A river runs through it 24 July 2001 Well, our phone line gets disconnected tomorrow sometime, so this is the last of the 2001 installments of Stefanie's Adventures in the Gila...or...How I Spent My Summer Annoying A Forest Full of Owls. Basically, we've been soaking wet for about 3 weeks straight now. Every afternoon the sky opens up and dumps on us...thunder, lightening, rain, hail. Camp floods almost daily, we have little rivers running all over camp. The pit that we dug for our 4th of July pig roast became a small swimming pool, but now it's mostly just a quicksand trap. It does make everything very green out here. And the wildflowers are beautiful. All the greenery on the ground makes our daily paths very visible in the dirt. Mostly the paths people take to their tents every night, and the 3 paths leading up to the port-a-potties. Work completely halts if the lightening gets too close to camp since we have so much expensive electrical equipment out here (computer and such) that we have to not only turn off the generator, but unplug all equipment in case of a lightening-induced power surge. Although sometimes we don't have to bother turning off the generator since the lightening occasionally kills it for us. I saw the left over pieces of a tree that had been struck by lightening a few days ago. Huge splinters all over the road. Luckily for me, I picked a good spot for my tent...no leaks or mysterious puddles on the floor of my tent. There were a few night though that I was afraid to go to bed with the radio on since they have 2-foot antennae on them. But my boss reassured me that I needn't fear the radio, I should be more concerned with the tall trees around my tent. Thanks. Despite the weather, we've been busy as ever. Most of July was spent doing behavioral observations on the owls while big loud jets careened over our heads. We had usually 3 teams of people go out to territories where pairs had been found earlier in the season. We're allowed to annoy a certain amount of owls per season. The owls that Ann and I frequented were in Deep Creek Divide. The slope of that drainage is wonderful on the joints, especially when it's soggy. :) They had been fairly easy the first week or so, but then they decided that we'd had it way too easy and made us chase them all over the area for the last few weeks. Sometimes we could only find the male, but last week we finally figured out where the female was hiding. Early in June she'd been found once in a little Gambel oak tree about 3 drainages over. So one morning when we couldn't find either owl (it was our last behavioral observation day...which I think the owls must have known, which is why they ran us all over the place) Ann sent me to check out the other roost. Low and behold...there she was. Never said a word, no responses to my hoots, whistles, calls. I just found her visually, which is pretty darn cool. I was so proud and so excited for myself. And what made it even better was that Ann was proud of me too. When we got back to camp that afternoon (late that afternoon), she told a bunch of people what a great job I did finding the owl. Ben, our new guy from Hubbs that's helping Ann with the bioacoustics part, came with Ann and I that morning. He'd never studied animals before, which became pretty obvious with the noise that he made. Rule #1 about studying animals: if you want to be able to observe them without scaring them away...BE QUIET! Needless to say, it was a long day, and quite an introduction to field work for Ben. Hehehe ;) A few of us took a break (surprising for me, huh?) and headed into Pinos Altos (just outside Silver City) to have dinner and hang out at the Buckhorn, a bar/restaurant that we occasionally visit (when we're up the to 3-hour drive). Monday night is Open Mike night and we have a few biologist/musicians in our group. Lisa and Andres had been practicing for a while so they got up on stage and sang a few numbers with guitar. It was fun, and very nice to get out of camp for a night. We even snagged one of the field tape recorders that we use and recorded them playing without them knowing. We didn't want to make them any more nervous than there already were. They were good, a lot of the people there last night were regulars I think, so it took a lot of guts for them to get up there. We headed back to camp this morning, after sleeping at the Silver City KOA, to find camp suddenly overpopulated with VIPs. Camp is quickly falling down around us. The circus tent is gone, and most of the storage tents are empty. Chuck is very eager to get home. Most of the owl crew stuff is still up though. We actually went into the field yesterday morning, and possibly may go tonight too if the weather is decent. There's nothing like working to the very end. I'll probably be one of the last people to leave here because I have to make sure that all of our (Hubbs) stuff is stored and packed away safe enough to make the 14 hour drive back to San Diego in Ann's trailer. My current plans are to head to Mesa Verde in Colorado (an archeological site I've heard about from people here at camp) via a portion of Route 66. After that, I may head to Arches or Bryce Canyon in Utah. Or I may just go home depending on how tired and/or homesick I am at that point. I've had a lot of fun out here. I've learned A LOT, much more than I expected, and definitely in areas that I didn't expect. I'm going to miss the forest for sure, and the people. It's not so much that I want to return to the city, but that I want to return home...to friends and family and a space of my own that's a little bit bigger than my tent. I hope you've all enjoyed my newsy newsletters. Pretty soon it'll be work as normal (because being out here is never normal, even after 4 months, which is why I think I enjoy it so much) back at the office. Traffic and depressing evening news and gas prices. Sigh. It is great out here. Love and sunshine, Stefanie ;) top of page letters from camp