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HedwigtheStrange

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I can't believe it's been nearly a year since I my last entry! It's been a busy and most excellent year. This summer, I've had the pleasure of working with the US Forest Service, which has been exhausting and brilliant. I've been hiking all over the Pike National Forest getting attacked by goshawks, hooting to owls (a legit survey method!), tracking Abert's squirrels, hugging Ponderosa Pines (to putting flagging around them mostly, but I've been known to hug a tree just because), netting bats, watching the caterpillar of a threatened butterfly species hatch from its egg (which could be the first time anyone has ever observed this), and watching the budding, blooming, fruiting, and dying of the wildflowers. It's been truly amazing. I don't want to make my life seem like it's all sparkles and no grit, so I will add that the massive amount of hiking has made for severe chafing in embarrassing places, and that I am an absolute disaster at parking our gigantic boat of a work truck (seriously, I'm the only person in our office who has to have someone get out of the truck every single time and help direct me so I can back into a parking spot).

Summer field work is winding down again, but happily I have secured some work for the winter. I'm looking forward to autumn (PUMPKINS AND CIDER!!!) and to working on more art. I haven't posted much art lately because most of what I've been drawing is related to getting married. Did I mention, I'm engaged? I am, to my awesome glassblowing man-critter! So I've been drawing the invitations, save-the-dates, bookmark favors, and a new family crest, plus designing gowns and my man-critter's outfit. So, sadly, I don't really expect to make a whole bunch of scientific art in the next year (although, you can bet your ass that the wedding artwork is both nature-themed and scientifically accurate).

So that's my life right now. What's going on in yours?
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I'm in Minnesota for just one more month and that fact has put me in a bit of a reflective mood. I can't wait to go back to the mountains of my home, but coming to Minnesota was exactly what I needed - a new place with new people and new things to learn. And I've learned SO much! Like the kind of intense concentration it takes to sit at a microscope hunched over one sample for an entire day and find ALL of the mangled insect bits. And how to wash bees and then dry them such that their hairs pouf up and you can see the exoskeleton beneath for identification purposes. And how to trap small mammals and what shrews smell like (a sort of sweet fermented fruit plus skin/flesh smell). Also, how to conduct my own field research and then how to fix my research when the first field collection turns into a shit show. And what, exactly, the flange of Coanda does.

And I've had so much fun! Watching the fireflies, listening to the frogs, seeing the pitcher plants bloom, walking through the oak savannahs, observing sandhill cranes, searching for mushrooms, collecting hazelnuts and wild apples, swimming in lakes, getting lost in the Twin Cities, making food for themed potlucks, drinking (lots of good) beer, howling at the coyotes on midnight walks, dancing to bluegrass bands, attempting to bike on sand roads then inevitably falling over and cursing, camping on the bog dock, becoming more impulsive, getting to know some awesome people, and generally enjoying the crap out of life!!

I'll be sad to go, but if life is going to be full of experiences like this, I can't be too distressed because there is too much to look forward to! Cheers everybody!
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Minnesota: so much more than snow and Michelle Bachman and snow!

In fact, Minnesota has been all-around awesome so far! Today I went out to explore the bogs, walking on wooden boards out to see pitcher plants (!!), Labrador tea, marsh marigolds, tamarack, pine, and of course, lots of sphagnum moss. It's an eerie environment with the dark water and the unsteady ground and stunted trees. It's strange to me that there is so much water here, very very different from the arid area where I was before. There are lakes everywhere you look and so there are also frogs and turtles all over the place! Today we rescued a rare Blanding's turtle from the middle of the road where it was just chillin'. The animal sounds at night here are so loud! I almost feel like I'm in a rainforest when I listen to the calls - they are that loud and constant! The only time they stopped was two nights ago when we there was a tornado warning - it was creepy how still the air was, like the animals knew.

The insects here are looking to be amazing as well! I have never seen so many butterflies! I've seen lots of nymphalids here, and many are first sightings for me: red admirals, fire-rim tortoiseshell, lots of fritillaries, but also pierids, lycaenids, and riodinids. I haven't seen any papilionids yet, but I'm sure they'll be out soon too! I must have seen upwards of a hundred butterflies on the way to get groceries though -  the abundance is amazing! I haven't seen the beetles so much yet, probably because I'm wary of wandering out into the grassy native-plant areas due to high tick levels. Just this evening I was sitting indoors and had the biggest tick I've ever seen march right over my keyboard to try to snack on my leg. It's not an insect though, so it got no mercy from me!

The work is looking to be pretty awesome too and a really excellent learning experience. I'm sorting sweep net samples, which takes 6-8 hours a sample (!). A lot of the insects are squished or disarticulated and many are really really really tiny (and also in bits) so it's really a challenge getting everything out of the vegetation and sorted into orders. Many orders are defined by certain numbers of appendages, so insects with lots of missing body parts are problematic - I will need to develop many different methods to distinguish orders. I'm also plotting a project of my own... maybe something to do with carabids? There are a lot of potential projects and my mind is whirring at the possibilities!

The one wretched thing about this adventure is that my man-critter wasn't able to come with me for the whole summer. His absence is a constant ache, and everyday life is full of the holes where he used to be. "The bed's too big, the frying pan's too wide," yeh know?. However, I plan on bringing him up here for a good chunk of July, and then the world will be perfect!
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Minnesota

1 min read
Woo! I'm going to Minnesota for the summer! I got a job with the Cedar Creek Ecosystem Science Reserve sorting what sounds like several metric butt-tons of insect samples! Anyone spent some time Minnesota? I've never been there and I could use some advice on living there!
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Science Stuffs

3 min read
I've spent some time in the last week looking for a suitable subject to draw for the BioIllustration Contest, since I found out that the unique characteristic I was going to illustrate - the way that a female Giant Ichneumon Wasp contorts in order to get her very long ovipositor into a tree trunk - has already been brilliantly illustrated.  In any case, I've run across a lot of my favorite science blogs and articles in my search, as well as new ones. It occurred to me that you all have probably found some awesome pockets o' science online. I share mine if you'll share yours?

Mouse-over for a description:

Bug Girl

Beetles in the Bush

Wired Science

Not Exactly Rocket Science

The Last Word on Nothing

Genetic Jungle

Science Friday

North Carolina State Entomology Museum Blog

Archaeological News

NEON's Project Budburst

Wildlands Restoration Volunteers

BioBlitz 2012
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Featured

Holy Balls, Time Rushes By So Fast! by HedwigtheStrange, journal

Approaching the End by HedwigtheStrange, journal

Minnesota: it's bloody awesome!! by HedwigtheStrange, journal

Minnesota by HedwigtheStrange, journal

Science Stuffs by HedwigtheStrange, journal