A couple of pix from Saturday :)

Maybe if i keep working for the fish and game I'll grow up to be like this.

The sun after an awesome day at Targhee. This weekend was really good. Bryan (not my brother so I will spell it differently even though I don't know how he spells it) and Angela came up on Friday night. We chatted for a bit and went to bed. The next morning they left bright and early for the hills and Kori and I headed out to Ririe Reservoir (pictures to come). Well first we met all the volunteers at the office. We had a really good turn out. Almost 30 people and we usually have like 5 and I'm not even exaggerating. We had about 100 Christmas trees and a bunch of cinder block. We drug the trees out onto the ice. The reservoir was frozen solid. Well, almost. It got my adrenaline rushing a few times. The ice was cracking and because it was so thick you could hear it splitting across the reservoir. It was soo loud and occasionally you could feel it shift a little. Or maybe that was in my head. Either way it made me nervous. At one point we had to carry Kona because the ice was cracking and she crouched down and would NOT MOVE! She decided she'd had quite enough of following the stupid people across the not so frozen lake. Anyways, back to the point of the thing: We tied cider blocks to the butt of all the trees and stood them up. Then we tied the tops of 3 trees together. We spaced the tree tepees about 20 feet apart and left them there so when the ice finishes melting they will sink and the fish love to use them for cover. It went pretty quick because we had so many people. At about noon we fired up the BBQ and hung out with the volunteers. Then Kori, Rachel (sven's sister), Ean (Rachel's son) and I went to Kori's family's house. We played with the horses, set up a slack line and just messed around. Alex showed up about the time we decided to go inside and we played pool and ping pong. Then we headed back to Idaho Falls. Kori decided to stay home to study and Mary, John (Kori's brother), Alex and I ate at Texas Road House (yummy ribs) and watched a stupid movie called Ghost Rider (not recommended). Sunday night Angela and Bryan showed up again and we played guitar, ate dinner and had our first official bike meeting. I really hope everything works out. It sounds promising so far. Monday morning there was not work or school because of our wonderful Presidents :) thank you! So after breakfast and a few tangents Mary, Kori and I headed up to Targhee for my first time this year. Pathetic, I know. It was a beautiful day. The sun was shining, they had 4 inches of powder the night before (not that it really mattered because it was all tracked through)there was no fog, and hardly any wind. I loved it! As it turned out Alex, his cousins, Jed, and his posse and a few other people were all up there. It felt good to get on the mountain again. Also I have some new gear: pants and boots, that I really wanted to use. They are just as nice as I hoped for. My favorite part were the frosted trees by the top of Dream Catcher. I would have taken a picture but I didn't want to take my hand out of my gloves. On the way home all of us besides Jed and his posse stopped at Green Canyon Hot Springs, met up with Sven, Becky and a few more people and got nice and toasty. We also brought some food, Alex provided the scones and we made Navajo tacos. YUM YUM!!! One of my favorites :) So with all that, I slept like a baby last night and am here at work again.

This is a cute letter I got from a 12 year old. It came with a picture of him. You probably can't read it, so here's what it says:

Dear Jo,
Before I get started in the whole volunteer thing, I'd like to introduce myself, so you know who you're working with!
My name is Logan curtis, and my passion is camping, hunting, fishing, just plainly the outdoors! I'm really looking forward to this and I hope you sign me up for the first project!
I'm pretty strong, I play a little football, and I help out on the farm alot. I have 8 horses, 6 ponies, 10 chickens, 19 elk, and a turkey! I always see on TV and the news FandG are in helicopters chasing elk and putting radio collars on deer, but I know now that that isn't the only thing you do! So I will do pretty much anything I can so someday I can be out in teh helicopter too!

p.s. I want to work for Fish and Game when I grow up!!!

(soon to be) volunteer FandG officer,
Logan Curtis

Cool new phone feature

Ok, so maybe I should have explained a little. We (Duston, Kori and I) were out monitoring the deer that were collared. When there is a dead deer, or one who hasn't moved for 6 hours, the transmitter sends out a signal that is different. Since these radio collars cost up to $500 we go track down the deer and retrieve the collar. We also take the opportunity to assess the situation and the cause of death. We originally thought the fawn died somewhere completely different and once we got on the right track it was still quite a far hike to get to it. The picture is kind of in mockery of us wandering around the hillside looking for this scavenged fawn. I'm holding the radio transmitter and "looking" for the deer...

In case you are interested, we decided this fawn died of starvation and then was scavenged by coyotes. We came to this conclusion because not too far away was a melted down bed area as if it had lay down to die. Also, there was no blood on the fur or in the snow which means the deer was dead before it was eaten. Also the bone marrow was red and jello like which is an indicator of malnutrition. We decided it was coyotes that ate it because they like to chew the ribs out. Unlike mountain lions who will tear up the skull and also break all the large bones and eat the marrow. Oh, and one more important fact: when I say "we decided" I really mean that Duston told us...