Mother nature seriously does not want me to complete this thing.

Practice makes perfect

So I know I haven't updated in a while, but I've been quite busy with preparations. Today I did some practice samples and quickly realized that I'm going to need a wetsuit and booties. So I came back and ordered a pretty sweet one from REI. Anyway, my basic procedure today went like this... Got in the canoe, rowed around the lake to scope things out a bit, and then docked and got out. I used the downing box to grab my samples and regular shears to cut them away. I shook up the downing box to kind of agitate everything a bit, and hopefully loosen the macroinvertebrates from the macrophytes. Then I dump the whole thing into a bucket. I decided forceps would have made picking out the macroinvertbrates from the plants a lot easier, so I'm going to pick up some of those as well. Anyway, after I loosen the bugs from the plants I use a 250um mesh sieve to filter, then using a funnel and isopropyl alcohol, I store the bugs in pint size mason jars. The plants get wrapped in paper towels, and placed in labeled plastic bags. I then have to take them back to the house and dry them in the oven over night. This allows you to weigh the plants and get a density measurement for how many bugs per gram of plant biomass. The bugs will be taken back to the lab to be sorted and identified (which will be a huge bitch).

more pictures

Soooo here it is! The Downing Box. I will be using this lovely little plexi-glass suitcase to collect my samples. I know I've explained to a lot of people what it was, but here it is, in the flesh! It turned out perfect, I am so happy, I just keep staring at it.

I'm picking out my lakes next week, and should start sampling the week after that. I finally feel like I'm doing my own thing, and it's awesome.

After the yellow iris work today I went fishing with my dad and while I caught a bunch of aquatic plants (ironic, i know) he caught this killer pike. The tackle got caught up a little bit around the mouth. That kind of thing makes me a little uncomfortable with fishing, but my dad got it unwrapped okay. I love pike, they are some serious carnivores (they'll snap baby ducks right off the surface) and they look so freaking prehistoric.

Anyway, took this one on the way back to camp

yellow iris

Today I spent the day out with the nature conservancy in North Creek, hunting for this guy:

Yellow iris, or Iris pseudacorus. It's really a beautiful looking plant, but quite invasive and obnoxious. It really takes over the areas where it gets established and crowds out the native vegetation. Apparently this yellow iris has been spreading about the adirondacks, and Stephen, the terrestrial invasive plant guy for the conservancy had suspected that the "nursery" source was near this old, now defunct garnet mine, given the path that it has spread. Low and behold he was right. As I approached this wetland area which is basically right at the head waters of the Sacandaga River there were literally hundreds of these yellow flowers. So we went around and sprayed the flowers with roundup, hopefully preventing them from seeding. The wetland where we were is an outlet to what is known as The Vly, which is another gorgeous wetland area. It has been so dry lately we were able to walk right down in the stream beds leading out to the Vly. We suspected that rain would have carried seeds down through the area out. There was no trail, and I just kind of scrambled behind Stephen, who was plowing his way through, jumping from rock to rock, walking through over hanging branches and climbing over fallen logs. I would think, from an outsider's view, I probably looked pretty rediculous, but I kept up and I didn't fall (he fell twice for the record). It was quite an empowering experience to hike through this area, and a bit of an exercise in trust. Here I was out in the middle of nowhere relying competely on this man with a bowsaw that I just met this morning. No compass, no trail, no nothing. We reached The Vly and unfortunately there were a few patches of the yellow iris, and nothing we could abait today because they were actually rooted in the water, and because we were now hiking in a forest preserve area rather than private land we couldn't use the roundup spray. This will be a job for some waders next week.

a photo a day....

So I'm in upstate New York working on my research, and I have limited connections to the outside world! But thanks to the lovely internet, I figured I will keep a log of everything I've been up to, mostly for myself but if anyone is wondering what the heck I'm doing up here, this should help.

I had training on Tuesday with the nature conservancy... I'm basically doing shoreline surveys for them... hunting for this little guy:
Eurasian watermilfoil, folks. Yeah... I'm going to be talking about this one a lot. Along with the work I'm doing for the Nature Conservancy, I'm also doing my own research on the effects that this invasive plant has on the epiphytic macroinvertebrate communities (basically the underwater critters that live on it).

So yeah, that's my summer, lots of kayaking, lots of plants, lots of bugs, and hopefully lots of hiking in the mix.

Either way, my goal is to take at least one photo everyday, so I'll have a lovely collection of images at the end of the summer.

Some lovely little wildflowers

Swimming buddies

Sunset on the lake