2 Americans and an Aussie sitting in a tub...

So last tuesday Rachel from my lab took me to a bunch of her study sites for me to collect snails as I've been unable to find ones infected with my study parasite. So we drove to Central Otago (inland area of my region) and collected snails from 6 streams (well, only 5 cause there were no snails to be found in one of them) on farmer's land. Sheep country. In the pic there's a boy on a 4 wheeler and a couple of dogs herding sheep down the road. The farmers are very wary over letting people in their streams...water right issues...so we have to stop and chat with each one before wading in.



I brought back heaps of snails (couple thousand-ish) and found 3 infected snails...luckily all from the same stream. So WOO HOO I finally have a source to infect fish with! So I'll be heading back to this creek to collect a few thousand more just from here so I can get my 10-20 infected snails.

Yesterday, I met Rebecca at the farmer's market as her car broke down there. AA came and push started her to drive to the mechanic. I stopped to check my snails, then on to the mechanics where Rebecca had stalled in the drive and they needed another person to push to start it again to get it inside. Went over to Rebecca's for dinner last night...she was making me a tofu dish...the stir-fry was good, the tofu not bad, the best that I've tried I guess. In the meanwhile, I had left my lights on so when trying to leave to come back to my place for a hot tub we had to call AA again to come jump my truck. Chilly evening to be waiting 45 mins for the guy to show up. Finally back to my place...Deanna has an old bath tub in the back yard which she starts a fire under and you have a hot bath...it's awesome...incredibly hot so you have to keep adding cold water and sit on a board so you don't burn your bum. Rebecca, Dee and I took turns. Ahhhhhhhh...