Surf & Turf

Hella busy day, but I took a bunch of pictures so there will be no boring post today.  Yesterday afternoon, I went out and cored 13 trees of which, six were paper birch, six red maples and one red spruce.  Chopped ‘em and bagged ‘em, which was worthwhile practice for the project in Costa Rica.  We just got a new balance that takes grams to the thousands place, so I’ve yet to begin measurements, but will tomorrow.

We all stayed up past midnight last night playing Egyptian Ratscrew and a home brewed Scategories.  No answers matched the genius of Steven’s “Ku Klux Klan outfit” for the letter K and category of “Things you keep hidden.”  I also lost pretty badly.  Up early for breakfast the next morning and soon after that we were off to Beals, Maine. 

Our first stop was Great Wass Island, a preserve owned by The Nature Conservancy.  On the way, the other car spotted a baby moose galloping alongside the road, but somehow we missed it.  The imitations were priceless.  At GWI, we hiked two miles out to the especially picturesque coast.  Here’s a group picture of everyone on the shore.

Apparently there’s a cabin on the shore where a summer intern gets to stay.  Good thing to look into for some of y’all.

We headed back inland after a granola bar and some exploring.  We did a series of three inventory plots beginning with a jack pine crest and heading down to a bog/heath area.  Today came with the most beautiful weather of the trip; 70 and sunny.  Good deal of sunburn and sweat to go with.

After eating lunch (fried chicken!) (in the field!) in the parking lot, we moved onto the Jonesport bog around 2:00 p.m.  Turned out to be right behind a high school and the biggest bog any of us had ever been in.  Check out the picture of some serious boggin’.  We did another three plots, bringing the total to 30, 8 more than the course four years ago.  Our second to last plot amounted to everyone laying down on the bog and me trying to shout out species and get cover estimate.  A boggin’ good time.

On the ride home we stopped at the blueberry, see the picture.  Made a b-double e-double-r-u-n in Millbridge before dinner.  Tomorrow we’ll be up at 5:00 a.m. to go look (?) at birds…myeaah.  I find birds pretty boring with the exceptions of penguins and when they kill each other (see old post, “Ornitocido”).  After that, we still have to begin data analysis and I need to process my wood samples and take more before the end of the week. 

At dinner we discussed obscure MFA candidate exhibits.  Mostly naked pictures and bodily fluids.  If you have time check this out (nothing to do with naked pictures or bodily fluids):

http://gizmodo.com/393165/the-biggest-drawing-in-the-world-created-with-the-help-of-gps-and-dhl

Nine days until Costa Rica, another nice weather day tomorrow, bed time now to get up super early.

BP