Well this week came and went, it seems like all the weeks have been doing that. We are now halfway through our summer. Crazy. Tuesday we hit up a few bridges and found some rather interesting scat that had tons of crayfish in it and was scattered in an otter-like manor. We took a sample and vigorously searched the area. We found some odd tracks as well, but are thinking they are just raccoon tracks where he didn’t place his hind foot all the way down. What do you think?
Wednesday was the Fourth of July and I hope that everyone had a great time! We went to a cookout at Dan’s, enjoyed in absolutely delicious Tennessee bar-b-q, drank a fair share of drinks, had a wonderful view of the fireworks from Dan’s yard, and enjoyed some sparklers. Yes, I do realize that they sell real fireworks in North Dakota, but I just couldn’t resist the neon sparklers at the firework store! They are so awesome! Oh and also we made a little camp fire in Dan’s yard. Overall pretty successful and very fun night.
Thursday morning was spent recovering and then Megan and I got started with tracking down addresses that were provided for us to send out the beaver public attitude survey to. We printed out the surveys, cover letters, and mailing labels then started putting all the labels on the envelopes. Friday we had originally planned on going down to the Sioux reservation, Standing Rock, to do bridge surveys there, but thanks to the weather we were office bound. We spent the day watching a marathon of movies and stuffing, stamping, and addressing 309 (yes, that’s three HUNDRED and nine) letters with surveys and dropped them off in the mail. I have to admit I am quite impressed with the amount of envelope stuffing that was accomplished. The weather broke, and today was absolutely stunningly perfect out! We headed up to Lake Sakakawea (about an hour north) to interview anglers with our beaver surveys. We camped out right next the fish cleaning station, with a sign reading “Please participate in our survey” taped to the truck, hopeful to get some anglers stopping through. And guess what… it worked! Almost every angler that came through to clean their fish and a few random ones who came up on their own accord to help us out agreed to take our survey. They are all extremely nice and we had a great time joking around and talking with them. Megan and I have decided to start a running list of all the beaver jokes and puns we get while interviewing anglers. Here are the two top ones for the today:
Angler: “Bye gals, have fun playing with your beavers.”
And another older gentleman,
Angler “What is the survey about?”
Megan: “Beavers.”
Angler: “Oh, I didn’t realize we were talking dirty.”
They were cracking us up left and right. The lake is absolutely beautiful and there are also many different camp grounds with boat loading docks and cleaning stations. I think we found our new location to get the remainder of our angler surveys. We are currently planning out a weekend camping trip to enjoy the water but also spend time getting more surveys completed.
And I learned the same lesson that I never seem to actually learn. No matter how many times I’ve been in the sun during the summer and no matter how tan I may be… I still burn after spending the entire day in the sun. How about that? So I am going to go back to my trailer and enjoy the cool aloe gel that is currently chillin in my fridge.
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