another day on the job...

here's an introduction to a day at work at ABS. first, meet my coworkers. Stacy, Eric, Andrea, Angela, and Tim. everyone except Carl--he's the man behind this photo. we just finished a hard day's work measuring one very spiney endangered shrub. we do these annual (sometime quarterly) censuses on several endangered species.

i fell into a burning ring of fire...

the goal was to do a prescribed burn to knock back the non-native grass thereby opening up the area for the endangered shrub. we protected the plants from the fire with very scientific pieces of sheet metal and some roofing tin here and there. sometimes protecting the plants required creating elaborate structures. this is the Ziziphus fort...

below is the whole fire crew, people from ABS and TNC. notice me sporting official fire gear including the helmet. oh, how i loved the helmet.