd is the Program Director for this event and he is hoping to make it an annual conference.  There will be top scientists and climatologists from all over coming to present at this conference so it should be a good one!

After making the calls I started to make the new bait holders for some of our traps -- the traps on the Elakala Trail have not been successful so far because I discovered deer mice have been getting into them and eating all the bait.  I made cubes out of hardware cloth to be filled with peanut butter to hang from the roof of the traps.  Hopefully this will work out better -- we will know tomorrow!

I finally headed out for trap work around 2pm with the Elakala Trail being my first stop.  It was an interesting day on the trail (it is one of the more popular trails because it is right next to the lodge and has a scenic view of Blackwater Falls) because I ran into about 20 Amish folk.  Of course they were all in their own little groups and then every group stopped to ask me about what I was doing.

I only got to half of our trap sites today due to weather, and the other site I visitied was the Yellow Birch Trail.  I was very glad I decided to put my rain boots on for this trail because half of it was flooded up above my ankles -- It was still nice though.  I had 3 active snares today on this trail. 

I was supposed to meet up with a guy named Bij, short for Bijon, today at 5pm so we could go out and do the monthly water monitoring project that Friends of Blackwater works on.  5pm came and went and no one showed up...I waited until a little after 5:30 and decided to head home in the hopes we will get it done tomorrow...

 Bait cube I made

 This is how I set it up.  Bait cube hanging and molasses on the tray

 Flying squirrel nest box

 Over ankle deep in water on the trail

Fiddle head

May 28th -- New trap day!

So today Judy and I met up with Doug (the technician before me), and Cathy from the USFS at 10am at the rock on Canaan Loop Road to head out to put up 10 new traps.  It was really great to get to see how they are setup and to even put some up on my own.  It took us right around 2 hours, which I didn't think was all that bad and the majority of the traps we put on eastern hemlock trees.  While out doing this we saw a bunch of interesting things.  We saw many red spotted newts, black bear scat, and a bunch of different types of mosses and lichens. 

After we finished we headed back to the office for some lunch and to run a couple errands for some supplies for work.  Judy bought me a cowbell to hang while I'm out to warn off bears since I am out hiking alone all the time and since we saw some bear scat today.  I went to head out to check the other traps and quickly got put on hold because a NASTY storm rolled in and didn't feel safe going out with the lightning and the torrential rain --tomorrow should be fun because I'm sure some of the areas have flooded.

My day ended with me heading over to Glenda and Lon's (Lon is a Friends of Blackwater volunteer) house for dinner and we had a great time just talking and hanging out; it was a lot of fun and it felt nice to socialize since I'm mostly alone for my work.

 Me hanging up a trap -- I decided to name this set of traps Red Run since they run along Red Run creek

 Cathy from the USFS

 Red spotted newt

 Judy and I putting the finishing touches on trap #9

Storm rolling in in Canaan Valley