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!

In The Face

Last night we went out duck hunting (yes, again) with our friends and their lab. We didn't quite know how it would go- miss Keta loves playing with Ruger soo we figured that might be what happened the whole time we went out hunting. We met at the flats around 6. Oh, and Scott and I sucked it up and bought me waders- best decision of my life. It made a HUGE difference. Instead of falling in huge holes and getting soaked in the first 30 seconds, I stayed dry the whole time- so much more enjoyable. So we all get out on the flats and there is this cow moose there (in picture above) and she kept sneaking towards us which was alarming to me because like, theres no way in hell I can run away from this thing if she decides she feels like trampling me.So she's inching closer and closer to us but the boys blasted a duck and she was like oh shit, no thanks! So long story short, it was sunny and beautiful. The guys shot 5 ducks (these assholes that cut us off and walked around us shot at 2 ducks but couldn't find them- karmas a bitch- because Ruger (our friends lab) found both of them. So we left with 5 mallards, a snipe, and a teal. The best part of the day was right when we were leaving. Alison and I (the women took the easier route- good thing because the boys were flailing in chest deep water) were walking to meet up with Scott and Parker and Alison is like guys, duck! Parker shoots the thing, which its wing gets shot out (his ammo didn't put out a good spread) so the duck literally flies right into Scott's face. Like, if he had a bayonet he could have made a duck kabob. It was hilarious. So obviously Scott shot the duck again and the dogs found it. Both dogs did fantastic and it was a great workout for us. We had bacon eggs and pumpkin beer for dinner at 10:30pm and it was the best thing ever. Plus our friends gave us some caribou meat- omg caribou jerky is possibly one of the most delicious meats I have ever had- Keta was attacking me while I was eating it- it's that good.

Beautiful moon

Red mountain tops

Followed by blue

Two awesome dogs and great buddies! Keta on the left, Ruger on the right.

Us and our (tired wet cold) babygirl.

True Life: They Have Pick Your Own Farms in Alaska!

So since I wrote last, I had a ridiculous trip back to the Russian River and went to a sweet u-pick farm (aside from the normal day to day activities including running into moose on the walking path and pissing off random people with my dog). I went to the Russian with my neighbor and his friend last weekend and brought Keta. It is amazing how much a river can change in a matter of weeks. When we went with my dad, it was stuffed with beautiful red spawning sockeye and a few trout here and there. Now since the sockeye spawned, the river STINKS something awful. Bear shit + decaying fish- what a treat for the olfactory. Most of the sockeye are dead or decaying, and there are eggs in the river. Result: HUGE rainbow trout and dolly varden. Now, since the dog was horribly misbehaving and driving me crazyyyyy, I only got to catch 1 dolly varden but it was wicked fat and 18". Parker and his friend murdered the fish (and by that I mean catch and release) and caught some rainbows and dollies well over 2 feet. So, Scott and I are going back without miss difficult crybaby Keta. Also, the belugas are migrating through the Turnagain Arm! We saw hundreds just swimming through on our drive it was so cool. So Scott got back from his sisters wedding (seriously lonely when he's the only person you really hang out with and he was gone for 4 days) and we were told by a friend about this pick your own farm in Butte. I call it Butt but it's actually pronounced bute. Whatever. Anyways, Scott and I went there and picked our own potatoes, beets, zucchini, peas, lettuce, broccoli and turnips and got a ton and it was only 14 bucks. How sweet is that? Oh, and it was beautiful. That's about it. It's fall in Alaska- it's beautiful.

I love my wagon full of vegetables- so cute!

Gorgeous location for a farm!

Happy Fall!

Okay, This Shooting Ducks Thing Is Growing On Me...

