No Fixed Address

Greetings from the Mojave,



I've been working for DOI-USGS-BRD-WERC-LVFS (That's a lot of letters) for two weeks now and I think I should probably give you an update before I head out again tomorrow for another week.






The first day I, and two others, had orientation and paper work, mostly paperwork, a trip to the police station for fingerprints, and a lot of racking my brain after my external memory (computer) crashed on me. The hardest part was that we needed a continuous history of employment, education and habitation, all with references for the past 5 years. No small feet for a bunch of vagabonds with no fixed address. They asked for a lot of names so don't be too surprised if an officer comes to your door and asks if you know who I am.



My first trip into the field involved me and my boss, Sara, driving around Grand Canyon-Parachant National Monument checking rain gauges. I'm told this is some of the most sparsely populated country in the lower 48. Although it is a National Monument the springs are still privately owned by families that have lived there for maybe centuries. At one point we passed the Whitney's homestead (of Mount Whitney fame) and Sara mentioned an episode when one of the sons offered to trade a much needed tire for one of female USGS employees. People who live in the desert are there for a reason, basically that they don't mesh well with society. After two days we had driven about 180 miles at about 30 miles per hour and hiked over 50 km.




The entire last week was spent at Coyote Springs located between the Las Vegas and Arrow Valley ranges on Hwy 93. The four of us have been picking annuals for most of the daylight hours. This involves splitting the plots up into an equal number of quadrats then heading off into different directions with our radios and GPS and sometimes not seeing each other again for the rest of the day. A quadrat is 1 square meter which we determine by laying a set of one meter dowels connected at the ends on the ground. Within this square we must identify every annual present and in the lower left corner we must pluck every annual in a .1 square meter area. I'll take a picture of it this week for illustration and describe it more fully next weekend.


The weather has been pleasantly cool, actually cold at times. The lowest temperature I recorded was 46 degrees in the middle of the night. From Tuesday to Friday it was cold and windy often with partial cloud cover. I forgot to put sunscreen on one day now have a strange tan line similar to black paws on a white kitten. Although at the time it was hard to tell how much was dirt and how much was sun. This desert is hard on equipment too. I popped my therm-a-rest Wednesday night but used it again on Thursday night anyway. I'm also expecting to need new pants and possibly shoes by the end of the summer.


We don't stay up too long in the evenings. If there is still daylight we play hackysack or Kongki Noli. Then we eat, write in our field books, and read. This week I intend compose text that I will transcribe here.


In short, work is pretty great. I am happy to be doing biology work and I am getting paid to be outside. You can look forward to weekly updates from me from now on.


Have a good week all.

Bryant