Life: As Seen Through the Eyes of Ruth

Djuna and Her IV:

I’m getting much better at this and was able to give Junie her fluids almost by myself last night. Rob only had to step in to help once, holding the bag up for me so I could see the markings on it. I’ll adjust things a bit in my procedure so that he won’t have to next time. Junie and I were both much more comfortable with it, and the whole thing barely took 10 minutes. She really does feel better now, and is learning all about the water fountain, too. She’s able to drink from it without getting water up her nose even.

2^nd Hike of the Season:

The second “hike” of the season was not very well attended (again) but we had fun regardless. Mother met Rob and me up at Eklutna Lake for a nice leisurely stroll on the trails, and even managed to do some beach combing while we were at it. The weather was wonderful even though it was raining quite heavily in town that day.

1^st Discovery Tour of the year:

My first tour was this Saturday. I was rather nervous, even after the training session a few days prior, but managed to remember most everything and gave a good run I think. There were 9 people signed up for the tour: a family of 7 from here in Anchorage, and two sisters visiting from Nova Scotia and Maine. I need to work on the route I take: I only have 2 hours to talk and simply cannot show them the entire zoo in that amount of time. We ended up having to literally run to make it to the shuttle bus at the end.

Zoo Update:

We have a few babies at the zoo this year, most of them orphans. The most popular one would be the baby polar bear that was found up north and brought to us a week or so ago. She is cute beyond belief and is settling in to life at the zoo quite nicely. She will be moving on as soon as we can find a forever-home for her, but for now she is recovering in the infirmary. We also have 3 baby moose, 2 baby musk ox, 1 baby yak, and a new snow leopard that is one year old.

There’s lots of renovation going on as well. Expanding the polar bear exhibit to accommodate their future breeding is progressing well. They have the plans drawn up and are now focusing on raising the funds to start construction. At the same time, they will be redoing the old elephant enclosure to create a new habitat for our moose, and will be turning the old moose enclosure into a bigger area for the musk ox. The snowy owl gets a new flight pen soon, too, and the mountain sheep pen is being rearranged to make room for the mountain goat to have half of the rock wall. Repair work on the seal/otter exhibit is scheduled for this summer as well, so the harbor seals may end up back in Seward for a while, depending on how that goes.

Remodeling Update:

The remodeling isn’t going quite as quickly as I’d hoped it would. I got all the trim sanded and painted (thank you, Lorna!) and have just one more coat of dark green left to paint on the walls. Rob promised me that he and his son would come soon to finish the painting and install the trim. That leaves just the ceiling to do – and that can wait indefinitely. I plan on working out the furniture arrangement tonight using my trusty graph paper and measuring stick, and will hopefully get Rob to finish fixing the table and chairs for me so that I can move it all up there in the next few weeks. It’s going to be great, if I can just get there from here.

Homework for Katy:

My niece has a writing assignment for one of her classes in college (International Political Economy) and has chosen to write about Earthwatch. Since I am quite familiar with that company she has asked me to help her out. So – I have a homework assignment! It’s kind of fun, actually, especially since I know I’m not the one who is going to be graded on this… Anyway, she sent me a list of questions and I am going thru them one by one, writing up my experiences on each subject based on the three different expeditions I went on.  Once her paper is thru and she’s turned it in I’ll post my answers here for you to read: I think you might enjoy them.

My Job:

Today is my one year anniversary working at Treeline Construction! It’s a good job, despite the lack of hours during the winter months. I am hoping to fix things somehow so that I can continue working with them and not have to worry so much about paying bills this next winter. With a little of what I call “creative banking” I think I may actually be able to, but I’m still checking the papers each day for a part-time job, just in case. Maybe I can talk my vet in to letting me help out each morning?