My Discovery tour Saturday was a good one. I had two couples signed up, one with a little girl about 7-8 months old.
Typically, the way I locate the people who have signed up for the tour is by looking for the big green Discovery Tour tags that Admittance hands out. They are told to wear them around their necks, so I can just scan the crowd till I see the tag on somebody’s neck. I usually go over and introduce myself to them to let them know what to do and where to meet with me.
However, somebody at the zoo got ambitious and changed the tags on me! I looked all over the place and couldn’t find a green tag in the bunch, even though I knew there should be at least two of them out there.
I finally saw somebody with a chord around their neck and asked them if they were waiting for their tour guide. They showed me the new tag: it’s a picture of Ahpun, our female polar bear. Not exactly visible from a distance, but at least now I know what to look for.
One couple was from Fairbanks, in the Military. They had just moved up from Alabama, and have been in Alaska now for about 6 months. The other couple are locals who just wanted a guided tour for the day. Both were very nice, and I think we all had fun.
The tour includes two behind-the-scenes events, and both were very exciting this time.
All too often the polar bears are sleeping when we take people back there to view them. But this time the male was up and about, so they got some really good pictures. He is certainly an impressive guy, to say the least. Our female was up as well, but she spent most of her time back by the waterfalls, so was not as readily available for the camera.
When I took them to view the tigers close-up, I warned them ahead of time that they probably wouldn’t be able to see them, and sure enough they were not in their usual corner when we got there. However, just as we were leaving, one of them showed up so we were able to see them after all. They are definitely impressive, particularly when you take into account the fact that they are not yet full grown! They still have a few hundred pounds to grow into.
The other highlight of the tour was teaching the military guy from Fairbanks about the Cow Parsnip. He does a lot of hiking outdoors, so I wanted to make sure he knew to avoid the plant. I pointed it out everywhere I saw it (which is all over the zoo) so he got a good feel for what it looks like in many different settings.
Wednesday, August 06, 2008
Strawberries
I stopped by my friend’s house to water her plants the other day. She has three big ones and several smaller ones – nothing to strenuous to deal with. The job was done in half an hour, and that included time to dawdle.
What took longer was getting from the house back to my car.
Her walkway is lined with strawberries, so of course I had to pick a cupful to take home with me for my desert that night. They’re ripening on the vine as we speak, and she is gone for three whole weeks – I have to eat them! It’s my duty as a concerned friend to make sure her house and yard are well looked after, and that includes insuring that things don’t go to waste.
And, oh my… do they ever taste good! They’re the “wild” ones that haven’t been bread for size, thereby loosing all their flavor. They are covered in spider webs, and the local birds have been at them – but wash them up a bit, trim off the nibbled parts, and they are absolutely scrumptious!
I can’t wait to go back again – this time, I’ll take a bigger cup with me.
What took longer was getting from the house back to my car.
Her walkway is lined with strawberries, so of course I had to pick a cupful to take home with me for my desert that night. They’re ripening on the vine as we speak, and she is gone for three whole weeks – I have to eat them! It’s my duty as a concerned friend to make sure her house and yard are well looked after, and that includes insuring that things don’t go to waste.
And, oh my… do they ever taste good! They’re the “wild” ones that haven’t been bread for size, thereby loosing all their flavor. They are covered in spider webs, and the local birds have been at them – but wash them up a bit, trim off the nibbled parts, and they are absolutely scrumptious!
I can’t wait to go back again – this time, I’ll take a bigger cup with me.
Friday, August 01, 2008
Update on my cats
The Alien:
He is definitely going blind in his old age. The vet says he can still see light & dark, but not very well. He bumps in to things and gets lost easily. He is also going deaf, which just makes him even more lost. I have discovered that if I clap loudly down low to the ground as I walk up to him, he can hear that and thereby knows that I’m coming. I don’t like to pick him up unless he knows I’m there because it startles him so much. He’s still a snuggle-bunny and loves nothing more than to lean his face into my neck and snort. He’s sleeping a lot, though, so only snuggles for about 10-15 minutes before he wants to be put back into his box. He’s got his heating pad in there, and he knows he’s safe.
Thing:
I came home early from work the other day, and laid down on the bed with my book for a while. Thing came up with me and sat down on my chest to chat for a while. She’s very talkative, and – while she isn’t quite the snuggle-bunny that Al is – she does like to have some attention once in a while. A big airplane flew passed the window while she was sitting on my chest, and she actually watched it go by – leaning to one side so she could see it better. She was pretty impressed with it, I could tell.
Djuna:
Junie is such a sweetheart. She has calmed down considerably since she first arrived, and loves to stretch out on my lap the very second I sit down. One of her favorite things to do is snuggle up on my shoulder while I do my card-making crafts, or while I’m on the computer. Both situations makes my work just that much more interesting – typing with one hand, trying to glue paper down just so while balancing a certain kitty on my shoulder. I wouldn’t trade it for the world.
He is definitely going blind in his old age. The vet says he can still see light & dark, but not very well. He bumps in to things and gets lost easily. He is also going deaf, which just makes him even more lost. I have discovered that if I clap loudly down low to the ground as I walk up to him, he can hear that and thereby knows that I’m coming. I don’t like to pick him up unless he knows I’m there because it startles him so much. He’s still a snuggle-bunny and loves nothing more than to lean his face into my neck and snort. He’s sleeping a lot, though, so only snuggles for about 10-15 minutes before he wants to be put back into his box. He’s got his heating pad in there, and he knows he’s safe.
Thing:
I came home early from work the other day, and laid down on the bed with my book for a while. Thing came up with me and sat down on my chest to chat for a while. She’s very talkative, and – while she isn’t quite the snuggle-bunny that Al is – she does like to have some attention once in a while. A big airplane flew passed the window while she was sitting on my chest, and she actually watched it go by – leaning to one side so she could see it better. She was pretty impressed with it, I could tell.
Djuna:
Junie is such a sweetheart. She has calmed down considerably since she first arrived, and loves to stretch out on my lap the very second I sit down. One of her favorite things to do is snuggle up on my shoulder while I do my card-making crafts, or while I’m on the computer. Both situations makes my work just that much more interesting – typing with one hand, trying to glue paper down just so while balancing a certain kitty on my shoulder. I wouldn’t trade it for the world.
Wednesday, July 30, 2008
Playing with my Thing
My first year of employment at kpb architects saw the whole office going out to lunch for Christmas at one of the nicer restaurants in town. We all gathered together for a festive meal, with lots of laughter and good holiday cheer, paid for by one of the founders.
