hello, all! today is my 6th day out in the field, and for those of you who want to know, "the field" for me is in Southwest Nova Scotia, near Kejimkujik National Park. i'm currently staying at a (very, very) small house (=shack) in West Caledonia, but we spend most of our time at the Mersey Tobeatic Research Institute (MTRI), which is the field station in Kempt. the field season is starting off a bit slow, most people are out looking for ribbonsnakes, while my field partner, Josianne, and I are out looking for Blanding's turtles at the Park and putting up posters about Blanding's turtles in the towns around the area. i'm technically supposed to be doing wetland habitat characterization, but we probably won't start that until june (right at the same time as turtle nesting season, which means we'll be super busy!). the weather has been variable, some days cloudy and rainy and other days sunny. what is generally consistent is the presence of black flies constantly buzzing about! i must have about a dozen bug bites just from yesterday alone...yes, even with my bug jacket on!
before arriving here, i mostly spent the early part of May relaxing. i finished my proposal (yay!) on April 28, just in time for my committee meeting on May 3. it went well, and they approved my proposal on the spot! they agreed that this summer i should focus on learning my field methods and getting to know my field sites, so i don't make too many mistakes when i start my field season in the fall. since i'll only have this one field season, i need to get it right!
the week before i finished my proposal, my friends from calgary (jocelyn & richeille) came to halifax for a visit! they stayed for about 4 days and 5 nights, and we mostly just hung out, watched movies and drank wine. well, of course we went sightseeing as well, but mostly ended up just walking around town. my parents also visited around the 3rd week of may. they stayed for 4 days and 5 nights as well, and we drove around halifax, then around the southern shore -- we drove from halifax across the province to Digby, then around to Yarmouth and stayed overnight in Shelburne, then drove the lighthouse route back to halifax, stopping at lunenburg and peggy's cove and a bunch of other places along the way.
which brings me to here, life in the field. it's a bit complicated, since the shack has no running water...we have to shower at MTRI (against the rules, but don't tell anyone), and cooking is oh so very difficult, not to mention washing dishes and cleaning up. i haven't even thought about laundry yet...not sure what we're doing about that. plus, there's 6 people living there right now, and it's only about the size of a single car garage! =( there's 5 of us in the attic (which is super hot during the day) and 1 in a tiny bedroom downstairs. which basically means that we spend as little time at the shack as possible...going there really just to sleep or pick up our things. i'm hoping that they'll move us to MTRI soon, once there's space available!
so, i guess that's mostly it right now. i'll hopefully post up some field pictures periodically, once i have downloaded them from the field camera. take care, everyone, and hope to hear from you at some point!
1 comment:
Gosh, this post reminds me of living conditions in Africa. We had to cook on was a propane stove. Also didn't have running water although we did have electricity and fans. The big advantage of Africa compared to NS is that we paid ladies from the village to do our laundry for us. I guess most people in Nova Scotia would scoff at the idea of doing your laundry for you!
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