livin' in a research station

Wondering where my posts have been? Actually, I'm pretty sure that Lena and maybe Mom are the only ones that actively read this blog, an they both know that I haven't been posting because my internet has been out for nearly the past week. while an inconvenience at times (like when trying to look up the # for an oil change, or make study abroad plans, or a cattail recipe) it has been refreshing and pleasant for everyone on property not to have the internet. We played more games together. Ate more meals communally. Played more sports.

Highlights of this past week:
WEDNESDAY
Foraging dinner w/the entire Lodge Lab. This meal was inspired by invasivore.org, a blog created by some of Lindsey and Ashley's friends back at Notre Dame. It focuses on how to identify and eat all sorts of invasive species. You're helping the environment! Our meal included the invasive rusty crayfish that we trapped ourselves, the invasive Chinese Mystery Snails that we collected, and wild raspberries that I picked before the meal. I decided to try a crayfish because a) I know where it is coming from. There is no meat fresher or more sustainable than the crayfish out of Big Lake and b) when else will I have this opportunity? But still, I only ate just one. That's the same reason that I felt okay about eating the CMS. I saw where the snails were living. I collected them myself, and saw how they were cooked. I followed them in every step of the way from Big Lake to plate. No "out of sight, out of mind" ideology about picking out slabs of meat in the grocery store.

The entire foraging dinner was lovely because the undergraduate class students that were working in the Lodge Lab were also invited, so we had a big group of about twelve of us, including Dr. Lodge. Very family-Thanksgiving-esque.

THURSDAY
FOOD CHRISTMAS - the most wonderful day of the summer when Santa's elves leave out merry food for the taking! Since the undergrad course ended and they left UNDERC today, there was so much food that they didn't have room to take with them back to South Bend, so it is an annual event to go over and take what we want! Here's a pic of what I got. Key items: tofu, peanut butter, jams, blueberries, oatmeal, chai tea, granola bars, giant vat of spaghetti sauce.

We then used most of  the food we got for dinner. Bradley and Ricky brought over free pasta, I cooked some free frozen veggies, heated some free tomato sauce, and we enjoyed that with some watermelon leftover from the foraging dinner. Best Day Ever!

Also, I can now do handstands! ...kinda. not for very long. Katie and I were practicing and then joined in for half a game of ultimate frisbee.

FRIDAY
Fish Fry @ Bent's Camp - All-you-can-eat friday fish fry is a big thing up here in the North Woods. I didn't actually eat any of the all-you-can-eat fish fry, but I did indulge in some of their all you can eat free sides and ordered a surprisingly good veggie pizza. We ate at a table out on the water right as the sun was setting and had more good conversation as a lab and Dr. Lodge was kind enough to pay for our meal! If there's time, I really want to try to canoe to Bent's Camp. Mammie lake is part of the Cisco chain, which is accessible by Big Lake which is right off UNDERC property. Wouldn't that be an awesome evening? Paddle to dinner, enjoy a hearty meal, and ((slowly)) paddle back. I think it takes over 3 hrs. but it'd be worth it.

Oh and as for sciencey things:
- my experiment is going, slowly but surely. abstracts for the research symposium are due on sunday.
- thursday was the last day for hand-collecting rusty crayfish! ;-;
- today we sampled two new lakes: Forest and Big Musky. We were collecting O. propinquus and O. virilus. Virilus are so passive! I liken them to the pacifists of crayfish. They don't really use their claws much, and were all in all very pleasant to handle.

lodge lab family

Nature Sightings:
black squirrel
porcupine crossing

This morning I was awoken by a text from Ashley: "Pannu @ 920 in A4!" Pannu is a finish pancake-type dish that's apparently easy to make, and was so sweet and delicious! like a warm danish. I really like how we're slowly having more and more spontaneous lab dinners together. Now that there's five of us, it's just easier to cook for everyone! Lodge Lab Family. Anyway,  it's good that I went over because I found out that she and Ricky were planning on going to Roach Lake at 10 to practice for next week's plant surveys and practice diving. So I tagged along, and although didn't see too many fish, it was lovely to lounge with the deerflies and swim around. Ricky and I did a fun-practice dive for about 30 minutes (visibility: 15m, depth: 12 - 15 ft) where we were flipping around like seals and swimming on our backs like whales.

