Darascaping

Dara emailed me from Albuquerque today. She's there for the summer, conducting plague surveillance and, unfortunately, investigating a plague fatality (although, given that there was a fatality it's very cool that Dara gets to investigate it). This includes a fair amount of rodent trapping and mosquito feeding, which is not so much Dara's cup of tea. When I asked her permission to post this picture, she cautioned, " I'll be reading your blog, so don't put anything bad about me or I'll FedEx you a dead squirrel." The threat was not random; she has a supply in the freezer at work. Actually, now whenever a squirrel spontaneously snuffs it, it gets sent to Dara. We kind of assume that if plague's going to crop up anywhere in New Mexico it would be in Hobbs--high prairie dog to protestant ratio, you know. In happiest news, Dara has adopted a German Shepherd puppy named Nisa. Puppy puppy puppy!