Keta's 2nd day duck hunting: 2 pintails and a mallard

Okay so my outlook has completely changed. Yes, duck hunting is muddy and smells and cold and wet, but [I can feel an "I told you so" coming from Scott] I love it. Why? Here's the scoop. First of all: where you are walking, it is a workout and a half. For example: people take step classes at the gym for an hour (I've taken these before myself) and they are fun- you work your hip flexors from all those knee raises. Now, picture doing that with your body weight strapped to your foot- that is duck hunting (well, where we go at least). One minute you are standing on a squishy plant and the next minute you are, in Scott's words, "sac deep" in mud. Now if Scott's "sac deep" that means Molly is chest deep. So, you are pulling yourself out of the mud, crawling, and walking. Such a calorie burner. And, unlike a workout at the gym, you come home with your dinner in tow, and an extremely healthy high protein dinner at that. Talk about satisfying! Second of all: My dog is tired. Does anyone know how difficult it is to get little miss crazy energy dog tired? So you take her duck hunting, she gets stuck in all the swamp shit and has to pull herself out. Then the grass in some spots is taller than her head so, if you were watching from a distance, every few seconds you'd see a black blob just fly over and back into the grass to catch a peek of what the heck is in front of her. Then, she retrieves and carries around ducks, also tiring for her through the swampy messyness. So we get home, give the swamp creature a bath, and she sleeps for the rest of the night. That's like 5pm to 9am the next day. Amazinggg. And finally the reason why duck hunting really rocks is eating ducks. Um, so good. Last night, Scott made a bbq rub and rubbed the duck breasts with it, then wrapped them in bacon and put a homemade bbq sauce on the bacon. I am telling you, I'm drooling just talking about it. Stuff is the best. Granted, not quite as healthy when you slather it in bacon but it is well deserved. So we have gotten 10 ducks so far this season- we've eaten 6 (pigs, I know) and frozen 4. We've kept all the wings to work with the dog (we hide them in the woods and make her find them) and we cook up all the organs (WOOF) for her to eat- she loves it. The only thing we don't keep is really the carcass itself. Not too shabby I think. And it's a reason to make delicious meals: last night I made homemade rosemary olive oil bread (I'm getting better at this bread making thing), a goat cheese cranberry spinach salad, rosemary roasted potatoes, and bacon wrapped bbq duck breast. Oh, and pumpkin chunk cookies. It's basically winter here soo my body is in baking mode [as if its ever not in baking mode]. Next time we make something delicious, I might try to put up pictures and a recipe- we'll see!

Wind, rain, COLD swamp mud grassland

The men, the dog, and the mud

I swear I have not gained 40 pounds (I've actually lost a few)- I'm wearing 6 layers and some of Scott's clothes.

So proud of herself- love it. 3 mallards and a green winged teal.

Duck Day Diary

One proud pup- with VERY proud parents too!

2:15am- our alarm goes off. Now, on the East coast it was 6:15, an early time for me to get up, so you can imagine how I felt about that whole thing. I will never understand men fully- like, first shot is at 6:22am- why do I need to be sitting in a swamp at 3:30am? Well, their argument is we need a good spot and all that rah rah but guess what? People just busted in at 5:45am and crowded us anyways sooo why add salt to our wounds by being there 3 hours early and still get sit on? Anyways, whatever. So at 2:15, me nor Keta were really feelin any bit of duck hunting. At 3:15, 4:15, 5:15, 6:15 and 7:15 me nor Keta were feelin any bit of duck hunting. We got to our spot at 3:00am. Granted, we waited by the cars until about 4:15 when we saw other people coming. Now, this means Molly and Keta could have slept until 3:15- boo. Anyways, for anyone who has been reading this- you know my waders are a piece of total shit and I can't even wear them (they belong in a dumpster). And since I'm beyond disgusting poor I cannot afford new ones. So Scott's like "there are like 2 inches of water we will be sitting in so try to wear something that will keep you dry". So this sucks- I had 2 pairs of long johns, my rain pants, and camo hunting pants. I looked like the blob- not a ton of mobility. So this would be okay if the whole marsh only had 2 inches of water, but of course not. 10 steps in a take a dive into waist deep water- real cool. Alaska really has tough terrain- we have not had an easy time doing anything here. Hunting, fishing, etc. Everything is mucky and wet and hard to walk through. If you are not in good physical shape, well hunting and fishing (on your own, not guided) is not for you because it is very strenuous. So we walked through that nasty deep shit until we hit our blind. Now I'm like- guys what the heck? They made like a corral of stumps and sticks in the middle of this marsh- honestly, I don't know a lot about ducks. But if you are putting a friggin fence in the middle of an open marsh hmm the ducks might just say hey, somethin ain't right. So I shut my piehole so the boys wouldn't shoot me (I tend to act like a "know it all" sometimes- I'm sure it's annoying to others) and we got comfy in our nasty ass mud filled shitty 2" water polycheate gross worm pen. People were flooding onto the marsh by 6 and we were totally surrounded by people- awesome. First shot was at 6:22am. There is no way in hell you don't know when 6:22 hits. It sounded like D-day on the marsh- poor ducks flying every which way getting blasted at. Now, this made me sad- like, the poor little buddies don't even get a chance. If I was a duck during duck season, I'd live in a pine tree with a nice owl or squirrel and eat snacks and watch movies- forget this survival of the fittest shit. So long story short, the boys weren't shooting shit. I was wet and had to pee (real convenient when you are in a flat marsh surrounded by a bunch of old dudes), Keta was crying and crying, and the ass wads that surrounded us ya know at 6am were shooting EVERYTHING. Even the dumbass whos calls sounded like a hyena combined with Daffy Duck on helium was shooting ducks. So Keta and I went for a walk (through the horrible deep mud hell) and Scott moved to a different spot. Then out of nowhere- boom, duck down. I guess having the squirmy women leave made the difference. Now, Keta was going nuts. She was so pumped to be off the leash that she was just tearing through the marsh- she had no clue what was going on. Then she stopped in the middle of her craziness and looked at us like "umm, something here smells goood" and there was the duck. Scott shot 1 more teal- which Keta found and proceeded to run around with for 15 minutes (she was pumped) and Scott's friend shot 1 teal- which little missy also found. Without her, we definitely wouldn't have found 2 of the 3 birds so I'd say she was quite successful. And she was so proud of herself it was so awesome. So duck hunting totally sucked until between 8-9am, then it was like, the best. So I will not be waking up at the ass crack of not even dawn to go duck hunting- Keta and I will arrive at 7:30 for our services from now on. Oh and she has been sleeping alllllll day- this is the greatest.

