Today is a good day.

Then again, pretty much every day is a good day. I do not think I have ever been this happy before.

Today is kinda my day off. Technically, I am off on Fridays all day and a half day off on Saturday mornings, but I have a deadline on some papers that I need to edit so I am “kinda” off today as I am editing papers from my front porch. I did get to sleep in a bit, eat some eggs that I hard-boiled in my electric tea kettle (who knew you could do this? I have Katrin to thank for that!) and go on a lovely morning run. I am also planning a nice hike to Leopard Hill to watch the sunset this evening since Nick spent so long clearing out a nice sundowner spot up there, and then maybe cook dinner over the fire with Sam.

Have I told you how much I love this place yet?

I learned a new skill in the laboratory yesterday as I have been put in charge of supervising two new interns (Josef and Samli) on preparing and analyzing (Look, Nick: analyZing not analysing) hair found in scat samples to be able to determine carnivores’ diets. I am very detailed oriented so I find this kind of work to be rather addicting and next thing I know a few hours have passed by. Plus it’s great to be able to participate in some good research as well, there is so much fascinating work that comes out of CCF. Oh that reminds me I am going to throw in a shameless plug for Carnivore Tracker which is Louisa’s baby and is a Citizen Science App.  http://cheetah.org/2015/08/introducing-carnivore-tracker-a-ccf-app/ It’s a really cool way to get the general public involved in carnivore  monitoring and data gathering. Seriously, go check it out.

Anyways, I just wanted to pop in and say “hi,” still no luck on getting my phone fixed or getting a new phone yet. I do plan on taking my Canon camera to Leopard Hill tonight so hopefully I will get some nice photographs loaded for you soon!