Well, I'm sure all who reads this already know that Bob and I got married in August. We are settling into married life and settling into seeing each other ALL THE TIME... and slowly getting used to it :) So far, so good!
Our wedding party :)
Bob was able to get a job at the local hardware/building supply store, McCoy's. He has been looking around for wildlife jobs or even volunteer positions, with little luck. Unfortunately any wildlife volunteer work he could do down here would include a lot of driving, and we'd be spending a lot of money (that we don't have) just to pay for gas to get to the various sites. So, although he doesn't currently have a job in the wildlife field he has been able to get the job at McCoy's (which according to other citizens of Alpine is one of the better jobs here in town). He's enjoying it as much as he can and has even picked up a few fishing buddies out of it :) In addition to that he is still working with his animals. He just had 3 beaded lizards hatch out of eggs that one of his females laid back in the summer. There were more eggs in the clutch that didn't make it, which was really disappointing to him. Since the eggs were still in PA, it was difficult for him to make sure they were still in the conditions they needed to be in the incubator. Beaded lizard eggs aren't the easiest to hatch either, so it was no fault of his own that they were not 100% successful. Still, he's really excited about the ones that did hatch, and his parents are taking good care of them in his absence.
Here is one of the first beaded lizard babies hatching out of its egg :)
That third egg hatched shortly after the first 2
Completely out of the egg and eating one of it's first meals! Yum!
Since we've been down here he's also acquired a few more snakes that he wasn't allowed to have while he lived at home in PA. The reason for that was - they're venomous too! He has 1 rock rattlesnake, 2 albino eastern diamondback rattlesnakes, and 3 copperheads (1 osage, and 2 trans-pecos). Although I sometimes get nervous having them around, Bob is VERY cautious and responsible when feeding/handling them. He has a ton of books on the care/handling of venomous animals, and lots of friends to ask advice from. And of course, they've really grown on me too now that I've become accustomed to having them around for a couple months :)
Here is a picture of one of the albino eastern diamondbacks. They're just babies now, but they will get BIG. They've already grown a lot since we've had them.
Another picture of the AED
This is a rock rattlesnake. There are lots of different variations on colors depending on where the snake came from. Since they have to blend in with their surroundings (rocks) they usually match the color of rocks in their habitat.
Another picture of the rock rattlesnake.
Here is the osage copperhead. Bob got this one off of a friend of his that he's met since living down here in Alpine. He also has 2 trans-pecos copperheads that we don't have pictures of yet that he is keeping for a little while for another friend of his.
Bob has also acquired quite a collection of these guys... They are pretty small - not nearly as big as it looks in this picture!
Here is another picture of a scorpion. This shows how much they glow under a black light! Most people who go out and look for these critters usually use these lights to find them.
Those of you who know Bob also know that he loves to garden! Although it's January, we have a very successful garden growing in our backyard curtesy of Bob :) There is a material that you can buy to cover a garden with that keeps the inside temperature about 10 degrees warmer than outside. So although it still gets chilly at night, and sometimes during the day, this covering has allowed us to start a very nice garden. Not much else is new with Bob. He's enjoying his time down here (so he tells me) which makes me happy since I'm kinda the reason he had to move away from PA!
Our garden :)
Well, enough about Bob... lets talk about me now :) Things are going pretty well with school, although there has been a change of plans. I found out mid-December that there is not enough funding for my project to pay me for the summer. This means that if I were to stay and complete 2 full years of field work and graduate May 2013 (as originally planned) I would have to get another job in addition to doing field work for my 2 projects. There are various other projects that I could work on and get paid for as a technician, but they would require just as much field work as my own projects and I would be very busy. I also doubt I'd get hired, or even make any money, at a job in town when I may only be able to work there 1 or 2 days a week. So my advisors gave me the option of using only 1 year's worth of field data to write my thesis and graduate in May 2012. After talking it over with Bob, and asking for some advice from my undergraduate advisor, I made the decision to take them up on their offer and try to graduate early. So, I am now in the thesis-writing stage of my time here at Sul Ross. Although I am excited to be done with this stage of my life and earn a higher degree, it has been somewhat stressful having to change course this close to May graduation. Now Bob and I have the challenge of finding jobs and possibly relocating to a whole new area to start the next chapter of our lives. We feel as though we are being rushed in doing this, which has caused a lot of pressure and stress on the both of us and our marriage. But we are talking through our issues and concerns and trying not to let it all get the best of us. Luckily, we both have awesomely supportive families, which understand they could possibly be gaining back some live-in children if we don't find something else by May. So we are currently looking for places of employment where we can use our degrees, or where I can go on to get a Ph.D. Although I am slowly getting worn out by school, committing to a Ph.D. program would actually allow us to settle in one place for more than just a year or 2 since it would probably take me at least 4 years to complete the program and graduate. Also, it would be nice to get all schooling out of the way now, instead of working for a while, and then going back :)
So that is where we are in our lives right now. I will leave it at that for now. Hopefully I'll be able to write posts more frequently now! I'll have to catch you all up on pictures from different things we've been doing for the past 6 months!
Hope you all are doing great and enjoying the new year!
Thanks for reading,
Laura CULP :)
