One week left?!

Today was another fun day - but very tiring.

But before we get to that, I want to talk about something I forgot to mention yesterday.

On Tuesday afternoon I went ahead and set up about half of my live traps. It is now getting a bit late in the year for the drift fences, so those funnel traps and pit-fall traps are closed down, and next week I'll be picking those up and putting them away until next summer. But, the mammals should be scurrying about busily looking for food to fatten themselves up for the upcoming winter. Prime time to catch K. rats, right? So I went and set some up. Of course, considering the blatant disregard the rats hold for my research goals, I wasn't very optimistic about my turnout.

So non-optimistic was I that I did not check them first thing yesterday morning. First thing yesterday morning, I went to Cherokee for the education programs. Next thing was lunch. The thing after that was messing with the fragile camera systems with Curtis. So, it was at approximately 3 o'clock in the afternoon that I went to check my mammal traps.

This wasn't a good thing. These metal mammal traps become extremely hot inside once the sun hits them. I thought everything would be alright because 1) I didn't think anything would make it into the traps and 2) It's not nearly as hot these days as it has been.

So I go to check my traps. And what should I find but 2 traps closed, with Kangaroo rats inside. Of course! The day I'm not on the ball about checking my traps is the most successful day I've had to date. Luckily for my conscience (and even more luckily for the rats) everybody was fine. Because I had been pessimistic, I didn't carry my equipment with me (rulers, bags, nail polish, weight measurer) so they got to go to the air conditioned lab while I took their measurements. I had a little boy and a little girl. The little boy was about 9.5 inches long with a 6 in. tail. He weighed around 82 grams. The little girl was 9 in. long, with a 5.5 in. tail and weighed 67 grams.

Up to this point, the kangaroo rats I have captured have tried to get away, but none of them have tried to bite me. They squirm, they squeak, but they don't bite. I still wear my gloves, and it's a good thing I did. I was painting the boy's toe nails when I noticed that the little guy is gnawing on my index finger. I barely felt a thing - it was almost kinda cute. "Aw...he's trying to fight back."

I can only assume that sooner red isn't his color. Probably a cowboy fan.

With those two I now have a total of 5-6 captured Kangaroo rats total. I think I can publish in Nature with that kind of data!

Today I had the pre-K, 3rd, and 4th grade classes. First of all, 3rd and 4th are my absolute favorite classes to teach. For the most part, they are all very interested in learning about biology. They know enough to want to learn more, but they don't yet think they know it all. I had a sci-fi fan in my 4th grade class today. "Do you think that scientists are going to build a time machine and go back in time and stop the dinosaurs from going extinct again?" "Do you believe humans and animals are going to go away and all that will be left are plants?" "Do you think that we're gonna pollute so much that our air turns green and yellow and we have to go live on Mars?" Another girl said, and this is a direct quote, "One question that haunts me is that why does every museum always have one t-rex dinosaur?" (Lol!!)

But that particular Q&A session (aside from having to voice my beliefs on time travel) was very fun and informative. We talked about endangered species - why they become endangered, what we can do to help, etc. etc. We talked about DDT and lead shot and bald eagles. We talked about over-populations and what happens when a population exceeds the amount a resources it needs. They all seemed to understand everything - it was very fun.

One little girl asked me how I knew all this stuff. So that got us started on college. A boy asked me "Did you ever get bored in your classes?"

Lol. What to say to that? I couldn't exactly say "Well, no, because I always brought a newspaper with me and would do the crossword puzzle in class." So instead we talked about what my favorite classes were, and how I am able to remember all this stuff.

A girl came up to me after we had finished a "lap sit" game (where you stand in a circle and sit on the knees of the person behind you). She said that she was glad we weren't playing that game anymore. The boy who sat on her knees was "weird". I told her "All boys are weird. Remember that." She put her fist up in the air and said, "I will!" Haha.

The third grade class was also fun. Normally, during their insightful and clever remarks, I can keep a straight face and move on ("A mate is like having a boyfriend or girlfriend. EEEEWWW!!!!"). Today we played the predator/prey game, where most of the children are either skunks, armadillos, porcupines, possums, or turtles and maybe 3 of the other students are predators who tag their prey. The prey animals each have their own method of defense, but the goal is to find another of your species and get back to base without becoming food for the predator.

After one of these games, I had them group up so we could talk about what happened during the game and how that relates to the real lives of animals. One boy interrupted me and said, "I saw one of my relatives on the side of the road this morning..." as he was looking down at his noisemaker. His noisemaker was that of a skunk. I made the connection and couldn't contain myself - I just busted out laughing. What a clever kid!

The pre-K class was...interesting. I had not done a pre-k class before this morning, so I just went ahead and did the regular kindergarten program. The pre-k kids got it for the most part. But their attention spans were so short! We were talking about using our eyes to describe birds, and the game was to describe a bird on a card, and the students had to point out which bird they thought it was on a sheet given to them. It was fun and they were enjoying themselves, but I knew it was time to move on when they all, en masse, stood up and started jumping up and down. For no apparent reason whatsoever. It was the strangest thing. "Okay!" I said, "Let's move on to finding animals with our ears!" And then they all sat back down and paid attention. For approximately 5 minutes. The teacher said a couple of times when they were leaving that I did a wonderful job and that normally their attention spans are practically non-existent, so she knew I was keeping them interested.

Sure I did. But it wasn't easy!

Tomorrow is my last day at Cherokee - Kindergarten, 1st, and 2nd. Here's hoping it's as fun a day tomorrow as it was today.

Today was also my going-away party. Because I was already in Cherokee, the refuge workers met me at the Pizza Hut there. It was actually rather symbolic, as I had not eaten pizza since I started my internship. It tasted amazing!

Actually it was both mine and Curtis's going-away party. Curtis is leaving us as well - he's going to a national wildlife refuge in Texas called San Bernard's. Hopefully I'll be able to make it down there one day to volunteer. It was fun working with him - even though he is an Aggie.

He'll actually be here until November, but he's not gonna be here next week and then the 3 weeks after that he's going to be in training. Hence why his going-away party was paired with mine. Next week will be my last week as an intern here. Hopefully I'll come back as the refuge's new ORP.

It was a fun going-away party. Plenty of ribbing about "my Sooners". Apparently when they do badly, they become my personal possession. For revenge, I'm going to call them "My Sooners" all next week after we kick the Longhorns back to Austin.

ps - the eagle picture was not taken by me (It's still too early!!) but it was taken at the refuge (same with the skunk pic). Makes you want to come out in a month to take your own bald eagle pictures, yes?