Hiking on the clock. We probed, we dug holes, we played with soil plugs, we took pH and temperature readings, we filled out reports, we crawled around on our hands and knees looking for botrychiums, and we cooked our nightly gruel by a small campfire. Eight days working in the Emigrant Wilderness went by quickly and smoothly. It was a beautiful hike in from Leavitt Lake. We started at at 9000 ft and climbed up to the Pacific Crest Trail at 11,000 ft, then made our way off trail down to Kennedy Lake at about 7,500 ft. Mike and I worked [View Full Entry]

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Buck brush, Deer Brush, Green Leaf Manzanita, Whitethorn, Mariposa Manzanita, logs that turn to dust, stumps that turn to dust, needle duff mats on steep slopes, bear clover, invisible holes and sticks that lie hidden beneath bear clover, rattle snakes, ticks, vicious ermines, bears that look cute, rabid squirrels, coworkers with sleep deprivation, forgotten hardhats, forgotten lunches, forgotten coffee, and of course poison oak plantations; these are a few of my favorite job hazards. I just found out that I will be taking part in the yearly "Fen" Survey. This means my work schedule is cha [View Full Entry]

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I live in Pine Mountain Lake, a schmoozy little "gated" community, full of vacation homes and vacation rentals, not far from the small village of Groveland. I live in the smallest and stuffiest room in the house in the basement(of course) and must walk through my Botany Crewmate, Wyatt's room to get to it. The housing is much nicer than I anticipated(not to mention nicer than I am accustomed to). The town of Groveland also offers much more than I expected, with a decent grocery store, coffee shop, library, thrift store, and a couple acceptable restaurants and bars. Being on the [View Full Entry]

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Lost is not only the name of a forest in Southeastern Oregon. It was five hours on dirt "roads", alfalfa fields, private property, burning straw bales, sage brush plantations, and barbed wire fences, making the trip a solid eleven hours. With one side-view mirror less, our heads full of intriguing Christian literature, and a number of fits of hysterical anger and cackling, the early van of mammalogists made it to the research area, invigorated and excited to get to work. By day, mammals were observed, among other things. By night, we shared in deep sober discussions around the fire, [View Full Entry]

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Now that I have realized that I am nothing more than a machine which transforms experience into memory--chewing the small bites of reality I take into digestible morcels and storing them hopelessly into continually dying cells, on bits of wood pulp, and in various plastics and metals as binary code -- I know for sure that I have forgotten where this paragraph was going. [View Full Entry]

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I sleep in a teepee in the French Alps. There is a totem pole not too far away. Lying awake, sometime near 7 AM, I listen to the ring of cowbells, eight cowbells, and the snorting of three hungry pigs who await their winter slaughter. The cheese ages in silence. Thirteen hungry cats meow. If I lay here long enough, I will be reawaken by the bellow of the bull as someone separates him from his harem. It is an angry cry, but it echoes down the valley and returns with despair. A frightening sadness. I no longer fear the bull, [View Full Entry]

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Hmmmm, The sheep had been moved and the seats and seatbelts reinstalled in the van. The blueberrys were ripening in the sun. Family vacation ensued. We wound into the mountains. Night fell. The van found its way up a steep mountainside in the darkness and tents were erected in a field. The following morning the family was awakened by the sun and the cold glacier wind. With the van repacked and breakfast eaten, a mountain pass was summited and a botanical garden visited. Crazy uncle-cousin-brother was left at the side of the rode like so much salami skin or pistachio shells. [View Full Entry]

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I have found a computer. I arrive at the next farm this afternoon. Well It seems my last two blog entries were lost in a server crash. Maybe its for the best? I have readded some of the pictures.... and a summary: Crazy, long lost brother-uncle-cousin Steve lands in Geneva, Switzerland in an intense delerium, returns to his french family, drools into his fondu and mumbles unintelligibly. He is forced into slave labor picking fruit in the Alps. thats about it, steve [View Full Entry]

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Smudged colored pencil sunrise over the atlantic in a metal humming tube. Insomnia from Newark, New Jersey to Geneva, Switzerland, Eight hours on Qatar Airlines (complimentary socks) flight. Pre-sleep Breakfast ($10 cheese) at 2 AM, I stumbled around in the night sun in the ridiculously expensive city ($3 coffees and $8 Kebabs) for 2 day-nights and a night-day, throwing my money away and drinking my self to sleep, legally (for once), in the park. A train to Grenoble... ...a ride from the station into the mountains to La Mure Pouring my morning coffee into my uncultured liquid cont [View Full Entry]

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Who needs a Pooper Scooper? Well surely not our good friends in France. Dog shit on a paris sidewalk(every sidewalk) is like a star in the sky, untrampled, untouched, and perfectly formed. Like the rest of Paris, even the dog shit is romantic and ornate as if it were placed with great care by the "hand" of god, yet you know it was not. I formed constellations in my mind as I watched my step, though it was difficult with my eyes constantly distracted by some gargantuan piece of architecture at every turn. After Pamplona, I met up with a friend [View Full Entry]

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