In preparation for Dr. David Lodge's arrival today, we had a huge lab/truck cleanup. We were sweepin' moppin', storage shed runnin', wet lab runnin'. I haven't actually met him yet because I spent the evening at Trout Lake,  but I'm sure I'll meet him tomorrow.

Also, today was 92 degrees and a bit humid, but no where near as sticky as Virginia. Then in the evening a wonderful thunderstorm pulled through, filled with warm rain and awesome lightning strikes. Driving home was a bit scary, but I just took my time and got back in time to catch the end of our Sunday Grad-Dinner (which I wasn't disappointed to miss most of because today's theme was Meat).

b-i-n-g-o

what a lovely friday!
FIELD 9 - 5

- big lake: bluegill/pumpkinseed experiments
- plum lake: snail collections. snail collections are one of the most relaxing activities, ever. It's so simple to search for the Amnicola limosus: they cling to the vallisneria and potamogeton aquatic plants, tiny spirals that fall into gravity if you approach too quickly. But it allows me to relax my mind, away from the electronic distractions of the world. It's a chance to think alone for a few hours. Today I was thinking predominantly (and surprisingly) a lot about Harry Potter; the characters, actors, worldwide effect, message. But, as usual, I also dwelled on thoughts of the future semester and future career.
- trout lake: housed the snails, changed crayfish waters
- UNDERC adventures: spontaneous trips to on-property bogs, including T. and Cranberry. this 90 minute drive around property was particularly enjoyable because it was a chance to roam through the 8,000 acres that notre dame owns. UNDERC is basically like a giant gated nature preserve. We're always off on different lakes and I barely know the lakes we live on! We also stopped at the infamous fish pit where bald eagles are known to hang out (none sighted) and gravel pit (lotz of wild berries). we were also constantly on the lookout for oyster mushrooms. we didn't collect too much, but enough for me to make a completely freehand mushroom soup for dinner.
- dinner: foragers, unite! I was struggling with the soup because the oysters we picked were getting pretty old and I was worried we wouldn't have enough, but the soup was incredible! so good that mah friends were asking for the recipe! but really, all I did was use veg bouillon cubes and some miso soup mix as a broth and added the mushrooms, cubed potatoes, and scallions to a soup. it got so good! so yummi! I hope I can make it again. Ashley made a delicious tofu curry for us (us = another spontaneous Lodge Lab dinner)
- BINGO! I bought a set from 1981 at the local flea market for $1. I was worried that I was the only one that wanted to play and that I've been coercing others to play, but we all had a good time! The prize for winning rounds were brownies, and you could earn more bingo cards by successfully winning that round's challenge that was determined by the Bingo Master. The challenges included drawing themed art on the boring cardboard game pieces, writing haikus, creating toasts, funny five words, etc. We basically made up rules along the way and it proved for a fun evening.

farewell, childhood

It's been nice growin' up with you, Harry Potter.

Wild Rice Lake

FIELD 7 - 4
LAB  5 - 6
Today I went out with Lindsey and Ricky again to help with the snail surveys. Wild Rice is incredibly murky, but there's a lot of cool plants and bluegills hanging around. I'm getting better at doing the snail cores, but it still takes a few tries (and a couple of breaths) when snorkeling.

Tonight I'm gonna go with Chips to pick raspberries! yey!

holywa

Wow, has it really been another week since my last blog posting? Time here seems to travel so fast, and we get so much done!

A quick hodgepodge of updates:
LAST WEEK
- was a bit disappointing because my bluegill experiments didn't quite work out. We're finding that even after we think the bluegills eat the crayfish, we can't see any proof in their stomachs when using a dissecting microscope. also, some may be escaping?
- made for an awesome team when on thursday, lindsey, bradley and I were able to go to Big to check on my experiment/measure bluegills, check the crayfish containers on two lakes, and! return back to Big to continue my experiment, all in time for seminar. We are so good. We were rushing to make it back in time because last week's guest speaker was Todd... Crowell?, a stream ecologist who works in Puerto Rico. How pertinent!