I ended up sitting next to one of the intern architects, and was chatting with him about this and that. I’m not really good at social events, nor am I any good at idle chatter. Unfortunately, my mouth got me in to trouble – as frequently happens with me.
I actually told him that every night, I go home and play with my thing.
What he didn’t know was that Thing is my cat, who happens to be a very playful little girl. She’s such a sweet little thing – that’s how she got her name, Thing.
I really should name my cats better…
I ended up sitting next to one of the intern architects, and was chatting with him about this and that. I’m not really good at social events, nor am I any good at idle chatter. Unfortunately, my mouth got me in to trouble – as frequently happens with me.
I actually told him that every night, I go home and play with my thing.
What he didn’t know was that Thing is my cat, who happens to be a very playful little girl. She’s such a sweet little thing – that’s how she got her name, Thing.
I really should name my cats better…
I GOT YOU TOFU
Back in my Pipe-Line days, I lived and worked in Valdez for a year. Valdez is a beautiful little town: the kind of small town where everybody knows what you’re doing even before you do. I loved it, though. It’s so nice to walk into the post office and be called by name, stop and chat with whoever happens to be standing in line that day, and just basically be acknowledged. This doesn’t happen in the big city, believe me.
The people of Valdez were very welcoming people. When I first arrived, they all seemed to go out of their way to make sure I was settled in and had everything I needed. The wife of the man I worked for at the Terminal even thru me a welcoming party so that I could meet everybody.
The one thing that Valdez really didn’t know how to accommodate was my vegetarianism. Apparently that whole concept hadn’t quite made it that far down the peninsula yet, and I’m sure that I was the first one some of those people had ever seen before.
Not only was I female (the ratio down there is like 10 guys to every girl) but add in my choice in food intake, and that made for front page news down there. Guys would actually come over to my desk at work just to look at me. I’d be concentrating on my job, just working away, and causally look up to find 5-6 guys standing there looking at me. When I’d ask if I could help them, they’d all just hem and haw, and walk away back to their own jobs.
So, at the welcoming party thrown in my honor, the lady of the house greeted me at the door, saying “I GOT YOU TOFU!” and handed me a plate.
She didn’t even say hello – just basically exclaimed in a very loud voice that she had gone to very great lengths to find what was most likely the only package of tofu in a 20 mile radius.
The plate she handed me held the entire block of raw tofu. She had sliced it, like you would a loaf of bread, but otherwise it was just a block of raw tofu.
“Oh, thank you!” I said – all the while, that little voice inside my head was saying, “Well, now you’re going to have to eat it. The whole thing, too. You simply can’t leave it, not after she went to all that bother and was so proud of herself for providing special food for you.”
I was touched, really I was. But a whole pound of raw tofu? I’m lucky I still like the stuff…
The people of Valdez were very welcoming people. When I first arrived, they all seemed to go out of their way to make sure I was settled in and had everything I needed. The wife of the man I worked for at the Terminal even thru me a welcoming party so that I could meet everybody.
The one thing that Valdez really didn’t know how to accommodate was my vegetarianism. Apparently that whole concept hadn’t quite made it that far down the peninsula yet, and I’m sure that I was the first one some of those people had ever seen before.
Not only was I female (the ratio down there is like 10 guys to every girl) but add in my choice in food intake, and that made for front page news down there. Guys would actually come over to my desk at work just to look at me. I’d be concentrating on my job, just working away, and causally look up to find 5-6 guys standing there looking at me. When I’d ask if I could help them, they’d all just hem and haw, and walk away back to their own jobs.
So, at the welcoming party thrown in my honor, the lady of the house greeted me at the door, saying “I GOT YOU TOFU!” and handed me a plate.
She didn’t even say hello – just basically exclaimed in a very loud voice that she had gone to very great lengths to find what was most likely the only package of tofu in a 20 mile radius.
The plate she handed me held the entire block of raw tofu. She had sliced it, like you would a loaf of bread, but otherwise it was just a block of raw tofu.
“Oh, thank you!” I said – all the while, that little voice inside my head was saying, “Well, now you’re going to have to eat it. The whole thing, too. You simply can’t leave it, not after she went to all that bother and was so proud of herself for providing special food for you.”
I was touched, really I was. But a whole pound of raw tofu? I’m lucky I still like the stuff…
A Comedy of Errors
I gave an Earthwatch presentation to the Alaska Prospector’s Society last night. Man… If it could go wrong – It did!
This was one where they contacted me and asked if I could speak to their group. Prior to their phone call I didn’t even know they existed, so I knew nothing about them. I guessed by their name that they had something to do with Gold, but other than that I was clueless.
I had down on my schedule that it would start at 7:00 at the local United Methodist Church – so I arrived about 10 minuets early, as is my custom. They told me there would be a sign on the door, but I walked all the way around the building and didn’t see any sign – so I tried the front door.
It was open, but I don’t think it was supposed to be because I ended up setting off the alarm! Not knowing what else to do, I stepped back outside and closed the door (even though I knew that would not make the alarm turn off). It just so happened that two bicycle cops were riding past, so I tried to flag them down but they didn’t see me.
I walked over to the next door just in time to see the man inside fiddling with the alarm key pad, so I knocked on the door and he let me in.
That’s when I discovered that the presentation was supposed to be at 7:30, which made me about 45 minutes early.
Al, the man who let me in, was all in a fluster because the church people had left the room set up with tables all over – and he was going to have to take them all down to set up the chairs for this meeting, and then would have to put it all back the way it was. He had his measuring tape out and was creating a map, with dimensions and everything, so that he could get it back exactly right. Having to deal with the alarm and with me just really upset him to where he kept measuring the same thing over and over again.
That’s when I realized that the alarm had not been turned off, and was still going on loud as ever outside the building. About then, the cops showed up: those two bicycle cops as well as a police car full of another pair. They came in and talked to Al and me, and then left.
Al eventually got the alarm turned off, and I went outside and sat on a parking bumper to give him space so that he could deal with the seating arrangement without any more interruptions.
As I sat out there, I watched car after car show up and people head on into the church. I realized that there was nobody under the age of 65 at this meeting, and most of them were well on their way towards 90. Not exactly what I was expecting… but still doable.
When Al finally got things set up, he asked me for my computer. Well, I had been told they would provide the computer, so all I had with me was my disc containing my presentation. This threw another monkey in the works, and poor Al was going to have a heart attack I thought (not an idle threat considering his age). I finally had to run back home – 10 miles one way – to pick up my laptop and bring it back to the church for the presentation.
