6:05 p.m. - 2004-12-05
Creek Survey
I. Am. Wiped. Out.
Helped Bruce and our friend, Dr. Jim, with Bruce's creek survey this morning. I expected it to be totally miserable, and hating every moment of it. Just a cold, wet, miserable mess.
I was wrong. It was lovely. When we were done I was disappointed to have to leave.
I think what made the difference was the chest waders we bought for me a week or so ago. They were warm, and I was dry. I also wore a wool hat and an old, beat up jacket. It was no fashion statement, but I wasn't any colder than when I'm in my own living room.
The creek itself had some nice surprises, too. Dr. Jim pointed out some sticks chewed by beavers which are beautiful. You know, those beavers do a nice job of stripping the bark off sticks and putting attractive tooth marks in them! They are much more attractive than anything Loki and Miss Bunny ever chewed!
I brought a bunch of them home. I think they'll look nice in an umbrella stand.
Dr. Jim also pointed out a crinoid, one of my little obsessions here in Alabama. If you've never seen a crinoid - they are strange little fossils that look sort of....oh, maybe I'll just post a picture in a couple of days.
Anyway, the crinoid discovery prompted my staring at all the rocks on the creek bed as we went along. I was rewarded for this with a couple of other crinoids, a larger rock with some trilobite fossils, and an unfinished arrowhead.
About halfway down the area that we were supposed to be surveying, we heard the baying of a pack of dogs. Someone was out hunting. Within a few minutes we saw the first of about 25 beagles running through the woods next to the stream.
Bruce and Jim got nervous, as we weren't wearing any blaze orange, not being hunters. If the dogs came at us, we could have gotten shot by a trigger happy hunter. But nothing happened, except that the dogs got sucked into snuffling around an area where a deer had probably been sleeping the night before.
They were awfully cute. Twenty five beagles is a hey of a lot of dogs all at the same time, all barking and wagging their tails. Every single one of them had a white tip on the end of their tails, and they were all wagging them like crazy.
I found myself thanking the good Lord I have rabbits though. When rabbits bark it's not very loud, and it sounds like a goose honking. If they barked as loud as beagles it would make me nutty!
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