creapy crawlies

Ok, I'm not normally too squemish, but this little guy gave me the willies. He's been haunting Emily for weeks, as she worked into the night... Finally caught him yesterday when he 'attacked' her. Fun stuff.
Ps. I got this pic from the web: www.uos.harvard.edu/ehs/pes_centipedes.shtml

Wetland Ecology field trip

As some of you may or may not know, I am TAing a class this quarter on wetland ecology. My advisor is teaching the course, and I am around to answer questions, prepare, and clean up. It is a pretty crazy lab class. But, the fun part is, we get to go on lots of cool field trips. This years group of kids seems like an amazing assemblage, Eliska and I are feeling really lucky. They are fun, intelligent, and actually seem interested in the subject. How lucky is that? I can tell you, if you don't find wetland ecology interesting, it ends up just being a dirty stinking job, so...

Anyway, we went on our first field trip yesterday, to some wetlands in the Tahoe area. For the first time in Eliska's experience, it had snowed! Hard to look at wetland plants when they are covered in snow and ice!

Our first stop was Lake Audrian. For some of our students, this was their first experience with snow!

It didn't help that the mud was also rather treacherous: boot sucking, 4 degrees C, misery. But, we got lots of laughs.

My boots leaked, and the duct tape fixall didn't work, so I stayed back and took pictures, that water was cold!

Just some fun snow stuff.

A lichen in the snow, to remind you that I am still silly for these guys.

A wet meadow close to Lake Audrian.

Next stop was Grass Lake, a quaking bog (really a transitional fen, if you want to be correct about it all).

It is called a quaking bog because that is what the ground does beneath your feet. It can be rather disconcerting, but also tons of fun. Basically, it is a 10 meter thick layer of peat filling in the lake. And closer to the edge? That peat is much thinner and actually floating! Thus every step jiggles and shakes.

The edge is rather scary, with a quick dropoff into the deepest part of the lake.

Doesn't bother Eliska though!

Our final stop of the day was at Lake Tahoe, in what used to be one of the largest marshes in the region, until they built an ill conceived 'mini Venice' in the middle for rich people to be able to park their boats by their house.

I tried a little too hard, so all my pictures don't show the houses, but just the beauty.

This is a little carnivorous plant called Utricularia. Those little capsules are the utricles and are where the plant captures all its goodies to eat. Cool huh?

I tried to get pictures of all my students to introduce them to you, but I will have to add to this list. Some of them weren't able to make it on this trip, and others... well lets just say I respect them to much to put the pics I do have online ;)

Eric, James, Thuy (Nicole in the background), Ti hua,

April, Mara, Annie, and Erin

At the very end of the day, according to Eliska's tradition, we stopped at apple hill for hot apple pie. Unfortunately, we were late and there were none left. But, we got some cold apple pie, and everyone was pretty much happy, yum yum.

Cosumnes

Eliska and I went to Cosumnes River Preserve today to collect some plants for the class to identify. I am sick of boring text postings, so I thought I'd put up some pics for you to enjoy.

Random Mexican rememberance

I just remembered one of the strangest things from my Mexico trip. We were taking a bus to the university, when we stopped at a traffic light. As is common in many parts of the world, there were your average boys and their need to prove something with their thumper trucks as I like to call them. i.e. music blasting with the bass turned up high. But, what I couldn't get over is that one of them was bouncing to Nora Jones. Yes, that's right, Nora Jones on a thumper.

Back. Safe, if not sound...

Ok, I made it home last Wednesday, but got super sick Thurday morning. Thought I had actually made it in and out of a foreign country without retching my brains out, but no, just delayed gratification. I am getting really tired of my wimpy body, I must say. Anyways, Im just holed up and nursing my wounded gut.

Meet the nifty people Ive met

Arnulfo (Chino)

Salvador (Chava) y Carlos

Esteban

Crisanto

Mariela

Oscar

Colors

It has been pretty stormy here, raining every evening and amazing lightening shows. And sometimes, when the light comes under the black clouds, it makes everything glow beautifully.

A VERY long day

Ok, by popular demand, there are tons of pictures of me and parts of my work in this posting. Way too many of me actually, but Ill get over it if you all stop complaining. ;)

The day started early again, but this time successfully.

We drove in Mariela's friends truck so Mariela and Esteban had to sit in the back

It was spectacularly beautiful

And I didn't have to drive! This is our driver, Mariela's pal "El Gordo." His real name is Victor and he is a very handsome guy... too bad hes gay

The first site we went to was a lovely little lake called Zirahuen.

It was incredibly cold though.
Like how I'm out there freezing my butt off and everyone else is hanging out nice and dry? This is called "Wheres Heather?"
Transfer to the land crew
It was deep!
Getting the soil cores out of the corer it hard sometimes!
This is what you get though, yummy!

My work crew for the day.

Esteban, Mariela, Victor, y Roman (novio de Gordo)
The loverboys

They sold these little fried dried fish, "Charales". They weren't as bad as I thought they would be.
And, musicians, of course
Lunch time

In the search for my plant, Gordo found a place to play

It was very pretty here, but no Tule

But we found some a little while later. In the background you can see the giant statue on the island Janitzio.

Mariela

This place was evil. Well, actually it was beautiful and fun, but had this species of grass that was like razorblades. It hurt so much, and my legs are completely covered in cuts now, ugly little crisscrosses. ugh.

El Gordo
A really cool bug on my plant
I look so much like my mother in this pic that it frightens me.

We did have tons of fun.

Then, more driving

Lago Patzcuaro in the background here.

More loverboys shots, they were cute.Its pretty, no?

We actually did 3 sites that day, I normally only do 1 or 2. I have to say it was exhausting. Quite.

But the third site, we went through the property of a family, they grew lots of maize.

At first, we were trying to get to the population that you can see to the right in this pic, but the going was treacherous. Gordo is actually standing on a log here, the water is only a foot or so deep, but the mud goes way down and sucks you in. If I hadn't been wearing my clean pants...
The property owners, thinking that I'm a crazy lady. Somehow, I always seem to get an audience.

Ok, give me snakes, spiders, all sorts of creepy crawlies, but not leaches, please not leaches! This little bastard was pulled off my leg, I cant hardly write this without freaking out! ¡Sanguijuelas!

It was pretty here though

So after three sites, I was ready to drop, my legs were on fire, I was about as filthyas you can get, and I smelled, well... really bad. But, did the day stop there? Of course not! Did you know that the 15th of September is Independence day in Mexico? Huge parties and all sorts of craziness. So, out on the town we go.