Once I actually got to give the presentation, it went quite well. The people were all very attentive and had lots of information to add, since they’d been all over the world themselves. I have to admit, I played the “youth card” to the hilt, promoting their “grandmotherly” instincts towards me.
One lady in particular came over to me afterwards to encourage me – I had said I needed to learn how to swim so that I could swim with the whale sharks. She gave me all kinds of information on where to go, who to learn from, what equipment I would need, how easy it would be… all that. It was cute.
One very good thing did come out of all this: I am now an Honorary Member of the Alaska Prospector’s Society!
I’m surely their youngest member…
This was one where they contacted me and asked if I could speak to their group. Prior to their phone call I didn’t even know they existed, so I knew nothing about them. I guessed by their name that they had something to do with Gold, but other than that I was clueless.
I had down on my schedule that it would start at 7:00 at the local United Methodist Church – so I arrived about 10 minuets early, as is my custom. They told me there would be a sign on the door, but I walked all the way around the building and didn’t see any sign – so I tried the front door.
It was open, but I don’t think it was supposed to be because I ended up setting off the alarm! Not knowing what else to do, I stepped back outside and closed the door (even though I knew that would not make the alarm turn off). It just so happened that two bicycle cops were riding past, so I tried to flag them down but they didn’t see me.
I walked over to the next door just in time to see the man inside fiddling with the alarm key pad, so I knocked on the door and he let me in.
That’s when I discovered that the presentation was supposed to be at 7:30, which made me about 45 minutes early.
Al, the man who let me in, was all in a fluster because the church people had left the room set up with tables all over – and he was going to have to take them all down to set up the chairs for this meeting, and then would have to put it all back the way it was. He had his measuring tape out and was creating a map, with dimensions and everything, so that he could get it back exactly right. Having to deal with the alarm and with me just really upset him to where he kept measuring the same thing over and over again.
That’s when I realized that the alarm had not been turned off, and was still going on loud as ever outside the building. About then, the cops showed up: those two bicycle cops as well as a police car full of another pair. They came in and talked to Al and me, and then left.
Al eventually got the alarm turned off, and I went outside and sat on a parking bumper to give him space so that he could deal with the seating arrangement without any more interruptions.
As I sat out there, I watched car after car show up and people head on into the church. I realized that there was nobody under the age of 65 at this meeting, and most of them were well on their way towards 90. Not exactly what I was expecting… but still doable.
When Al finally got things set up, he asked me for my computer. Well, I had been told they would provide the computer, so all I had with me was my disc containing my presentation. This threw another monkey in the works, and poor Al was going to have a heart attack I thought (not an idle threat considering his age). I finally had to run back home – 10 miles one way – to pick up my laptop and bring it back to the church for the presentation.
Once I actually got to give the presentation, it went quite well. The people were all very attentive and had lots of information to add, since they’d been all over the world themselves. I have to admit, I played the “youth card” to the hilt, promoting their “grandmotherly” instincts towards me.
One lady in particular came over to me afterwards to encourage me – I had said I needed to learn how to swim so that I could swim with the whale sharks. She gave me all kinds of information on where to go, who to learn from, what equipment I would need, how easy it would be… all that. It was cute.
One very good thing did come out of all this: I am now an Honorary Member of the Alaska Prospector’s Society!
I’m surely their youngest member…
Tuesday, July 29, 2008
A Walk in the Park
Mother came in to town last night, along with my sisters Kelly and Noel, and our friend Lisa. We all met up at the “sun” near my office.
This is actually the starting point for Anchorage’s Planet Walk. The “sun” is a to-scale model of our sun with informational plaques giving all kinds of information about the solar system. Each planet also has a plaque showing the relative size and giving recent scientific information, each one being the correct relative distance from the sun. It’s a really cool walk, for any of you out there interested. I highly recommend it.
Our purpose for being there last night was not to take the Planet Walk but to survey the flowers around town. The municipality has a superb gardening division – part of the Parks & Rec, I think – and each year they put out the most beautiful flowers, scattered around town at all the different parks.
We like to wander around and see what flowers they’ve chosen each year; some of them we can identify, but some are completely new to us. It motivates Mother to try out new things each year, so that she can compete with them. I just like getting my family together for an excuse to walk around outside.
It was raining last night – not hard enough to stop us, but enough to put a slight chill to the air. The flowers this year are having a hard time coping with this bizarre “summer” we’re having. I’m sure the gardens would have been truly spectacular in a “normal” summer, but they were still quite beautiful, regardless.
We wondered around for a while, until Noel had to leave for her choir practice. That left Mother, Kelly, Lisa, and myself to have dinner at the Sleeping Lady Brewery.
I had the best halibut tacos…
This is actually the starting point for Anchorage’s Planet Walk. The “sun” is a to-scale model of our sun with informational plaques giving all kinds of information about the solar system. Each planet also has a plaque showing the relative size and giving recent scientific information, each one being the correct relative distance from the sun. It’s a really cool walk, for any of you out there interested. I highly recommend it.
Our purpose for being there last night was not to take the Planet Walk but to survey the flowers around town. The municipality has a superb gardening division – part of the Parks & Rec, I think – and each year they put out the most beautiful flowers, scattered around town at all the different parks.
We like to wander around and see what flowers they’ve chosen each year; some of them we can identify, but some are completely new to us. It motivates Mother to try out new things each year, so that she can compete with them. I just like getting my family together for an excuse to walk around outside.
It was raining last night – not hard enough to stop us, but enough to put a slight chill to the air. The flowers this year are having a hard time coping with this bizarre “summer” we’re having. I’m sure the gardens would have been truly spectacular in a “normal” summer, but they were still quite beautiful, regardless.
We wondered around for a while, until Noel had to leave for her choir practice. That left Mother, Kelly, Lisa, and myself to have dinner at the Sleeping Lady Brewery.
I had the best halibut tacos…
The Lost Art of Writing Letters
A typical Sunday afternoon for me involves writing letters, eating lunch sitting in “my” corner table, reading my book, people watching – basically just having a nice 2 hours out at my favorite little café.
The Perfect Cup is located in the Dimond Mall, and is the best place to get a really good cup of Market Spice Tea. They sell the tea by the pound as well as by the cup. My niece Lauren recently gave me a pretty little jar that holds one pound of tea just perfectly, so I refill that about once a month and am set for tea at work!
