Wednesday--vole day!

As usual, this is done after everything else is finished. I've almost finished my school blog--the video is giving me so much trouble. I can see it when I click the preview but when I view my blog page it doesn't show up. I posted the videos to youtube. I'm not thrilled that I am now part of this public domain but I wanted my kiddos (and friends) to see the videos I made.

it is 10:45pm. I've been up since 6am (I went running again--we measured it in the car; I ran 6k today) and I'm just beat. We did quite a bit of work today and my brain is shutting down. Sorry for rambling more than normal.

We checked our traps that we set yesterday (each of us set 20 traps). I caught nothing in the morning--everyone else caught at least one vole. I was a little sad by this since the voles are very cute and I wanted to hold one. I should be saying something about the scientific significance of finding one in my personal grid but I don't feel like that--I wanted to catch a vole.
After our morning trap checks, we had to return the traps to the exact location as before (and release the voles to the same spot as well).
Once the traps were returned we had a poop test. We had to determine what it was, how many animals (how many piles) or if it was just a strand (pooping on the run, so to speak).
I did ok on the test--I missed a deer pile somewhere in the 10x10 meter grid (in the leaf filled forest).

We washed up, had lunch and then did some very physical labor--we cleared a path. We literally had to use garden tools and our hands (legs, arms, and anything else) to cut down trees. I'm not talking the 4 foot diameter trees. These were smaller--they were still 10-12 feet tall but they were only 6 to 8 inches in diameter. None the less, it required a lot of work. I'm tired just thinking about it.
We did that for a few hours and then about 5pm we checked our traps again. This time I was the one with lots in my traps. I had 4 full traps! That was the daily record! They were all voles (no mice today) and they were fairly healthy. Some of them were pregnant. They were all adorable. I'll try to attach the videos but I will also include the youtube links like I did for the kids. Hopefully that works.

Tomorrow we're headed back to check the traps again. I'd like to see a mouse this time but would be happy with more voles.

Enjoy!
I didn't post some of these pictures because I took pictures of frog porn!
I caught 4 voles today!!!!



this last video is of me about to release a vole. Naturally the memory card ran out just as I was opening the bag. You don't get to see me actually release it--I really did though. I promise I didn't keep it. :)