The Falcons Are Out

Hi all! Thanks for all the comments. It really makes me feel like I don't only have on friend this summer. Well, I'll try and remember what happened this past week. When I left the library last week I drove through the ranch to make a phone call at the the Mean's ranch house. I wasn't really paying attention much until I saw some cow poo moving. I somehow swerved out of the way just in time and got out to see what it was. It was the cutest little box turtle, a bit bigger than the on Rose used to look after at the park she used to work on, but same personality. I drove back to out in palace to show Christine and we decided he would be much happier by the "tree of life." We named him Calvin and haven't seen him since. The following day was interesting... after finishing up with the falcons in the morning, we drove out to what they call the "railroad house" on the ranch. A high school group was coming and the ranchers were going to talk about ranching and their "sustainability" practices. Afterwards Brian Mutch, one of the field biologists from the Peregrine Fund, was going to talk about the restoration of the falcons here in West Texas. A couple hours later, Hon said a prayer and everyone bowed their heads; and I thought to myself, "Where the hell am I?" Then we all got in line for a nice meaty buffet. Well hey, the water was tasty. I'm going to try and get to the funny part now. Christine and I asked Jon if the group was going to have time to come over to see the hack site. We just wanted to be forewarned so we wouldn't be doing anything embarrassing if they decided to come. Jon said that he had a lot to show them on the ranch and they probably wouldn't make it. Well I guess this made Christine and I, or should I just say Christine, put our guards down when we got back home. It was hot out so Christine thought it might be refreshing to take a shower. After her shower she was just walking around letting the sun dry her off, and getting some stuff out of the back of the truck when I heard her screaming for me. Jon and his son Collie, and the entire high school group: parents, teachers, kids and all; were standing at out gate. I think Christine was just so startled that she didn't even think to hide behind something or grab one of the blankets from the back of the truck to wrap around her; no, she ran her nudey self across their perfect line of sight and into the house. We were cracking up so hard, but now not too excited to go out with the group for the next hour. Christine and I seemed to be the only one's immature about the situation. It was hard to keep our laughter muttled, while everyone else acted as if it never happened. It was definitely one of the most awkward but hilarious hours we spent here thus far. Oh, and I almost forgot... our electric fence has been broken by the cows many a time and Christine and I have tried to fix it, but we felt like we failed. When I was walking out with one of the parents from the group he was asking me how the fence worked; something about the conductivity and such. I was like, "Oh, it doesn't really matter, the fence is broken. Hasn't worked in a while." I gave it a few taps to prove my point and by the third or fourth tap, I got a hug electric shock that felt like it went straight to my brain. The kids definitely got a kick out of it since I told them all that the fence didn't work. Well after that wonderful day that probably made Christine and I look like the biggest idiot hack site attendants ever, we had to get ourselves ready for what would be the two longest days of our lives. The next two days would be our release days. We were both excited about our restless falcons finally being able to come out of the box, but we were also dreading the fact that we were going to be at the site all day... and I mean all day. We woke up at 6am to get ready with all of our scopes, binocs, chairs, drinks, food, etc; and headed on over to the site. We were there for hours and hours watching the falcons come out of the box for their first time and taking their first flights. By mid day I could feel the sun just pounding down on us, reaching over 100 degrees and climbing close to 110. Needless to say, we got a little delirious and a bit silly. Something very interesting that happened though was that two adult falcons came to the site. Our field biologists weren't too psyched about the pair being there; they were worried that the adults wouldn't be able to help themselves from playing around with the young falcons and would end up killing them all. Well to everyone's surprise the two adults ended up somewhat adopting the young falcons. It was definitely a neat interaction for us to watch. After a long hard day of being out in the field until 9:30 at night, I still had to drive to the ranch house to make the call in to Paul Juergens (one of the field biologists). Christine stayed back at the house to work on some of the data sheets, so I headed off alone. On the aw there I saw a wolverine cross my path and then a little further up the road a javelina (kind of like a bore). I was definitely ecstatic to see these new species, but not so excited when I had to stop the truck and get out to open and close the gates on the way. When I got to the house I went to make the call and afterwards I met Jackie and Sarah, Jon's wife and daughter who had just gotten back from a trip. I found out that many years ago, Jackie went to school at Mount Holyoke, where Sally went to school. Very cool. They were both very sweet and easy to talk to, but I had to head out because I had a scary ride home ahead of me. The entire time I was just dreading having to get out of the car and of course, right before I got to the gate I ran into a bunch of glowing eyes. It was a pack of javelinas! Well, when I had to get out of the car I blasted the static on the radio and sung a song very loudly; and for some reason the only song that came to mind was "Um Bop," by the Hansen Brothers. Well I made it back to the house by 11pm with all of my limbs intact, and passed out instantly only to wake up the next morning to repeat the same thing. The second day of the release, we definitely got pretty sill because of how incredibly exhausted we were, but somehow we made it through. The pas few days have been great because we've been getting a few hours in the afternoon to head back to the house and just hang out. Christine and I laugh though because we don't do much different at home than at the site. Not much else to say besides it's really hard not to key into the cowboy accent, my tan is coming along nicely, and Dimitri's going to have some competition with the push-ups. I send my love to you all, Ang