It’s kind of crazy to think that in the past month of working out here in the desert, a field day in 107 degrees weather is really not that bad and is much more preferable than working out in 120 degrees of dry heat. My focus in life right now is to avoid heat stroke! Since coming back from the fabulous workshop in Chicago, Emily and I have teamed up with one of the wildlife biologists in our office to help assess riparian areas by running MIMs, assist with Yellow-billed Cuckoo surveys, and increase our skills in evaluating rangeland health and plant utilization. Unfortunately, I missed out on a wet/dry mapping event at the Agua Fria River due to being sick, which definitely increased my West Nile paranoia from my massive mosquito bites in Chicago! Although my health has gotten better, the drought in Arizona has not. It seems to be getting worse year after year and it has got me looking forward to the monsoon season.

We’ve got a crazy schedule planned out for the next 2 weeks trying to finish up our transects so that the rangeland health evaluations (RHE) can be written up on schedule! Since our mentor has been called out to help with the fires occurring in northern AZ, we want to be as up to date as possible for when he returns.

My thoughts go out to the 19 Granite Mountain Hotshots who lost their lives in the Yarnell Hill fire.