Phone calls, emails, text messages, facebook, Morse code or something else... How do you like to stay in touch with your friends?
I would prefer morse code to texting any day. In fact I think it's a brilliant idea. I despise cell phones, quite honestly. I like good old fashioned wireless telephones (okay, somewhat modern) where I can stroll in the back yard while talking to my buddies.
One of my best cohort friends and I simply use the phone to decide when and where to meet - usually at a local coffee shop. My other botanist friend and I spent yesterday in the Herbarium at school chatting while she dried her plants - she found a carnivorous plant on her hike, too!
And while I'm at it, I may as well confess that about 90 percent of my closest friends are here on Vox. While it's convenient to chat at home, I would prefer about 30 percent here on Vox, 40 percent through email and 30 percent at local coffee houses. I like letters too. In college I would sketch strange beasts on my letters and hand-deliver them to my friends on campus, just for fun.
Feel free to message me if you want my email. I wish I could just send smoke signals or send a static wave to each of you once in a while. Maybe JLo will give me one of those nifty mirrors she gave to that little kid in The Cell. Then you all could find our meeting place.
Here's another critter who needs our help, although much less visible than the wolves. Sawfish are the largest species of ray. Their skin feels like sandpaper! They live in the lagoons, bays and rivers of the world, although their populations are down to 5 percent of what they used to be.
Sawfish live both in the realm of fresh and saltwater - they spend most of their time on the ocean floor eating invertebrate species. This keeps the invertebrate populations healthy and free from disease
That fearsome saw is only used for slashing their prey, and defending themselves if sharks or humans attack. They are otherwise known as gentle beasts, just like their cousins the rays - who have been called "pussycats of the sea"!
Loss of these habitats along with overfishing has resulted in their population decline. Their liver oil is used for tanning leather, medicines and soap. The last remaining population of smalltooth sawfish lives off the coast of Southern Florida. There is a specific method for cutting them loose from fishing line. These guys grow and breed slowly, so each individual counts. Check out this website for more information and flyers you can give to fisherpeople!
Florida Museum of Natural History - Icthyology
Great news from Washington: Gray wolves have been put back on the Endangered Species List. Fish and Wildlife were forced to admit that their original decision was not based on sound science. (Gee, ya think)? At least the bamboozling we would have gotten from Bush has been replaced by a moticum of reason. The news isn't all bad: Salazar has made a few good conservation decisions, about which I plan to post.
The Feds did this as a settlement to a lawsuit brought by some of the best conservation groups in our country. It's not all good news for the wolves - the individual states still plan to hunt them. But we'll keep up the fight. And it's a decent sign from the White House. I'll keep you guys updated.
Here are the links to the conservation groups who made this happen. Feel free to send them gobs of money. (Or just $25 gets you a membership. Worth giving to groups who protect our planet and our wildlife). This is a partial list, I'm still researching exactly who brought the lawsuit. I think it is all listed below:
Center for Biological Diversity
Humane Society of the United States
FATE (Friends of Animals offshoot - one of my new favorite organizations).
Hey all - Guess what, my chimney swift field work is done - yahoo!
I'm much less busy but, to be honest, my brain has been mush. I have wanted to find ways to keep posting despite the fact that my skull isn't much better than fog. Well I do love my Stumble toolbar - so I've saved some links to share with you when I'm short on things to say.
Enjoy!
GoogleEarth Album: click anywhere in the world for stunning photos.
Sci-Fi geeks: grab a light saber!
One of my new favorite blogs: My Life on Cape Cod.
To-Do List:
Carve a frog statue out of radishes
Build a silver spaceship and plant a cactus on Jupiter
Ask Bugs Bunny to be my new hair stylist
Write the Field Guide to Martian Daylilies (I've been putting it off for too long)
Invite my jellyfish friend to dinner in the Pacific
**I'm sleep deprived and starved for imagination, what do you want?
;)
Well I got rained out today. It's really cold for June. I'll get lots of work done today but I am starved for a change. I'll make a wishlist. Feel free to add suggestions.
