6-26
Due to vehicle break-downs, we've been playing musical vehicles lately. During the class, Elisha and I had mainly been using Zoey, Todd's baby (a bright orange land rover) because he trusted no one else to use her. We also from time to time used Kermit, (the bright green land cruiser), but mainly his field assistants use that one. He just finished getting Betsy (a baby blue toyota pickup) fixed, so now that Todd is back, Betsy is what Elisha and I will be using as Todd will start using Zoey. Betsy is quite roughed up as she's been flipped upside down in a river and nearly completely buried in sand. Today Kermit was getting some repairs and Todd's field assistants needed to use Betsy, so Elisha and I got to use the mechanics fancy land cruiser which has a big old red rhino horn on it. So that was pretty cool.
This past week, we had to say goodbye to Sid. I took the Palmer lab (Kirsten, Sid, Patrick, Elisha, and I...Todd was on vacation on the coast) out for a cool last sundowner for Sid near the north of the ranch to a big rock outcrop called Lizard rock. It's a really beautiful rock outcrop with a tree growing on the top. It involves some rock climbing to get to the top and has great views around. There's also a huge troop of baboons that lives up there, and it was amazing to see how good at rock climbing they were.
During our veg surveys this week, Julius happened upon a baby dik-dik hiding in the grass. As it could hardly walk, he easily caught it, and we all got to hold it. Dik-diks if you remember are the smallest antelopes in the world, so you can imagine how tiny their babies are. Also this week while doing observations in the exclosure, we heard a leopard grunting right outside the fence, which was pretty cool.
Tonight we packed the station into the classroom to watch the USA-Germany game. All the Kenyans seem to watch every game (they bought satellite TV just for the world cup) which start around 7 here and go until 3am, but for this game as it was the early game, all of the researchers were watching it as well.
6-29
A couple of days ago we had some super wealthy people fly in from Nanyuki (just a bit over an hour by car!) to check out the research station for an afternoon. They flew in 5 small planes and landed at the big airstrip. It was funny b/c they were totally decked out in the safari gear that you see in the fancy magazines. They came and listened to brief presentations by the main researchers (like Todd) before taking a quick game drive and flying back to their hotels in Nanyuki. Besides some entertainment for us, it meant free soft drinks and beer for us, which was a nice surprise.
Last night Todd and Kat had us over for sunset, drinks, and dinner (the house comes with a cook!) at the fancy house they are staying out. They are staying at a place called Jenga house which was originally built as a retreat for the inventor of the game Jenga. It's not called Jenga house because it's wobbly like the game Jenga! It was fun hanging out with them before they leave and we had lots of good laughs. Tonight they invited the Palmer Lab (so Kirsten and Pat too) over for sunset and drinks. Again a fun time. And one of the surprisingly nice things (especially for Elisha) is that since their house has a fridge, we had ice in our drinks.
Due to vehicle break-downs, we've been playing musical vehicles lately. During the class, Elisha and I had mainly been using Zoey, Todd's baby (a bright orange land rover) because he trusted no one else to use her. We also from time to time used Kermit, (the bright green land cruiser), but mainly his field assistants use that one. He just finished getting Betsy (a baby blue toyota pickup) fixed, so now that Todd is back, Betsy is what Elisha and I will be using as Todd will start using Zoey. Betsy is quite roughed up as she's been flipped upside down in a river and nearly completely buried in sand. Today Kermit was getting some repairs and Todd's field assistants needed to use Betsy, so Elisha and I got to use the mechanics fancy land cruiser which has a big old red rhino horn on it. So that was pretty cool.
This past week, we had to say goodbye to Sid. I took the Palmer lab (Kirsten, Sid, Patrick, Elisha, and I...Todd was on vacation on the coast) out for a cool last sundowner for Sid near the north of the ranch to a big rock outcrop called Lizard rock. It's a really beautiful rock outcrop with a tree growing on the top. It involves some rock climbing to get to the top and has great views around. There's also a huge troop of baboons that lives up there, and it was amazing to see how good at rock climbing they were.
During our veg surveys this week, Julius happened upon a baby dik-dik hiding in the grass. As it could hardly walk, he easily caught it, and we all got to hold it. Dik-diks if you remember are the smallest antelopes in the world, so you can imagine how tiny their babies are. Also this week while doing observations in the exclosure, we heard a leopard grunting right outside the fence, which was pretty cool.
Tonight we packed the station into the classroom to watch the USA-Germany game. All the Kenyans seem to watch every game (they bought satellite TV just for the world cup) which start around 7 here and go until 3am, but for this game as it was the early game, all of the researchers were watching it as well.
6-29
A couple of days ago we had some super wealthy people fly in from Nanyuki (just a bit over an hour by car!) to check out the research station for an afternoon. They flew in 5 small planes and landed at the big airstrip. It was funny b/c they were totally decked out in the safari gear that you see in the fancy magazines. They came and listened to brief presentations by the main researchers (like Todd) before taking a quick game drive and flying back to their hotels in Nanyuki. Besides some entertainment for us, it meant free soft drinks and beer for us, which was a nice surprise.
Last night Todd and Kat had us over for sunset, drinks, and dinner (the house comes with a cook!) at the fancy house they are staying out. They are staying at a place called Jenga house which was originally built as a retreat for the inventor of the game Jenga. It's not called Jenga house because it's wobbly like the game Jenga! It was fun hanging out with them before they leave and we had lots of good laughs. Tonight they invited the Palmer Lab (so Kirsten and Pat too) over for sunset and drinks. Again a fun time. And one of the surprisingly nice things (especially for Elisha) is that since their house has a fridge, we had ice in our drinks.
 |
| Sundownder |
 |
| Zoey and our Sundowner rock |
 |
| the baby dik-dik we caught |
 |
| me on top of the sundowner rock |
 |
| Our 3 vehicles. Zoey, Betsy, Kermit (L to R) |
 |
| The Palmer Lab's 3 vehicles. Kermit, Betsy, and Zoey |
No comments:
Post a Comment