I’ve been going there so often the waitresses all know me. They see me coming down the hall and have my cup of tea waiting for me by the time I get there. They know that I usually spend the first hour writing and/or reading – doing homework, whatever – before ordering lunch. They even know what I usually order, since I typically get the same thing each time.
It’s nice to be regular…
This time, I had note cards that I made myself the day before. I’m really getting in to the whole card-making thing. These cards weren’t exactly spectacular, but I had fun making them. I also had fun writing in them, and hopefully the recipients will have fun receiving them. It’s a win-win-win situation!
Typically, I write to my niece Lauren, who is deaf so I can’t really talk to her on the phone. I also write to my other niece Laurel – she just had a baby; I’m sure appreciates a moment or two to relax over a chatty letter. My other niece Tara also gets a letter each week, mostly because I print out the latest Sudoku puzzles for her – I know she loves those.
This week, I also included my sister-in-law, Heather. She had made a necklace for me so I wanted to send a thank-you note to her. It’s a really nice one, with leather, glass, and silver all mixed up together.
Now if only I could get even one of them to write me back!
The Perfect Cup is located in the Dimond Mall, and is the best place to get a really good cup of Market Spice Tea. They sell the tea by the pound as well as by the cup. My niece Lauren recently gave me a pretty little jar that holds one pound of tea just perfectly, so I refill that about once a month and am set for tea at work!
I’ve been going there so often the waitresses all know me. They see me coming down the hall and have my cup of tea waiting for me by the time I get there. They know that I usually spend the first hour writing and/or reading – doing homework, whatever – before ordering lunch. They even know what I usually order, since I typically get the same thing each time.
It’s nice to be regular…
This time, I had note cards that I made myself the day before. I’m really getting in to the whole card-making thing. These cards weren’t exactly spectacular, but I had fun making them. I also had fun writing in them, and hopefully the recipients will have fun receiving them. It’s a win-win-win situation!
Typically, I write to my niece Lauren, who is deaf so I can’t really talk to her on the phone. I also write to my other niece Laurel – she just had a baby; I’m sure appreciates a moment or two to relax over a chatty letter. My other niece Tara also gets a letter each week, mostly because I print out the latest Sudoku puzzles for her – I know she loves those.
This week, I also included my sister-in-law, Heather. She had made a necklace for me so I wanted to send a thank-you note to her. It’s a really nice one, with leather, glass, and silver all mixed up together.
Now if only I could get even one of them to write me back!
Rabbit Creek
Sunday was my Creek Monitoring day, so I met up with my partner at his house promptly at 9:00. I say promptly, but honestly I was early. Those of you who know me well know that I am chronically early for just about everything in my life. Mother says I was born early even! But, I tried really hard to be there on time since I know that he is busy with his family and his business and doesn’t need me hanging around unnecessarily.
Anyway, we gathered up the kits, calibrated the Hanah meter, and headed out to the creek. Once there, he grabbed the bucket while I set up on the tailgate of his truck.
Our creek is slightly swollen from the recent rains, and is running beautifully despite a few logs jamming up the curve. It amazes me that it actually looks different each time I go there: we’re on a twice-a-month schedule at the moment, as opposed to the once-a-month schedule set during winter months. A lot of water goes thru there, changing the banks subtly on a daily basis. I guess that’s one reason they have us take pictures each time.
Another thing that amazes me is the mosquitoes. I associate mosquitoes with standing water, and Rabbit Creek is most definitely MOVING water. Where are all those bugs coming from? And of course, I never remember to bring bug dope: I’m scratching at the back of my neck as we speak, thanks to several lucky mosquitoes who managed to avoid getting squished.
We were able to do most of the tests right there at the site except for the Dissolved Oxygen test, and that only because we had forgotten to bring a waste container with us. We don’t want to be dumping chemicals anywhere near our creek, since the whole point of this operation is to monitor the water quality – not make it worse.
The dog that lives at the house nearby was not out on his leash when we arrived. He is a small beagle type dog, and is always quite vocal with us. He’s nice but cautious, but got completely won over when my partner gave him some beef jerky. Each time we go to the site, we always bring him some – and almost always have to go over and untangle him from the bushes, too.
When we were packing up our kits to head back to the garage and finish the tests, he came out of the house. He wasn’t on his leash so came over to us. Again, he was cautious… but he wanted his jerky, so when I crouched down to the ground he came over to sniff at me, and allowed me to pet him.
Back at my partner’s house, we quickly to the remaining tests done and wrapped up the whole thing till next time.
All is good in my creek yet again!
Anyway, we gathered up the kits, calibrated the Hanah meter, and headed out to the creek. Once there, he grabbed the bucket while I set up on the tailgate of his truck.
Our creek is slightly swollen from the recent rains, and is running beautifully despite a few logs jamming up the curve. It amazes me that it actually looks different each time I go there: we’re on a twice-a-month schedule at the moment, as opposed to the once-a-month schedule set during winter months. A lot of water goes thru there, changing the banks subtly on a daily basis. I guess that’s one reason they have us take pictures each time.
Another thing that amazes me is the mosquitoes. I associate mosquitoes with standing water, and Rabbit Creek is most definitely MOVING water. Where are all those bugs coming from? And of course, I never remember to bring bug dope: I’m scratching at the back of my neck as we speak, thanks to several lucky mosquitoes who managed to avoid getting squished.
We were able to do most of the tests right there at the site except for the Dissolved Oxygen test, and that only because we had forgotten to bring a waste container with us. We don’t want to be dumping chemicals anywhere near our creek, since the whole point of this operation is to monitor the water quality – not make it worse.
The dog that lives at the house nearby was not out on his leash when we arrived. He is a small beagle type dog, and is always quite vocal with us. He’s nice but cautious, but got completely won over when my partner gave him some beef jerky. Each time we go to the site, we always bring him some – and almost always have to go over and untangle him from the bushes, too.
When we were packing up our kits to head back to the garage and finish the tests, he came out of the house. He wasn’t on his leash so came over to us. Again, he was cautious… but he wanted his jerky, so when I crouched down to the ground he came over to sniff at me, and allowed me to pet him.
Back at my partner’s house, we quickly to the remaining tests done and wrapped up the whole thing till next time.
All is good in my creek yet again!
Babysitting Plants for a Friend
My friend Anne is vacationing in Germany for the next 3 weeks. She asked me to take care of her plants for her while she’s gone – so I met up with her on Saturday to get the keys and instructions.
