Battle Scars!!

On Monday, the last time I went out into the field, I was stepping over a dead tree and was not careful enough with my footing. I stepped into a branch and the tip of it drove into my leg and the tip broke off. "Eh..." I thought, "A splinter. It will work itself out." Four days later, with an angry red welt and a black spot in the center of it, I had to call the campus health center and have it looked at. The doctor cut a 1/4" incision in my leg, and it's at least as deep, to dig the thing out! Seriously! It's still numb right now but I think it's going to hurt!

No more cinder pits!

The field work is finished. Yay!! Now I can work on my statistics. I have a spreadsheet for all my data that I can use to run statistical tests on a software program the university uses. Then I am going to do a poster.
The class has been a huge waste of time so far. We all sit and "discuss" topics put up by the teacher, but there are only three people she really wants to hear from, so the rest of us watch while the four of them "discuss." It's a long three hours, let me tell you. It's Mondays and Wednesdays from six to nine, so there's a lot of time to "discuss."
Meanwhile I brought a TV back with me and there is cable in my room, so I am happily sucked into the vortex of food network when I get back to my dorm!

Flagstaff

Here are some pictures of what I am doing on the days I go out in the field. I go two or three days a week. My freckles are increasing exponentially!

Measuring last year's growth...

This is why I'm hot. Walking in the cinders is a lot like walking on the beach.

The puffy brown parts are called strobili. We have to count them.

They can number in the thousands.

This is me and my best friend, Bug n' Sun, out in the field.

I have a question.

It's a research question, mind you. Here's my project for the summer:
What is the effect of scale infestation on mortality of pinyon pines during a drought?
I want to do two things in order to answer this question. First, I want to be a part of the research team that collects data for the project. Basically it's a day long hike slogging around in the cinders, and every 15 minutes or so we find a tree that is tagged with the right numbers and we measure the growth. Not hard. Except that there are about 900 trees. The most important thing for my project will be mapping the trees that have died. As my mentor says, "Death is good for business."
After that is done, I can begin to crunch the numbers. I want to compare the trees that have died a drought-related death to the trees that have died a drought-scale-infected-related death.
Here is my hypothesis: Scale infestation of pinyon pines during a drought increases mortality.
It's more complicated than it sounds, really! Here's the deal: Arizona has been in a drought for about the last 10 years. The pinyon pine population is suffering from three major maladies. First is the drought, then the two insect infestations of moth and scale insects. The moth population decreases during the drought, but the scale population increases. This is all just stupefyingly boring, but it matters not! The trees are dying or dead, and I get to figure out how much of the dead trees died due to drought versus drought combined with scale infestation. So there's my job. I'm sure you were dying to know. Ha!

Scale Insects

Well, I found out what I will be doing for the next few weeks! Well, sort of. For the last 30 years or so, the biological sciences department has been studying the local ecosystem and gathering data. My project is focused on the pinyon tree population. This population is inhabited by two parasitic insects. One is a moth that makes the trees look more like shrubs because it eats the tips of the tree, and the other is a scale insect which looks like a tiny black dot on the needles of the tree. They are barely visible to the human eye. They sit on the needle and suck the phloem out, which eventually kills the needle. So trees that have this insect have branches that are bare except the very tips, which have new growth that the bugs haven't killed yet! Tomorrow is my first day in the field. I sort of get to design my own research, and I am thinking about looking at the seedlings to see if I can figure out how old the trees are before they become infected. I have lots of articles to read and research to do on the scale insect, so I can firm up my ideas and present them to my boss on Thursday. She is very laid back and seems so nice!
Now, I am going to go eat sushi for the 3rd night in a row. I don't care if it's selfish. I'm doing it anyway.

stupid foot

I have located the gym, and I walked there, worked out, and walked home this morning. On the way back I had to get a parking permit, and it took me a while to find the place. Bottom line, I walked for about an hour. Now my foot really hurts. I am going to be very upset if my stupid foot gets in the way of my weight loss goal this summer.

I'm here!

Here are pictures of my room. The temperature is 78 degrees. There are some clouds and some intermittent rain. I have my own room so far. There is another bed, but only my name is on the door! I met my RA earlier and she is a young student. She seems nice. There is a Target right next to the university where I am going to go in a few minutes to pick up things I forgot to bring.
So, so far so good!!

Flagstaff, here I come

I'm heading up to the mountains today! I am so excited! Right now I am at my older sister's house, sitting on her patio. She has a pool with a waterfall that is so nice to listen to. It is very peaceful. Alas, now the sun is in my eyes and I will go inside.