Finally...

I've started and stopped so many posts over the past few weeks.  Things are challenging up here and I'm doing the best I can but frankly not handling the stress and disappointment, nor the almost suffocating desire to be done and home, very well.  Each post I wrote was more negative and, in all honesty, whiny than the last.  About a week ago, I finally was about to hit publish on one when instead, I accidentally deleted it.  I took that as a sign that perhaps it should wait until I had something good to share. 

And here it is...

2 days ago, our graduate student and I had to head up to the mountains to tear down some pens that we ended up not using and to collect some additional samples that we needed.  When we were coming back down the mountain, we saw something dart in front of us.  We could tell it was a cat but the quick glance couldn't tell us whether it was bobcat or lynx.  The one animal, more than any other, that I wanted to see while working up here was the lynx -- and so far, that wish had not been granted.  I figured that when I saw one, it would be a quick dart across a road or through an open patch.  Enough of a visual to know it was a lynx but something very fleeting.  Instead, as we pulled up to where it went off the road, 'she' (assuming based on size it was a she or a juvenile) had stopped and was content to watch us for a few minutes.  In my excitement, I did not turn off the truck which means the vibration caused most of my pictures to be a touch blurry but that doesn't matter...I took some shots and then just stared at 'her'.  After a few minutes of watching us, 'she' casually turned and slinked back into the woods.  There aren't many animals that I don't like but I admit to a certain fascination with felids.  The quiet grace in which they move...it's like none other in my opinion.  I'm not sure I would want to work with them (I dearly love my herbivores), but I do love seeing them and watching them move.
  

Seeing 'her'...for a brief moment, I felt like I could make it the rest of the season...

My field season is almost over...we have just one more stint out should the weather hold and we don't get more snow (oh yes...it has snowed.  and snowed.  and snowed).  I will still be up here until later in the month of October but those last few weeks are less stressful...keep me in your thoughts and wish for warm weather and an incident-free finish.

In the meantime...tell me, what have you been up to?  I've gotten behind on reading your spaces as usual so I'd love an update!
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Now playing: Canadian Railroad Trilogy by Gordon Lightfoot


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