Her place is a really cute little duplex just off of Valley of the Moon park. I worried about her moving in there at first: that park is notorious as a hang-out for the homeless. I just knew she would have scary people living in her back yard, or worse yet trying to get into her place on a cold winter’s night. But, she’s been there a whole year now, and hasn’t seen even one – so I guess they’ve cleaned up the park since I last had a picnic there.
The plants that she has are all very easy to take care of; most of them come from my Mother, even! Anne asks me to take care of her place each time she leaves, and I always end up added more and more plants to her collection each time.
The minute Anne leaves, I call Mother and tell her, “I have the keys to Anne’s house again, if you have any plants you want to get rid of!”
Anne obviously doesn’t mind, since she keeps asking me back. Either that or she forgets each time. And it’s not like I’m killing her plants… just multiplying them.
Since she will be gone for three whole weeks, she gave me some chocolates that she had around the house because they would “go bad” before she got home. Personally, I didn’t know that chocolate could go bad, but who am I to refuse good chocolates?
These are from Germany, given to her by her family (yes, she’s German and is going home to visit her Grandmother), so are extra special. Oddly enough, my cat Djuna LOVES them! She keeps getting in to them, no matter where I put them. Currently, I’ve got them up high in the cupboards in hopes that Djuna won’t find them. I don’t know for sure, but I think chocolate is bad for cats… not to mention the fact that they’re MY chocolates, and I don’t share!
Her place is a really cute little duplex just off of Valley of the Moon park. I worried about her moving in there at first: that park is notorious as a hang-out for the homeless. I just knew she would have scary people living in her back yard, or worse yet trying to get into her place on a cold winter’s night. But, she’s been there a whole year now, and hasn’t seen even one – so I guess they’ve cleaned up the park since I last had a picnic there.
The plants that she has are all very easy to take care of; most of them come from my Mother, even! Anne asks me to take care of her place each time she leaves, and I always end up added more and more plants to her collection each time.
The minute Anne leaves, I call Mother and tell her, “I have the keys to Anne’s house again, if you have any plants you want to get rid of!”
Anne obviously doesn’t mind, since she keeps asking me back. Either that or she forgets each time. And it’s not like I’m killing her plants… just multiplying them.
Since she will be gone for three whole weeks, she gave me some chocolates that she had around the house because they would “go bad” before she got home. Personally, I didn’t know that chocolate could go bad, but who am I to refuse good chocolates?
These are from Germany, given to her by her family (yes, she’s German and is going home to visit her Grandmother), so are extra special. Oddly enough, my cat Djuna LOVES them! She keeps getting in to them, no matter where I put them. Currently, I’ve got them up high in the cupboards in hopes that Djuna won’t find them. I don’t know for sure, but I think chocolate is bad for cats… not to mention the fact that they’re MY chocolates, and I don’t share!
Earthwatch Presentation
I had my final Earthwatch presentation at the Elim Café on Saturday. It went surprisingly well – I expected something horrible because I know that there are some really awful things going on behind the scenes over there. I have to admit I was dreading the whole thing – but I had said I would do it, so I gathered up all my stuff and headed on over.
There was a moment of uncertainty when I asked the owner to get the computer set up and ready for me. She had no idea how, and I didn’t know either since it had always been done for me ahead of time by their marketing director who no longer works there!
But, we persevered and got it going with minimal difficulties.
By the time I was set up and ready to go, we actually had an audience! Several families arrived with their kids in tow, ready and eager to hear my talk on Costa Rica: Caterpillars and their Parasites.
It was fun with all the kids: I got to talk about the bugs, and the caterpillar poop, and all the things that make you go “EW!” that kids love so much.
It probably wasn’t so good from Earthwatch’s point of view, since none of the audience had any intention of signing up for an expedition of their own any time soon. One lady was interested, but it will be several years before her kids are old enough to go.
One of the boys from the audience was really cute. He had his nose buried into my book on parasites, and even asked his mother to get it for him from the library so he could read the whole thing. He was at the most 8 or 9 years old, and he’s interested in a scientific book on parasites! He could quote all sorts of facts and figures he’d learned from the Animal Planet or the Discovery Channel. If that boy doesn’t become a scientist when he grows up, it will amaze me.
As I packed up my stuff to take home, the owner came over to thank me and said she’d be interested in having me come back again sometime, even though I’d be repeating my presentations since I only have three at the moment.
I will have another one soon enough – when I come back from Africa next year!
There was a moment of uncertainty when I asked the owner to get the computer set up and ready for me. She had no idea how, and I didn’t know either since it had always been done for me ahead of time by their marketing director who no longer works there!
But, we persevered and got it going with minimal difficulties.
By the time I was set up and ready to go, we actually had an audience! Several families arrived with their kids in tow, ready and eager to hear my talk on Costa Rica: Caterpillars and their Parasites.
It was fun with all the kids: I got to talk about the bugs, and the caterpillar poop, and all the things that make you go “EW!” that kids love so much.
It probably wasn’t so good from Earthwatch’s point of view, since none of the audience had any intention of signing up for an expedition of their own any time soon. One lady was interested, but it will be several years before her kids are old enough to go.
One of the boys from the audience was really cute. He had his nose buried into my book on parasites, and even asked his mother to get it for him from the library so he could read the whole thing. He was at the most 8 or 9 years old, and he’s interested in a scientific book on parasites! He could quote all sorts of facts and figures he’d learned from the Animal Planet or the Discovery Channel. If that boy doesn’t become a scientist when he grows up, it will amaze me.
As I packed up my stuff to take home, the owner came over to thank me and said she’d be interested in having me come back again sometime, even though I’d be repeating my presentations since I only have three at the moment.
I will have another one soon enough – when I come back from Africa next year!
Discovery Tour
My tour this Saturday was a fun one. Not that that’s unusual; most of my tours are fun. But every once in a while I get an extra-special one.
This one was a family with 3 young kids who were celebrating their 8-year-old’s birthday by taking her and a few of her friends to the zoo. She actually chose to go to the zoo for her day, and was the one who wanted to take the tour!
I had 6 kids (5 girls and 1 boy), ranging in age from about 10 to probably 4, and two adults. They were a very well behaved group of kids, and all were excited to be there. I loved the way the family worked together – the parents were very attentive to their kids, making sure they understood everything and were having fun, and did not spend the entire 2 hours yelling at the little ones. I see that all too often, unfortunately.
Since my audience was mostly kids, and it was their event anyway, I spoke to them and at their level. That’s always fun: you get to make animal noises and wild gestures with your whole body – all without caring what the adult might be thinking of you!
