END OF FIELD SEASON

This month marked the end of my field season at Fort Huachuca, Arizona. It was sad to see it end, but great that I was able to take Jay with me to help with the pollinator and genetic sampling. Knowing that we were in for very long days in the field and many miles of hiking, I treated him to a nice dinner at the Copper Queen in Bisbee, Arizona on our first night. Here he is outside the mining museum:

The next morning we went up into Garden Canyon bright and early. We were surprised to see so much water flowing in the stream. We even came across this waterfall:
Our first mission was to collect genetic samples from the two species of agave on base. Here is Jay snipping agave leaf tips off the canyon species, Parry's agave:
In search of more Parry's, we went into Huachuca Canyon, but we had to go way off trail to find them:
On Sunday we taught Jay how to collect pollinators with the infamous bug vacs:

There were lots of butterflies out and about:

And quite a few Sphinx Moths during the day:

Jay found this couple in one of the Palmer's agaves we were sampling:

And just like last month, the grasshoppers were EVERYWHERE!

We went to Scheelite Canyon to collect genetic samples from a cliff-dwelling Erigeron species. Jay was agile on the cliff face, but it still made me nervous. Don't worry, I didn't let him climb too high!

We didn't see the Spotted Owls in Scheelite (either day that we hiked up there), but we did come across the dreaded Vinegaroon in the middle of the trail (that's the tip of Jay's shoe for a size comparison):

On the way to the airport on our last morning we stopped by Saguaro National Park. They didn't open until 7am, so Jay didn't get to see the sea of Saguaros, but we did have fun exploring the park boundary. He got some amazing photos of a very friendly Cactus Wren. This is one that I took through my binoculars (his are much better, of course):

And finally, we couldn't visit the park without getting our picture taken in front of some Saguaros:

Adios Arizona, I'll miss you!

FISTS FULL OF SNAKES

Well, our 4th generation of snakes has hatched...

Fiona (now 5-years-old) laid 17 eggs over the 4th of July, 10 of which hatched. Most are your standard corn snake color, a few have only the black and white coloring, and two are albino:

Our two-year-old albino pair laid 7 eggs that same weekend, 6 of which hatched:

A few of those have the pretty motley pattern:

They're already growing and some have had their first shed. They'll be ready for their first meal sometime this week!

So, if you're in the market for a snake or two, or three, just let us know. Free to a good home!

THE TOMATO PLACE

After church and grocery shopping today, we decided to stop at The Tomato Place. It's on the way home, there are always cars there (which to us is always a good indication of an establishment's appeal to locals), and we'd never stopped before (in the whole 1.5 years we've lived here), so today was the day! We thought it was just a farmer's market, but it turns out you can get lunch, homemade ice cream, fresh-squeezed lemonade, handmade birdhouses and rocking chairs, and more canned novelties than we've ever seen in one little shop. We enjoyed BLT's with huge slices of tomatoes (of course) and homemade peach cobbler and ice cream for desert. Oh yeah, and some banana pudding. Delicious! We plan to stop there during the week now and then, since it's so close to the office - finally, another restaurant option in Vicksburg! If you enjoy mom-and-pop shops and their associated eccentricities, you'll love The Tomato Place as much as we did. Happy Sunday!

CARLSBAD CAVERNS FLASHBACK

Back in 2001-2002, Jay and I lived at Carlsbad Caverns National Park for 8 months while working a seasonal position on an exotic plant removal team. I always recommend this park to my friends and family as a must-see because it is so unique and special. During certain times of the year, you can see ocotillo and other cacti blooming on the surface. You can see pretty desert birds and lots of interesting wildlife, like the ringtail and tarantula. As seasonal employees, we were able to live in the employee housing at the park, seen in this photo above the big parking lot next to the cave entrance. I had a corner apartment, the one on the far left (I had the BEST sunset views, out over the Guadalupe Mountains), and Jay's was right next door. The best thing though, was being able to sit on my porch and watch the nightly outflight of Mexican free-tailed bats during those first couple of months.

As employees, we were given opportunities to take some the paid (and the behind-the-sceens) tours for free. In one, we went out to Slaughter Canyon Cave, where we saw CLIFFS of historic bat guano, and in another we went down to Lower Cave, where we saw lots of water features and cool formations. I know it looks tiny in this photo, but this is the Great Wall of China:

This one is called the Indian:

Here is a bat skull:

And a bat skeleton:

These are cave pearls:

And here is my favorite photo from the Big Room:

And yes, Jay took some of these photos (I'm sure you can tell which ones!)

OUR IMPRESSIONS OF GUSTAV

On our way home from Kentucky on Sunday night we passed a huge convoy of tree-trimmers. There must have been over 2 dozen of them, all heading south towards Gustav. We were pretty impressed to see such a showing!

Gustav started affecting Vicksburg Monday morning, with constant rain, and tornado and flash-flood warnings. We lost some tree limbs and our neighbor's pond is fuller than we've even seen it, but other than that we didn't think there was anything exciting going on at our house. We saw some trees down on the way to work this morning though, and when we got home this afternoon, we found a big tree down at our neighbor's house (the same house with the pond). It managed to take down 4 other small trees in it's path! We went over to the neighbor's house to offer our assistance (well, mostly Jay's assistance, since it's his chainsaw) and found out that it went down at 2:30am last night (she was up feeding her newborn baby girl, so she noted the loud boom) - we must have missed it this morning when it was still sort-of dark on the way to the office...

