Something a bit different...

When I saw the movie, "Dances with Wolves" I was blown away by the beauty of the prairie. Being from the humid, wet Great Lakes area I had no idea what hardships the prairie brought people traveling in covered wagons and trying to plow the dry earth. After today I have new respect for Meeker and those who settled our front range towns.
As most of you know I've taken about 12 hours of classes this summer-just for fun. As part of one class we (my friend Laura and I are doing this summer crazy course load together) were required to find a scientist who is doing research in the field and volunteer 40 hours to help with their research. So today was our first day on the prairie assisting Liz Harp with her prairie dog research. It started at 3:12 am when my alarm went off and I rolled out of bed to make the drive to Ft. Collins to meet the field truck on the CSU campus at 4:15. I met Laura there and we hopped in the truck and headed out to the Shortgrass Steppe (SGS) Long-Term Ecological Research (LTER) site where Liz is studying three prairie dog towns.

First we set traps. This entailed a lot of obsessive compulsive removal of old prairie dog poo (you would be amazed at how much a prairie dog can produce), setting down the trap, and baiting them.

Liz is working on her dissertation on genetic diversity and pathogen resistance in black tailed prairie dogs. After we set the traps we traveled to another prairie dog town to pre-bait traps, which entails finding the prairie dog mounds on the map (they are all numbered) then setting an open trap with bait. We were all a little shaken at first because the week before there were some scary rattler sightings. We found most of the mounds and then quickly headed back to the first town to see if we trapped any prairie dogs before they got too hot. We did manage to trap 3 prairie dogs and 2 ground squirrels. By this time it was rather hot, which is normal out on the prairie, so we got to work collecting data.

Once they are trapped the prairie dog is anesthetized. Liz is amazingly efficient and I was impressed with the set up on the truck tailgate. After the prairie dog was put out, it was brushed for all fleas and ticks. These were collected in a vile. Then the prairie dog was weighed. Lastly, blood samples were taken from the nail. By the last prairie dog we were all helping out. It was quick, easy, and painless for the prairie dog.

In all her work, Liz has only lost one prairie dog. They think this one had a heart or kidney problem and reacted negatively to the anesthesia. If you think this is cruel, you should have seen the shell casings we found from those who find joy in shooting prairie dogs off their mounds to see how high they can fly.
After all the data is collected the prairie dogs are released.

I've always known that I love field work and biology/ecology so today was a great day. I think that Laura and I are going to try to do some prairie dog research on our own to study effective trapping techniques. Liz was saying that she combed all the research and still doesn't know the most effective and safe way to trap prairie dogs. It was a long day (12 hours) and that brings me back to thoughts about our early settlers. They were really amazing, and crazy...

Gardening Obsession

I'm obsessed with my garden...it's to the point that tonight when we got home from the Chastains I took a flashlight out to my new clematis plant and "snuck up" on the critters eating the blooms...and when I squished the full little earwigs between my fingers I felt victorious. They had eluded my attempts at traps (including rolled up newspaper soaked in St. Pat's Beer) and destroyed the beautiful new blooms each time they appeared. Not anymore! I have also been spending a lot of time reading the Colorado State Extension gardening website and have devoured books on annuals and perennials that thrive in Colorado. Gardening is one big science project and I find it fascinating and beautiful. I'm thankful that we have this house to work on and can't wait to see what it becomes in the years ahead.

We've had a lot of fun hanging out with friends and trying to relax. Here are some pictures that sum up what we've been up to.


Tonight we went to see Blayne fly his new plane. The rainbow in the background was amazing.


Last week I had Erin for an afternoon so I took her by Eric's work on his break. They shared a brownie, which we found out later was her first. Sorry Deborah!


Here's a picture of our back porch area. Eric added solar lights to help him see at night when he takes the dogs out and around the house. The tiki lights are really cool too.


Eric's first pepper! Yummy!


I rode my bike to the Bungalow in Windsor 4 times last week (120 miles total!!!) and saw this while I was there. Crazy! I wonder if Cache would fit on the back of my bike...


Here is a before picture of the crazy area between our house and the neighbor's house. I went to a local nursery and gave a name to all the vines I cursed while thinning. 5 years worth of growth...not fun.


And here is the after shot of the overgrown area. There is still a lot to do, but I'll get to it soon. We plan to make the cement box into an annual bed and I split my way overgrown iris plants and put them along the edge. By the way, I have enough extra iris rhizomes to give everyone all they want...so let me know if you want any!!!


Eric did a great job putting the shutters up on every window around the house. The color really added what they call "curb appeal" on the home and garden network shows.


Here is Erin relaxing on another afternoon when I had her. She always steals the show with her elaborate vocabulary and blonde hair and eyelashes. She blew kisses and said "bye y'all" to a cashier without being prompted...


If you were wondering what that huge bin and tumbler is in my back yard, they are to make this wonderful compost. I start all our non meat table scraps and throw them in the ground bin. Then after a week or so I transfer it in the large tumbler so that I can mix it daily. After about 3 weeks I have the best compost on the market. I think it is what made the peppers and tomatoes grow so fast!


Here is that compost grown tomato & pepper garden.