Nature Sighting Update
- 4 bald eagles (in one day)
- porcupine

WEEKEND
Friday = late night. 
Saturday = joined my roommates for their lab dinner which brought over jake, pat, naomi, chelsea, victoria, and carol. In the evening the Lodge Lab + others went to the casino mainly to see the hit sensation Da Yoopers. Of course, a tiny bit of gambling was involved and I came out in the positive with $2. more weekend updates l8r

TODAY
FIELD: 7am - 8pm
I went with Ashley and Ricky to survey Spider and Little Star lakes using a mixture of snorkeling and scuba diving. Spider and Little Star are unlike any other lakes here because there was a lot of motor boat traffic: jetskis, water skis, water tubes, etc., but at least all of the intense motoring is isolated on these lakes. It would be a pain dealing with them if they were on all of the lakes. And the people that talked to were nice ("ooo scuba divers!") but many had kind of a negative view on snails. At least two families we spoke with found them to be a nuisance and one woman even went as far as to tell us to "get rid of them" because it was unpleasant to wade. I mean, c'mon! The lake is not their for your sole summer enjoyment!

And if I didn't explain before, we are conducting snail surveys to view the impacts of the invasive rusty crayfish on snail populations. The same survey, using the same exact sites by GPS, was last conducted in 2002 at which no snails were found. Since then, the rusty crayfish numbers have been decreasing and we now see that the snail population is slowly rebounding (at least 7 of our 48 sites had snails. Not a lot, but at least it's some). To sample, we usually use either an Open Core or a large Ring depending on the substrate. If the ground is mostly sand, we'll use an open core which is pushed into the sand and cuts through the container, collecting anything in the upper layer of sand. If the substrate is rocky/cobble then we'll use a ring to determine the area, and then collect the top layer of exposed rock.

It felt really great to scuba dive today for research purposes! Diving can be fun and scientific!

Today's Nature Sightings:
10 ducklings on a log
juvenile bald eagle
a human mother and her F1 generation interacting in their natural habitat

2:30 am. Just returned from a surreal trip out to Peter Lake where we took the cascade's boat out and went swimming. Since it's July, the water's had plenty of time to warm up and it felt so lovely. Like how a water nymph would feel. Lady of the Water.

Today was fourth of july! we celebrated by grilling our weekly communal meal today. Grace from the cascade project and I made homemade bean burgers out of beans, lentils, TVP, and garlic. They were so good, if not better, than the store bought ones. I'm definitely gonna try to make more of my own!

Alexandra, my Canadian roommate, celebrated by wearing an awesome shirt that featured the Statue of Liberty ridin' dirty on a motorcycle, courtesy of Walmart.


As an Update on last week's doings:
- finished the updated version of the tanks for my bluegill experiment and ran some pre-trials. experiment officially starts tomorrow!
- first week with Ricky, our new field technician. Ricky is helping Ashley out with her intense surveying of ten different lakes. We are now such an intense research team! There's five of us!
 - Interesting crayfish container observation: somehow there were 3 young-of-year crayfish in one of Lindsey's containers on High Lake? Suggests that there's a hole in the container? That was just a huge surprise.


The weekend was spent canoeing over to the incredible campsite peninsula on Palmer Lake, where I slept right over the lake in my hammock. Even though the bugs were a bit obnoxious in the morning, the sensation of falling asleep under the sheet of stars and sounds of bullfrogs made it worth it. Canoeing to this site was different than last time because we didn't leave until 930 pm, just went it was finally getting dark post-sunset. So lovely! We also went swimming on Roach with some guys from Ward (/cascade) where I took "swimming" very literally and was doing flips in the water while they lounged on the raft. I feel like that happens a lot.... when people say they're going swimming, I always generally want to stay in the water way longer than they do. Oh well, I guess my lifetime of competitive swimming has truly set me up to be an aquatic ecologist!

And while I do love aquatic ecology, it was refreshing to help Chips out with his terrestrial experiment today since we had the day "off." ("off" in quotes because I still did bluegill-crayfish experiments anyway). Even though I didn't do much, except flag some bird excluder fishing line and was the Champion Trampler, it was nice to be on land and hanging out in a forest.

wahoo!