BYE-BYE BABIES

We'll miss you! We never named the baby kittens because we didn't want to get too attached to them... and it sort-of worked. The kittens went to a great new home today and we couldn't be happier that the brothers get to stay together, but we do miss them already. Maxine seems a little sad, so we've been trying to give her extra attention tonight. We're sure she'll be fine soon though (and we'll be taking her in to get fixed at the soonest possible appointment!)

Thank you Fiona (and family) for adopting our little cuties!

MAMMOTH WEEKEND!

We had a great (and somewhat shortened) weekend up at Mammoth Cave National Park with our friend Jen, a fellow SCA alumni. We camped out and took a couple cave tours, then had to split a day early to beat Hurricane Gustav to Mississippi!

We saw so many deer we lost count!

The one above-ground hike we did was down to River Styx Springs:
Later that day, we did the 2 mile/2.5 hour River Styx cave tour. The highlights were long, wide passages and big rooms, along with some history and 3 underground "rivers" (more like lakes). "Fat Man's Misery" was an interesting passage too... The next morning, we did the 4 mile/4.5 hour Grand Avenue cave tour, where Boone Avenue was our favorite series of passages (it was like walking through a canyon). Here is the Carmichael Entrance:
And this is one small section of Boone Avenue:

This was our tour guide's "highlight" of the Grand Avenue tour, the "Frozen Niagara" (and if we hadn't lived at Carlsbad Caverns for 8 months, we probably would have been more impressed!) All the formations we saw we in the last 1/8th mile of the tour. 80% of all formations in the currently explored 365 miles of Mammoth Cave are located in this area (Mammoth is much drier than Carlsbad).

Thanks for the great visit Jen!

WELCOME JAGGER

Nicole and Rob welcomed Jagger James into the world on August 13th (almost 5 weeks early) and he was finally able to go home yesterday. He's doing great and I'm so happy that he is home with his mommy and daddy! In honor of his homecoming, I thought I'd post a couple of the photos Nicole has sent me (hopefully she won't mind!) He is such a handsome baby (and his parents are looking good - and blissful - too!)

THE GREENING OF ARIZONA

This is the 8th wettest monsoon in recorded Arizona history, and it's showing on the hillsides. Everything is green and there are more flowers in bloom than I've seen on any other trip (most of them are small and low to the ground, under the grass, but they're there). Even with all the rain we got on our July sampling trip, it's like night and day from then and now. There is so much green it's shocking!

The hummingbirds are out in force in our sample plots. Anywhere there is an agave blooming, there are at least 2 hummingbirds fighting over the nectar. I can't tell the species from my photo, but here is a female hummingbird pollinating a Palmer's agave. The only bad thing about all the new growth we're seeing is the pollen, and the resulting allergic reactions we're all having. I'm not allergic to ANYTHING, or so I thought... apparently, I am highly allergic to the invasive Lehmann lovegrass (from Africa). As we wade through our plots that have a high density of the lovegrass, we just watch as the pollen blows up into our faces (the many many many grasshoppers that are out now are not helping, every time they jump they knock more pollen into the air). Claritin seems to be helping a little. Our helpers from NAU have taken to wearing face masks to try and block some of the pollen...

KITTY CRUNCH

The kittens were eating solid food this morning...

Our little babies all grows up!

GOODBYE ALIEN IMPLANT

Friday was quite an exciting day for the Lindsays... well, for Jay at least. He was scheduled for surgery to remove the ganglion cyst that had been developing in his wrist for the past 3 months. We showed up at the hospital as requested at 5:45am. Three and a half hours later, he finally got in for surgery! Here he is passing the time:

The before picture, complete with a "remove cyst from this hand" happy face:

It took the anesthesiologist 20 minutes to administer the block (Jay's choice over general anesthesia) and then it took the doctor another 20 minutes to remove the cyst. They called me as soon as it was over to let me know everything went OK and that they would keep him in the recovery room for 20 mintues before bringing him back to his hospital room. They ended up keeping him for 45 minutes because they couldn't find his chart... that was exciting! After he finally got back to the room, they administered some pain meds, then kept him for another 30 minutes for observation before they let us go home. Here he is at home recovering, tired from the long day (we didn't get home until noon) and pain meds:
On Sunday, Jay reached the 48 hour post-surgery mark and we were able to remove the bandages. His poor hand was getting swollen from them being so tight: And for anyone who likes gross pictures, here is the final shot for this blog, of the stiches, still smiling away:

OUT OF THE BOX

The kittens are out of their box! We awoke this morning to find them roaming around the sunroom with Maxine. They had both been working very hard last night to pull themselves up and maintain balance in order to propel themselves up and out, so we weren't really that surprised. Before we left for work, Jay cut the box so that they can now get in and out easily, and we tried to "kitten-proof" the room. We'll see how things are going when we get home today...

CUTE KITTENS

Potential adopters have requested better close-ups of our resident kittens, and who are we to disappoint? The babies are getting cuter by the day. They are moving a lot more now, although still very clumsily. They've started "jumping" around the box (seems more like they accidentally propel themselves forward faster than they intend to), wrestling with eachother, and standing on their hind legs with their front paws clasping the top of the box... and they're definitely getting more curious. They've started following our fingers with their eyes and they sometimes reach out and try to "catch" us. Of course, they're still wobbling and tipping over a lot, especially if they shake their heads even a little bit! By the way, they both have very blue eyes, like their mama. And they're starting to get their canines in. And just look how much their ears have grown! They look like real cats now! Anyway, on with the photos: