Going to work with mom

Now that the girls are getting older, it's been fun to be able to sometimes bring them with me to work. During the last school holidays I was still running a lizard survey so the girls came with me every day for five days. 

They were such great field assistants! Quinn ran the GPS to find the next trap and Wren wrote down results. It was so special to share what I do with them. Their comments come ringing back to me as I work on other surveys.

We are on the school winter holiday break now and I had one day of work for CVNZ where I needed to lead a large group in river restoration. Wren sprained her ankle in soccer so couldn't go to the holiday program I'd booked her into (gymnastics) for that day, so the only alternative was for her to come with me. 

The day dawned clear but very cold! We had 100 volunteers that had come out to plant over 2, 000 trees. Wren is an old pro at planting since we do it with her school a few times a year. It was so much fun to have her there! Now she knows why I come home so tired at the end of the day...Take your daughter to work day really has it's advantages. 

While we were planting, a helicopter took off from the field. We learned that the people getting in were orca researchers looking for the pod of a stranded orca calf. We happened to be near where a baby orca (3 months) was recently found stuck on the reef. With extra food to spare, we stopped by on the way home to bring goodies to the volunteers keeping the orca well in its ocean pen. Everyone is hoping for a good outcome but New Zealand has no facility to keep an orca calf and the pod may be far out to sea...