The animals were cooperative, for the most part. We never did get to see the tigers, but the polar bears were both up and about. Those are the two “behind-the-scenes” portions of the tour, which is why we’re able to charge for it, since those are places the average zoo-goer doesn’t get to see normally.
The wolves were a big hit. They all come running up to the fence whenever the little ones arrive. The girls were all excited about that until I explained exactly why the wolves did that: little ones are their preferred prey! The youngest girl – the 4 year old – got a little nervous at that, but took it all in good fun, as it was intended.
The mushrooms are starting to peek up out of the ground, so I got to include them into my talk. They are fascinating to me, so I like to share what I’ve learned with people.
I’d also just read an article about Cow Parsnip, so was able to give some interesting information about that plant to them. The Mom was rather amazed to learn that the Russian settlers, back before Americans showed up, used to use it as insulation in their cabins.
Two hours is an awful long time when you’re only 4 years old, so by the time the tour was over the kids were more than ready to sit down and eat their lunch. I left them at the picnic tables and headed home for my own lunch.
This one was a family with 3 young kids who were celebrating their 8-year-old’s birthday by taking her and a few of her friends to the zoo. She actually chose to go to the zoo for her day, and was the one who wanted to take the tour!
I had 6 kids (5 girls and 1 boy), ranging in age from about 10 to probably 4, and two adults. They were a very well behaved group of kids, and all were excited to be there. I loved the way the family worked together – the parents were very attentive to their kids, making sure they understood everything and were having fun, and did not spend the entire 2 hours yelling at the little ones. I see that all too often, unfortunately.
Since my audience was mostly kids, and it was their event anyway, I spoke to them and at their level. That’s always fun: you get to make animal noises and wild gestures with your whole body – all without caring what the adult might be thinking of you!
The animals were cooperative, for the most part. We never did get to see the tigers, but the polar bears were both up and about. Those are the two “behind-the-scenes” portions of the tour, which is why we’re able to charge for it, since those are places the average zoo-goer doesn’t get to see normally.
The wolves were a big hit. They all come running up to the fence whenever the little ones arrive. The girls were all excited about that until I explained exactly why the wolves did that: little ones are their preferred prey! The youngest girl – the 4 year old – got a little nervous at that, but took it all in good fun, as it was intended.
The mushrooms are starting to peek up out of the ground, so I got to include them into my talk. They are fascinating to me, so I like to share what I’ve learned with people.
I’d also just read an article about Cow Parsnip, so was able to give some interesting information about that plant to them. The Mom was rather amazed to learn that the Russian settlers, back before Americans showed up, used to use it as insulation in their cabins.
Two hours is an awful long time when you’re only 4 years old, so by the time the tour was over the kids were more than ready to sit down and eat their lunch. I left them at the picnic tables and headed home for my own lunch.
The Saturday Market
I managed to make it to the Saturday Market again this week, to get some veggies for my weekly pot of soup.
The market is set up in the parking lot of the sports arena in South Anchorage, and is just down the street from my house. I could actually walk to it, but since I have to go to the zoo each Saturday for my Discovery Tour it just works out best if I go by car.
There are perhaps a dozen different farms represented at the market, selling anything from bread, fresh veggies, or jams to sod, flowers, and even tractors. I like it because it hasn’t turned into a tourist trap like the one downtown: full of plastic toys made in Taiwan, elbow to elbow with crowds of people, and not a veggie to be seen.
I wandered thru, surveying the wares for sale, and finally settled on some really good looking organic Kale. While waiting in line to pay, I looked up from admiring my bundle of green to find a lady looking at me with an inquiring look on her face. She pointed at me and said, “You’re an Amgwert!” at the same time I pointed at her and said, “You’re a Remple!”
Turns out, she and I grew up together out in the valley. Well, at least our families did. She is probably more my older sister’s age. But the family resemblance is unmistakable in both our cases, so it was fairly obvious who we both were.
That made me feel twice a good: not only am I buying fresh, local, organic food – thereby reducing my carbon footprint - but I’m also supporting a local farmer who also happens to be a family friend!
The market is set up in the parking lot of the sports arena in South Anchorage, and is just down the street from my house. I could actually walk to it, but since I have to go to the zoo each Saturday for my Discovery Tour it just works out best if I go by car.
There are perhaps a dozen different farms represented at the market, selling anything from bread, fresh veggies, or jams to sod, flowers, and even tractors. I like it because it hasn’t turned into a tourist trap like the one downtown: full of plastic toys made in Taiwan, elbow to elbow with crowds of people, and not a veggie to be seen.
I wandered thru, surveying the wares for sale, and finally settled on some really good looking organic Kale. While waiting in line to pay, I looked up from admiring my bundle of green to find a lady looking at me with an inquiring look on her face. She pointed at me and said, “You’re an Amgwert!” at the same time I pointed at her and said, “You’re a Remple!”
Turns out, she and I grew up together out in the valley. Well, at least our families did. She is probably more my older sister’s age. But the family resemblance is unmistakable in both our cases, so it was fairly obvious who we both were.
That made me feel twice a good: not only am I buying fresh, local, organic food – thereby reducing my carbon footprint - but I’m also supporting a local farmer who also happens to be a family friend!
Friday, July 25, 2008
The Stamp Attic
The Stamp Attic is a tiny little store just off the Old Seward Highway, between Dimond and O’Malley. It is a very dangerous place! Be warned…
www.stampatticalaska.com
Inside you’ll find hundreds of stamps, inks, cards, papers, punches, books, templates, stickers, and supplies of all kinds. As I said, it’s a very dangerous place to be, since I rarely walk out of there empty handed.
I have my friend Corissa to thank for getting me hooked on all of this stuff. Oddly enough, my friend Shelly has a part to play in all of this as well, even though she moved out of state 4 years ago. Turns out, both Corissa and Shelly are friends with the owner of the store, Betty. It’s a small world…
Last night, I joined Corissa and her mother at The Stamp Attic for one of their classes. For just $18.00 we got a head start on our Christmas cards, making 5 cute little ones (blank on the inside for letter writing) out of a new line of stamps that just got released.
There were three other ladies at the class as well who were all very friendly. Actually, they were a little too friendly at times. I am a novice at this – in fact, those of you who know me well know that I have never shown even the slightest bit of artistic talent in my life until recently. These three ladies sat down at the end of the table with me and “helped” me make my cards.
I really did appreciate the help, but I must say… having three ladies all talk at the same time, each one telling me how to do it differently, and each on offering ideas and suggestions throughout the class was a little overwhelming. To say the least!