I'd like to buy some journals and just go crazy sketching and writing. I've always wanted to create a cool little book of art and short stories.I just bought some postcard-sized watercolor paper but I'm used to working with extra large - I'd like to bring my easel onto the side porch and so some splatter art.
Just dreaming here - but I'd like to collect just 4 items in the house, and literally toss everything else in boxes to donate. Clear out the house and start over again. I am so sick of this old decor. Treehugger has some great bamboo products featured here, if you want to browse.
Well, back to work. I also want to start a group or 2 on Vox. Tell me what you guys think:
Raving Critter Fanatics: an animal welfare group that would be really radical and the opposite of PETA in its approach but almost identical in its standards.
Vegan crazy: not set on the name yet, but I'm sick of vegetarian recipes that I can't eat because they have wheat in them. The group would be for vegetarians/vegans with allergies.
Would you rather have one best friend or ten acquaintances? Why?
If by "acquaintance" we mean casual friend, then I can answer. But althogh the defenition varies, to me an "acquantance" is the girl who bags my groceries. So sue me, I'm into semantics.
I think the idea of a BFF is kind of for high school students, no? By the time we're through college I learned that friendships are like the lithosphere - constantly churning and changing. So I consider most of my friends either "casual" or "close". Bones is one of my few long-time friends whose idiosyncacies I can forgive and forget for a long-term freindship.
I have one very "devoted" friend from school who calls me often and lives close by. Unfortunately it turns out that she is not the greatest friend. If I tell her something personal, it's pretty much guaranteed that everyone will know soon after. Also I had a practicum interview and told her about it. The next day I found out she had called my supervisor and basically said, "Well you hired Ellie, why can't you hire me too"? Not cool.
Luckily I have other really good friends from grad school, who actually have integrity. We are all doing field work and having a great time helping each other. So the aforementioned friend is being phased out. Flexibility. Things change.
Poetry contests. Picnics complete with pomegranate and mulberry juice, sweet melons and grapes. Cotton and barley. Sheep farming. Is this what you imagine when you think of Afghanistan?
Well it's a reality: Afghanistan is a beautiful country with a list of amazing things like gorgeous clothing, culture and peaceful farming. Now you can add 2 things to that: an endangered species list and a National Park. Called Band-e-Amir. Look at the BBC photo - have you ever seen a lake so blue?
Add also to that Afghanistan's first endangered species list. Put forth by NEPA, it will be the first list the nation has put out that bans the hunting and harvesting of rare wildlife - included on the list are the saker falcon, the snow leopard and the Afghan snow finch, a bird found only in the Hindu Kush mountain range.
Check out the story on the Band-e-Amir park. If you can stand the bumpy train ride, it sounds like it could be one of the most beautiful places in the world. On Fridays a pedalo man will take you on a ride across the lake in a swan-shaped boat. If there are enough people they will even cook a lamb for the visitors.
Barbecues, boats on a lake, sweet fruit and barley. I can't imagine a more lovely picnic. Yes, in Afghanistan. I would love to go - or at least send them money to make this park a success.
What about it, Voxters? Would you go?
I've started my chimney swift field work! Yay!
I apologize for not being around. My point count surveys start at 4:35 am - for the study towns that are far away I sometimes get up at 3 am or earlier. I should have studied night owls darnit! Pretty much every minute of my day is accounted for.
After surveying 4 towns, it's usually a long drive back - then I do all the computer work and of course napping! No days off. I am not one of those bushy-tailed morning people. I am a genetic night owl - gawd how I love that term. My morning people acquaintances just love to brag how they only need 5 hours of sleep. Not me - I need 8, sometimes more.
However - this is massively fun stuff. Towns are so quiet at that time of day - all I hear are the chirpy birds. I get to drink my java. Stroll from point to point and watch swifts glide through the air. How sweet is that?
If any of y'all are interested in trying it, the Cairngorms National Park in Scotland were looking for swift counters! I'm not sure if it's still active but if you want a nice volunteer job, counting birds is divine.
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