We have arrived at our new temporary home. Things have not gone quite as smoothly as we had hoped, but things are starting to get worked out. The trailer is ok for now. Moving in took a little longer than we had hoped. We had to finish laying some of the stick-on tile in the trailer before moving a lot of stuff around. Dad has been great to have around. He fixed the broken door and has been good emotional support for us both. Yesterday, Kristin, dad, Mike (another grad student from UM), and I drove to Malta to pick up food and supplies we needed for the trailer. The 1 hour drive gets boring towards the end but we all made it there and back sane. The people around Malta seemed pretty nice. I especially liked their hardware/general store called Hardware Hank.Today was a little more enjoyable than the previous two. We lounged around this morning for a while and then took dad and Kristin on a tour of the property. Our first stop was the prairie dog colony at the south edge of the property. It was fun watching all the prairie dogs and we saw a burrowing owl. Kristin thought the prairie dogs were cute but they made annoying sounds.
We then went to the bison jump that is on CMR. We walked out to the ledge and looked down at Forchette Creek. On the way back to the truck, Mike told us about Moss Agate, a rare rock that can be found in this region. We found some, even one that had been partially knapped into an arrowhead. Kristin also took pictures of a number of flowers she saw.
After that, we drove out to the lone exclosure I have up. To our surprise, the fence has stayed up and the bison have stayed out. There were tracks around the edge of the exclosure but none were inside. We saw the majority of the herd when we went to look at an old branding pen that is still up.
After dropping Kristin off at home, Mike, dad, and I drove the rest of the property and went to CMR. It is amazing how vast this landscape really is. Plants are starting to flower, so the prairie is starting to look really nice. There are also a ton of great birds to see out here. We have seen lark buntings, long-billed curlews, western meadowlarks, yellow-headed blackbirds, pheasant, grouse, ducks, American avocets, western kingbirds, and we have a great-horned owl that lives in a building near the trailer.
The most exciting thing that has happened so far occured this evening. Dad went out to check if our laundry was dry. He came in with a wild look in his eyes and told me to come outside. In the path to the laundry was a 4 - 5 foot prairie rattlesnake. Due to WWF policy, we had to relocate the snake instead of kill it. Mike, dad, and I had a heck of a time dealing with this snake but eventually got it in a bucket, threw it in a truck, and drove out to the winter pasture to release it. The snake didn't want to leave once we let it go but we were able to collect all our gear and drive off. I think that is the most fun dad has had in Montana so far. While I knew these snakes were out here, I did not expect to see one yet and didn't expect to see it now. We are going to be buying snake tongs to deal with snakes from here on out. Unfortunately, none of us grabbed a camera before we left so there are no pictures of our first snake.
