Collect more nectar, see whole troop of baboons crossing road on way back to the station. Need to figure out how to process such small amounts of nectar, get some good ideas from conversations with another researcher. Send some emails and hopefully the helpful supplies will arrive in a couple weeks. Hear that fellowship coordinator is leaving a day and a half and so write an email setting up a meeting.

Out to field early, feeling tired and worn. Write some emails, do some data entry in the afternoon and talk a nice walk with Talak and his mom. Big Trustee’s dinner at the ranch house tonight. End up hanging more with Kenyan staff than with biggidy wigs. Expecting to chat with my fellowship coordinator, but we never do. Return back to station, feeling odd that we never interacted (should have I interrupted one of his conversations with the other Trustees?!) Check email, and read “As you probably already know by now, happy to inform you that we’re extending your funding.” After all this waiting and anticipating this important interaction is it really actually already decided?!

Up early, but no one on Skype. But successfully figure out how to make an outgoing call on Skype and have a surprise b-day chat with my Dad! Get a really nice card and ele bottle open from Alison. In field all day. Around noon as I’m getting hungry and look to see what time it is, do the math, and realized that I’ve been on the earth for almost exactly 29 years. Sew some more mesh bags. At dinner discover kitchen staff baked a birthday cake, candles and my name in pink frosting included. As I’m sewing more mesh bags afterwards, one researcher catches the bat flying around in his lab and I snap a few pictures of it. Make another surprise birthday call which doesn’t exactly go according to plan.

Sleep in, enjoy some French toast and fresh mangoes for breakfast. Feeling the lazy Sunday and don’t feel like doing work. Start to read the NYT but the first two articles I read are about torture and election violence and it’s just not how I want to start my day. Head gets all wrapped around the big questions, what I want to do, etc. Amplified by the fact that the Trustees are starting to arrive for the big meeting, and the guy who runs my fellowship is here, and I still haven’t heard if my funding is getting extended. Getting wigged out that I have to meet this one guy who’s holding my fate card and not showing it to me, not knowing what to expect and potentially it meaning so much. Write a bit in journal, in lounge-y chair under tree by banda. Get out some thoughts and actually catch two people walking by and chat for awhile which lightens my thoughts. Suddenly it’s time to eat again, lunch. Later as sitting in office see a couple walk by and soon discover that “he’s here.” Chat with Alison about situation and get some good thoughts on how to approach him. Crank out some more mesh bags and go for a good run. Researcher returns from a drive where he saw a fresh jackal kill on a baby impala. Can see the wet hair on the impala’s neck where they strangled it, and it’s so fresh it’s still bleeding.

Out in field for more nectar collection, try adding small drop of water to collect and measure this super viscous stuff. Do some lab work and enter some data. Able to toss a disc a bit and then chat with crew about sampling plan, schedule. At dinner linger over beers, then joined friend on veranda for a nightcap. Hear lions roaring in distance, likely two males letting each know of their presence.

Find out a post-doc on this project flew out of the Denver airport and when airport security screened her checked luggage they freaked out (=gov’t officials in haz mat suits, cops, and TSA officials going through the chemicals in her checked bags). The chemicals were confiscated and are currently being analyzed at the Denver crime lab.

Oh, and one of those chemicals she was bringing as a favor for me.

So I later find out that the station can buy from a distributor (called, in all seriousness “Laborama”) in Nairobi and can easily be shipped up to Nanyuki. Great information to have. Better information to have a week ago.

Now that the mesh bags are working I go into production with some “This American Life” to help grease the needle.

As I Skype in the morning, Alison goes up to check out if anything is on the giraffe carcass, and spots a leopard! Go up to check on the mesh bags, and sweet success – a handful of the trees have droplets of nectar, and even a little honeydew (=waste of insects which feed exclusively on plant sap; ants take care of these insects and feed on their sugary waste). Skype back and forth with the folks and finally figure out how they can call my cell from the U.S. Do some lab work and discover that acacia trees are producing amino acids in the nectar – turns out the tree is providing ants some nitrogen which may play a previously unanticipated role in this project – could be cool, not sure yet. Head out for a game drive and see a marsh mongoose, then we spot a spotted hyena and giraffe bedding down in small glade. As we’re looking for little steenbok we pan across two absolutely monstrous buffaloes! Damn that’s a lot of animal. And later we see the entire herd. Spot a few bush babies bouncing around in the trees and see the usual crew of impalas, gazelles, zebras, and dik diks. As we pull into the station gate the askari yells at us “Elephants very much!” Guess the eles are back in camp. As I walk down to my banda with a friend we hear an angry cacophony of ele trumpeting, decide we might as well run the rest of the way. At breakfast we discover that the eles were on the other side of the station and that one ele stepped in a hole, freaked out, trumpeted and triggered whole crew.