It's 2:15- no I'm not getting out of bed.

First duck! Green winged teal.

Second duck- her favorite!

Her first 2 ducks!

So proud of my babygirl- btw, those pants used to be camo- not mud.

Daddy, ducks, and baby

Saturday is Moose Day

Every morning I take Keta for a walk to the park- and every Saturday, I walk basically into a moose. Last Saturday, I watched that bull chasing the pee wees (still laughing about that, by the way) but today was a little too close for comfort. So we are walking on the path to the park and this stupid little rat dog is barking and I'm like well the dogs around here are like "Woah, a leaf dropped from the tree, I'm going to bark for 20 minutes about it" so I don't think anything of it. Then all I see is this little girl's face over the fence- her parents were holding her up high enough to see over it and I'm like hmm this is interesting. So then she starts going "Mommy, doggy too." and I'm all like doggy too? Then I look behind the pine tree I'm walking by and 4 feet from us is a moose calf- I'm sure the mother was either standing next to it or in the woods next to me so I'm like oh shit. My heart is beating a million miles a minute (meanwhile, Keta doesn't really even care she sees the moose and looks at me like, uh mom? what do we do?) so we walked real fast- I learned from the pee wees that running isn't the best option- and got away. Meanwhile, I then spent 40 minutes trying to find an alternate way home and got lost so then I had to walk through the moose area again but they weren't there- thank God.

What's Been Goin On?

So I haven't written in a week because really we haven't done anything super interesting. Priorities have been:
1) Research stuff for my thesis so I kind of understand what the hell I'm doing.
2) Duck training Keta- we worked with her at the shooting range and at the park a lot- it's either hit or miss with her she can be fantastic one day and be a total punk the next. Anyways, we are hoping Sunday she will do well- we are going duck hunting. Slight aside: Scott told me this story about a group of guys who were duck hunting (about 30 miles from where we will be hunting) and they were in their blind doing their thang and boom they see a moose come rippin out of the woods, followed by a large grizzly. All of a sudden the grizzly just goes "yup I'm going to eat those duck hunters, screw the moose" and the bear goes shredding into the duck blind! Granted the guys had guns and killed the bear when it was 2 feet from ripping off their faces, but like, I'd die of a heart attack before that happened! Soo I'm a little worried about duck hunting. I'm planning on sitting with my .44 on bear watch the whole time and feeding the dog snacks so she doesn't bark and squirm. I hope Scott can blast some ducks so we can eat and not get eaten.
Anyways thats about all we have been doing- Scott's been working, I've been researching and keeping crazy pants puppy occupied. Sooo Sunday I will hopefully be alive to tell the tale of duck hunting.