I am loving my job. I get to be outside hiking around or measuring fishes almost everyday. Everything is green now, and gorgeous. The snow is quickly disappearing off the mountain tops. I'll try to get up a few pictures of the changes soon.
Although memorial day was last month I thought I'd share a few pictures of one of the projects we worked on that weekend.
Yup, that is a dead moose Lou is untangling.This young bull got caught up in a neighbors wire fence while they were away. Lou and I went over to help them take care it. The local authorities don't deal with dead moose, but they do hold you responsible if it is on your property and attracts bears. As you can see it died right next to a power pole which, among other reasons, made it impossible to use any machinery to haul it out or bury it. So we got out the shovels and dug down until we hit frozen ground.
Rolling the moose into the hole wasn't too challenging, but it did let loose some rotten odors. 
We layered the poor guy with lime and dirt, said a few words and plopped metal air stripping on top for good measure. To our delight no bears came looking for an easy meal and I didn't have to cut it up in pieces to haul it out of bears reach.Other more recent news; I have been doing a tid bit of work on a property that Lou and I expect to close on in late July. We are trying not to get too excited or invest too much time until we actually have the keys.
There are apple trees on the property! And raspberries too. The raspberries were in need of some serious TLC, so I have spent a few hours doing that. See the before and after pics below.
Before
After
This and another isle just like it created three piles up to my waist of dead raspberry sticks.The raspberry stocks that are greening up are well over my head. With a little grooming we could have a healthy harvest of berries from year to year.
Here are some pics of the apple trees. For the most part the apple trees (and two plum trees) are in great shape. But the rabbit population has done damage to a few of the trees. I have a lot to learn about keeping plants happy and healthy so we can harvest fruit in the fall. Who knows, bee keeping might be in our future.....
Looking from the raspberries across the apple tree patch. Check out the harvesting ladder.
From the other side of the apple tree patch, a couple of younger trees in front.
There are other fruit producing plants in the orchard as well. But we'll wait until after closing to think about those.
