last day

Today was my last day of my internship. It was fun but I am very happy it is over. It was really hard going to work everyday and not get paid. Time to move on with my life...oh wait more homework.

Books!

I just wanted to throw Orson Scott Card a plug. I am reading Ender's Game and I cant put it down. Great book and I would recommend it to anybody..if you like sci-fi of course. But who doesnt like a good scifi book?

spooky mine

Today was a great day. We hiked up to a cave in the superstition mountains. This cave took an hour to get to from the road. It was very well hidden and I am told it is a pretty well kept secret. I started to believe him. The trail was very primitive and vegetation was growing higher than our knees. All I could think about were snakes. As soon as I got to the entrance I realized it was a mineshaft. After we hiked in aways, I soon realized it was a cave and that Geronimo is said to have lived inside. We walked in about 400 feet and he told me another 20 feet or so it would open up into the actual cave which is just a large room. As we progressed from this point the flashlight started to illuminate the room and we saw something move across our path. We both jumped because of the shadows size and ran back out. Nothing followed as we got back to the sunlight. Its size was the height and size of a human but we didnt hear footsteps or anything, so we assumed it was a swarm of bats, or could it have been a ghost?
We started back after we had a lunch. My boss was ahead making noise in our path to scare off any creepy crawlers. He took a step in some deep brush and low and behold a rattlesnake started rattling really loud. We both jumped back and watched as the snake crossed our path. This snake was beautiful. It had a lime green color and well defined diamonds. We guessed it was probably five foot long and a mojave rattler-a very rare snake to see out there.

get a haircut and get a real job

I have a big beard that I have been growing for a few months and now I am going to cut, trim, and shave it off. Boohoo, but I cant look like some crazy mountain man at a job interview.

snakes

...more snakes! The superstitions are covered with rattlesnakes. We were driving down a dirtroad around ten in the morning and came across six snakes slithering across the road. Each time we would stop and let it make its way across the road to safety. One snake was a rattler that was probably five feet long and really fat...wouldnt like to walk up on that in the wild.
Did you know that rattlesnakes can strike three times farther than there length.

new territory

I rode along with an old wilderness ranger to an area behind the superstitions called hewitt station. We had to replace a sign that was vandalized. I was excited because I would be able to see something new during my internship.
We reached the top of the mountain and I could see over the superstitions and across the city. While up there, I spotted a hawk flying not to high above me carrying a snake. It was a really pretty spectacle, the kind of thing you would see on the discovery channel.

Milking Rattlers

For all of us living here in the valley, we know the times of the year to keep our eyes out for rattlesnakes. They come out of hibernation around early spring and are out just before winter in the fall. During the summer days they are hiding out from the desert heat, but come out at night.
Right now is a great time to go out if you want to see a rattlesnake. They are all over the place. Since I started working for the forest service down here, I have seen six.
The other day, we drove up on two men who had caught a rattlesnake and were in the process of milking its venom. We watched as these guys tried carefully to secrete the venom into a jar. It worked. They said they would sell it to a hospital or college. We said it was illegal and noone would buy it. It was fun to watch though. Needless to say, they let it go and it turned around and bit the guy....just kidding, that would have been deserving and funny to see.

killer bees!!

Earlier this week, my supervisor and I hiked into the Superstitions from Peralta trailhead. We made it to the top of a peak and had lunch. We started hiking down and suddenly heard a loud static-like buzz. It kept getting louder and louder. We stood motionless for a second looking around and just off the trail in front of us was a blacky hazy swarm of bees, probably the size of a firetruck coming along our path. We had about ten feet of space between us so we turned around and rushed away another ten or twenty feet. We watched as the swarm of maybe 500,000 or so bees just drove right by. It was quite a magnificent sight. Nature is something to behold.