But my cards turned out very well, if I do say so myself. I will be proud to send them out come December.
I even signed up for another class next week!
www.stampatticalaska.com
Inside you’ll find hundreds of stamps, inks, cards, papers, punches, books, templates, stickers, and supplies of all kinds. As I said, it’s a very dangerous place to be, since I rarely walk out of there empty handed.
I have my friend Corissa to thank for getting me hooked on all of this stuff. Oddly enough, my friend Shelly has a part to play in all of this as well, even though she moved out of state 4 years ago. Turns out, both Corissa and Shelly are friends with the owner of the store, Betty. It’s a small world…
Last night, I joined Corissa and her mother at The Stamp Attic for one of their classes. For just $18.00 we got a head start on our Christmas cards, making 5 cute little ones (blank on the inside for letter writing) out of a new line of stamps that just got released.
There were three other ladies at the class as well who were all very friendly. Actually, they were a little too friendly at times. I am a novice at this – in fact, those of you who know me well know that I have never shown even the slightest bit of artistic talent in my life until recently. These three ladies sat down at the end of the table with me and “helped” me make my cards.
I really did appreciate the help, but I must say… having three ladies all talk at the same time, each one telling me how to do it differently, and each on offering ideas and suggestions throughout the class was a little overwhelming. To say the least!
But my cards turned out very well, if I do say so myself. I will be proud to send them out come December.
I even signed up for another class next week!
Alaskan Salmon
Five different kinds of Salmon swim Alaska’s rivers, streams, and lakes.
King (Chinook) = largest and least abundant of the species. Prized for their vivid color, high oil content, firm texture and succulent flesh
Sockeye (Red) = sockeyes are known for their rich, bountiful flavor and deep red flesh.
Coho (Silver) = Cohos are the second largest of the species. Brilliant, orange-red flesh, firm texture and delicate flavor make them popular in both frozen and smoked forms.
Pink (Humpback) = pinks are the smallest and most abundant of the species. Tender texture and light flavor make Pinks a great choice for a variety of recipes.
Keta (Chum) = Keta have a firm texture, tempting orange-pink color and delicate flavor which make Chum salmon perfect for smoking.
Fun Fish Facts
The sport-caught world record King salmon, landed on the Kenai River in 1985, weighed more than 97 pounds.
Alaska accounts for more than 50% of the nation’s commercial harvest of seafood.
Migrating Salmon are able to jump 12-foot waterfalls in order to return to their home stream for spawning.
Salmon can travel for two months or more to reach their spawning streams – all without eating.
Salmon have 300-degree vision, seeing in all directions except directly behind them.
Other Wild Alaskan Seafood Options
Whitefish: Cod, Alaska Pollock, Black Cod, Lingcod, Rockfish, Sole/Flounder and Halibut.
Shellfish: King Crab, Snow Crab, Dungeness Crab and Alaska Weathervane Scallops.
King (Chinook) = largest and least abundant of the species. Prized for their vivid color, high oil content, firm texture and succulent flesh
Sockeye (Red) = sockeyes are known for their rich, bountiful flavor and deep red flesh.
Coho (Silver) = Cohos are the second largest of the species. Brilliant, orange-red flesh, firm texture and delicate flavor make them popular in both frozen and smoked forms.
Pink (Humpback) = pinks are the smallest and most abundant of the species. Tender texture and light flavor make Pinks a great choice for a variety of recipes.
Keta (Chum) = Keta have a firm texture, tempting orange-pink color and delicate flavor which make Chum salmon perfect for smoking.
Fun Fish Facts
The sport-caught world record King salmon, landed on the Kenai River in 1985, weighed more than 97 pounds.
Alaska accounts for more than 50% of the nation’s commercial harvest of seafood.
Migrating Salmon are able to jump 12-foot waterfalls in order to return to their home stream for spawning.
Salmon can travel for two months or more to reach their spawning streams – all without eating.
Salmon have 300-degree vision, seeing in all directions except directly behind them.
Other Wild Alaskan Seafood Options
Whitefish: Cod, Alaska Pollock, Black Cod, Lingcod, Rockfish, Sole/Flounder and Halibut.
Shellfish: King Crab, Snow Crab, Dungeness Crab and Alaska Weathervane Scallops.
Thursday, July 24, 2008
Tuesday Night at the Zoo - Part 6
This Tuesday night at the zoo we had one of my favorite programs = the Reptile Rap. I do love our reptiles, and it’s nice to be able to show them off to the crowds.
For this program we had people from the Imaginarium come, and they brought a few of their reptiles with them: they had a 35 pound snapping turtle, a monitor lizard, a Chinese water dragon, and a tiny little American alligator. They spent about 10-15 minutes on each animal, telling people about them and answering questions.
After the Imaginarium introduced us to all of their guys, a friend of Katie’s stood up and showed off his bearded dragon. He’s been at past reptile programs also, so I’ve gotten to see the dragon grow up from just a tiny little thing to his present size at about a foot long. The kid (I’m so sorry – I don’t know his name) was nervous standing up in front of people, but did a great job – particularly for a teenager!
Then Katie stood up (not an easy thing for her these days, as she is about 7 months pregnant with a rather large baby boy) and talked about our animals. Three volunteers – myself included – got to be the handlers.
Brian held our ball python, who is a very nice snake. He wasn’t entirely comfortable handling snakes, but he did a good job.
I got to hold the Western hog nosed snake, who is just the sweetest little thing! She is absolutely beautiful, and quite feisty too. She hisses at everything (which is why I held her and not Brian) and sounds exactly like a rattlesnake. People in the crowd were jumping every time she hissed: she’s very loud.
Britt, the zoo photographers assistant, handled our Eastern box turtle: not an easy job as he is a wiggle-worm and is very strong.
The last few minutes of the program allowed people to come up and get a closer look at all the animals. They got to ask questions and even pet most of them – not the snapping turtle or the hog nosed snake, however.
All in all, it really was a great program.
For this program we had people from the Imaginarium come, and they brought a few of their reptiles with them: they had a 35 pound snapping turtle, a monitor lizard, a Chinese water dragon, and a tiny little American alligator. They spent about 10-15 minutes on each animal, telling people about them and answering questions.
After the Imaginarium introduced us to all of their guys, a friend of Katie’s stood up and showed off his bearded dragon. He’s been at past reptile programs also, so I’ve gotten to see the dragon grow up from just a tiny little thing to his present size at about a foot long. The kid (I’m so sorry – I don’t know his name) was nervous standing up in front of people, but did a great job – particularly for a teenager!
