07/11/08

Kinda hard to keep up on the blog without my laptop. Not much biology going on now anyway. Just trying to wrap up and get ready to start the new experiments in the enclosures. To that end I left Roger's camp early this morning and headed back to Burns. Worked on cleaning up the lab some. Started preparing the footer for the last building. Still have about 70 m of flashing at Lone Pine that I need to erect and finish off. Raked the ground to create the footer and strung support wire for the remaining 70 m. Finished off painting the bottom pens and the cliffs. Have some touch-ups, but nothing too bad.

07/12/08

Worked at LP all day today. Laid all the flashing for the new top pens today. It's getting into the low 90's lately so I worked until about 15:00 then took a break. I actually took a nap, which is another luxury that comes some rarely.

07/13/08

Eggs really starting to hatch now. Had two more this morning. Funny, but I still have 12 lizards in the ovipositorium. Usually I'm done by now, but with the lizard garden I keep getting a few gravid females. I wonder if my assumption that the egg-laying season ends in early July is correct. However, these late eggs have to be at a disadvantage since they'll only have two months to grow before winter. Continued to work at Lone Pine today and got most of the chicken wire in place to set the footer. Even got a little cement poured this evening.

07/14/08

Today was the big cement push. Didn't get it all done, but came close. Had to finish wiring and dang if I didn't come within half a meter of being dead on. That's half a meter after wiring up 55-60 m worth of flashing. Then, I found a half meter piece of wire that made it PERFECT. I love it when I don't have to buy any moer and there's no leftovers. Got 12 more bags of cement poured and think tomorrow could be the end of that. Was able to get the footer for top pens #2 and #3 sealed and even covered over #2 with dirt. Now just need to set some rocks to hi-grade the habitat for the lizards and it's ready to receive. Right now my hands are really quite sore and I'm not able to distinguish whether it's from crimping 70 m of flashing, riveting 70 m of flashing, wiring chicken wire to the base of 70 m of flashing, setting the cement around the 70 m of flashing, or using the potato rake to cover the cement for 70 m of flashing. Hmm. Still getting into the low 90's, but today was cloudy and hazy so that made it feel better. Plus when I'm pouring cement I hose down everything including myself, especially when I get cement on me. So being wet helps stay cool.