Week 10 (7/29/24)

 Monday: It was absolutely pouring rain all day today, so me and Steve did no field visits. From getting into work to lunch I was working on the GIS project, mapping out the sites for future tick flaggers, and I also made a tutorial on Power point for my boss and the new hire Entomologist that starts next week, so they are able to add on or make changes need be. I had a lot of software set backs, as I accidentally clicked something and it deleted the whole project and grayed out all the buttons, this took a little while to fix and catch back up to where I was. After lunch me and Steve spent the whole day grinding away at putting all the ticks in vials. There was maybe 3/4 left to go and now we are down to only 2 sites to complete. We also had the Lab tech Mike do some more tick sorting today with ticks from Longhorn site 2 from last week.

Tuesday: This morning I did a little more work on the GIS project, and had Chris sit down with me to make sure I was marking the right areas. There are three more sites he wants me to cover that I haven't been to, so I will probably be doing that this week and next. The next step then is to print and laminate the maps and put them in a binder. I also was putting the counts of all the ticks into the excek sheet that has all the data going back to 2017, and I realized that one of the old Lab interns somehow messed it up, and no one new starting with me has their transect lengths from ticking counted into the total from sampling. I tried to troubleshoot this for a little while until Steve got here, and we finished the last two core sites that needed to be put into vials. We then went to Longhorn site 1 and Lonestar site 1. The same pattern as always with tick populations stayed true. By the time we got back it was already 2:40, so I ate my lunch and kept trying at the messed up excel sheet for the last hour. 

Wednesday: I spent the morning touching up the sites in my GIS project because when I did a quick rundown with Chris I went fast to get a basic idea down. After this Chris had a new excel project for me to try and find a discrepancy in Deer Blood sample data. I was able to find parts of the problem, and there was a lot wrong. After trying to understand how to fix it for about 2 hours I went and counted yesterdays ticks, then put them in vials, I also got one in vials from a visit a few weeks ago. At the very end of the day I went back to my desk for one last site that Chris wanted me to add to the map before leaving for the day.

Thursday: In the morning I did a little more work on GIS, adding the one last site that Chris wanted me to add, and started printed out a few test maps to make sure my formatting was ok. I currently have two sites completely done. I then did a little work with mosquitos, I only sorted the more empty gravid traps since the last time I worked on them was again quite awhile ago. When Steve got to the lab we went out to Longhorn site 2, but we could not get much done because there was just SO MUCH larvae. I was told this at the beginning that larvae populations increase around now, but I was not expecting how bad it would be. Larvae are super hard to notice on your skin, and are really only found after bute because it itches a lot, so it is dangerous to be using flags with a ton of larvae on them. Flags can start to fly in gusts of wind or the larvae can crawl up the tweezer without knowing if you are not careful. Therefore, we only got 11 steps in total in before having to call it quits. When we got back Steve sorted the ticks found today, and we ended with the last couple hours of work dedicated to putting the ticks from the surveillance sites in vials.

Friday: Today I can finally say this, what is mostly likely my final ARCGIS project is complete.. until they find more sites for me to map. There is one I have never gone to before that we may go to Monday just to be able to say I haven been to all the sites, but its up in the air. It would mainly be to make sure I made the map for the site accurately rather than collect ticks, as none are ever found there. After awhile I  went and sorted the vials of the core sites, as there were locations that had multiple site visits in different boxes of vials. After I got to work putting the surveillance sites in vials. I got all but four from Longhorn site 1 done. After they are put in vials, the process of collecting ticks for this summer is complete, besides the weekly sites. The next step is sending the ticks out to the state, but Chris said it is pretty confusing and to long of a task to give me at nearing the end of my internship.

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