My Thesis Project and Life

So a few cool things have happened recently. 1) I got hired an assistant to help me with my thesis research- this is great because I can get this guy to input all the data I've ever wanted into an Excel file for me and I can continue reading. I'm reading like a beast- I read a 300 page Fish Bioenergetics book in 2 days. Thing is, it still didn't answer my question! So I'm going to keep reading. Basically my thesis project involves paleolimnology, diatoms, and sockeye salmon. To make that understandable to everyone but me and Scott, I'm looking at a lot of dirt, finding copepod skeletons in it, and quantifying nitrogen isotope levels [when salmon die, they are saturated with Salmon Derived Nutrients (SDN), which converts to basically an overload of the isotope 15N]. So in years with a lot of 15N, it can be assumed that there were lots of salmon in the lakes. So what the heck is the point of the copepods? Juvenile rearing salmon eat these copepods before they smoltify (a fancy word for get sick of living in freshwater and make a run for salt water- obviously its much more complicated than this physiologically). So the juveniles eat these copepods then come back between 1-4 years later, spawn in the lakes, die and deposit nutrients with their carcasses. So with my study I'm getting sediment (dirt) from the bottom of lakes and dating it back 2000 years to try to correlate copepod abundance with salmon abundance and climate change. Now this seems complicated, but think about it. Temperature directly impacts phytoplankton, zooplankton, and algae levels. If levels are high, juvenile salmon will have plenty of food to eat while growing and hopefully many will migrate to the ocean (in the lake I'm studying, there are juvenile salmon in the millions). If food abundance is low, many juvenile salmon will die. This means that 2 or 3 years down the road, the adult salmon population will be lower, and therefore less carcasses and less 15N will get into the system. So that's my thesis in a nutshell. Back to my assistant: poor guy probably thinks I'm nuts. Currently I feel like a squirrel before you hit it with your car. Like, one minute its running in one direction, then the next, then the next, oh lights!, then running again. Just so much going on. But I appreciate this guy so much because ya know I can try to organize myself. On a side note, my pup is really snuggling with me and its very hard to type at this angle. And I need to take my  pumpkin pie out of the oven ( I guess I could have bigger issues). So aside from doing thesis stuff, we have basically been working and duck hunting. We went out yesterday morning, this morning, and we are going out again tonight. Since we got a free freezer on Craigslist, we are really trying to fill it! Granted it would take 10 flocks of geese to fill that thing but you get the picture. Keta has been doing good though yesterday morning she really pissed Scott off. He shot at a flock of 3 mallards. Two went down but weren't dead yet and the other duck just landed with them. So Scott pulls up the gun to really shoot us a feast and theres Keta, shredding out to the ducks! He was like nooooo. Good thing he saw her or there would have been a dead Keta, ducks, and Scott after I shot his ass for shooting the dog. Good thing that didn't happen. So we ended up with only 2 mallards yesterday. Oh, by the way, it's been snowing in the mountains and the marsh was frozen yesterday- IT IS COLD! Keta was shivering her little butt off. So this morning we went out with Parker and Ruger and this guy Mike (retired guy, really cool dude!) we got 7 total ( a lot of teals! 1 mallard). This friggin guy was a little north of us and was shooting everything. I just about busted down there and started yelling at him (pull the angry and abusive screaming, followed by crying because we are going to starve this winter- I think I'd be in a cushioned room if I pulled that on him out there in the middle of the marsh). So we are going back out tonight and hopefully bucksnort won't be there shooting up the whole place. Then Alison and I made a big pot of caribou chili and I made a pumpkin pie and we can pig out after  duck hunting-yuum. I'll put some pictures up later from tonight! Also for anyone reading this that wants to keep in touch, um I killed my phone last week so I have no ones numbers so please text me if you want to talk! I'm not ignoring you, I just don't know your number. Also, there are literally no apples in Alaska to pick. I know they are cheap in the east though! Sooo if anyone wants to send me a priority mailbox full of apples let me know, I'll pay you for everything! They are SO expensive here!