Then Katie stood up (not an easy thing for her these days, as she is about 7 months pregnant with a rather large baby boy) and talked about our animals. Three volunteers – myself included – got to be the handlers.
Brian held our ball python, who is a very nice snake. He wasn’t entirely comfortable handling snakes, but he did a good job.
I got to hold the Western hog nosed snake, who is just the sweetest little thing! She is absolutely beautiful, and quite feisty too. She hisses at everything (which is why I held her and not Brian) and sounds exactly like a rattlesnake. People in the crowd were jumping every time she hissed: she’s very loud.
Britt, the zoo photographers assistant, handled our Eastern box turtle: not an easy job as he is a wiggle-worm and is very strong.
The last few minutes of the program allowed people to come up and get a closer look at all the animals. They got to ask questions and even pet most of them – not the snapping turtle or the hog nosed snake, however.
All in all, it really was a great program.
Wednesday, July 23, 2008
The Port of Anchorage
The Port of Anchorage is offering free tours each Sunday so David, Ellie, and I all decided to take them up on their offer. The busses are running every half hour, and the tour lasts one hour in length. We met down at the Railroad offices, on Ship Creek Avenue, at 2:30 - which of course meant that we missed that first bus and had to wait another 30 minutes for the next bus.
That gave us time to wonder over to the Ulu factory and browse their wares. Way back when, I used to work for an architect who was designing a new factory for these people, but I guess it never got built because they’re still using the old, much smaller, one. I must say, the newer one would have given them much more space for making their ulus, and would have offered much better viewing space as well.
But, finally it was time for the bus to arrive, so we headed back over to the pick-up spot to wait. The bus was one of those fancy touring busses, with really comfortable seats and even screens that could fold down for viewing movies. Our bus was not particularly full that time, and the tour guide said that all his other busses that day had been full up, with a waiting list even. I guess we chose the right time for our tour! (I don’t like crowds)
There was an initial hold-up on my account – they required I.D. but I had left mine in the car. I offered to run and go get it, but the bus driver said, “oh, you look trustworthy. I’ll let it slide this time.”
I have a feeling that if you asked Ellie, she would say that the tour really wasn’t all that exciting. We just drove out to the end of the point and then turned around again. The tour guide pointed out where things are going to be once the expansion project is completed – but currently it’s all just a bunch of dirt.
What made it of particular interest to me is that the company I work for has a term contract with the Port of Anchorage, and all this work they are planning to do could potentially wind up on my job plate and in my paycheck!
We got to see the tank farms, which was rather cool. The Port handles all of the jet fuel that comes in for the military bases, as well as about 80% of the jet fuel used at the International Airport – so you can imagine the size of the holding tanks. I was not aware of this, but the fuel is transported from the port to the airport(s) via a system of underground pipelines!
We also got to see the two loading docks, each with a ship at port being either off-loaded or on-loaded. One was set up so the trucks actually drive up into the ship itself before depositing it’s container inside. The trucks & their containers have to be small enough to turn around inside, so it is slightly limiting. The other dock had an aerial crane that picked the containers up off the trucks that were lined up beside the ship, and then placed in a very orderly fashion to maximize the loading capability.
We got to get out of the bus at this point, and were led up to the third level roof of one of the office buildings to have a free hot dog (not exactly exciting snack for a vegetarian, but Ellie and David each had their share) and to watch the loading docks from on high.
After that, it was back to the railroad offices and off the bus. It was a nice afternoon – I’m glad that David suggested it.
That gave us time to wonder over to the Ulu factory and browse their wares. Way back when, I used to work for an architect who was designing a new factory for these people, but I guess it never got built because they’re still using the old, much smaller, one. I must say, the newer one would have given them much more space for making their ulus, and would have offered much better viewing space as well.
But, finally it was time for the bus to arrive, so we headed back over to the pick-up spot to wait. The bus was one of those fancy touring busses, with really comfortable seats and even screens that could fold down for viewing movies. Our bus was not particularly full that time, and the tour guide said that all his other busses that day had been full up, with a waiting list even. I guess we chose the right time for our tour! (I don’t like crowds)
There was an initial hold-up on my account – they required I.D. but I had left mine in the car. I offered to run and go get it, but the bus driver said, “oh, you look trustworthy. I’ll let it slide this time.”
I have a feeling that if you asked Ellie, she would say that the tour really wasn’t all that exciting. We just drove out to the end of the point and then turned around again. The tour guide pointed out where things are going to be once the expansion project is completed – but currently it’s all just a bunch of dirt.
What made it of particular interest to me is that the company I work for has a term contract with the Port of Anchorage, and all this work they are planning to do could potentially wind up on my job plate and in my paycheck!
We got to see the tank farms, which was rather cool. The Port handles all of the jet fuel that comes in for the military bases, as well as about 80% of the jet fuel used at the International Airport – so you can imagine the size of the holding tanks. I was not aware of this, but the fuel is transported from the port to the airport(s) via a system of underground pipelines!
We also got to see the two loading docks, each with a ship at port being either off-loaded or on-loaded. One was set up so the trucks actually drive up into the ship itself before depositing it’s container inside. The trucks & their containers have to be small enough to turn around inside, so it is slightly limiting. The other dock had an aerial crane that picked the containers up off the trucks that were lined up beside the ship, and then placed in a very orderly fashion to maximize the loading capability.
We got to get out of the bus at this point, and were led up to the third level roof of one of the office buildings to have a free hot dog (not exactly exciting snack for a vegetarian, but Ellie and David each had their share) and to watch the loading docks from on high.
After that, it was back to the railroad offices and off the bus. It was a nice afternoon – I’m glad that David suggested it.
Monday, July 21, 2008
Disaster Tour
This Saturday I was scheduled to give two tours at the zoo, back to back. The first one was a group from the Ft. Richardson Air Force Base and was to be from 10:00 to 11:30. The second one was my usual Discovery Tour, from 12:00 to 2:00. Theoretically, I should have had half an hour between tours to regroup, grab a bottle of water, and prepare for the next tour.
Things don’t always go the way they should.
The group from Ft. Rich had made arrangements ahead of time, saying there might be as many as 50 people attending. Katie, the education director for the zoo, had three tour guides lined up in preparation for them. As it turned out, they only had about 25, so Heather, the volunteer coordinator, got to go off to other duties and Mary and I did the tour.
We had the Ft. Richardson people split themselves into two smaller groups, and Mary went off in one direction with her half while I went off in the other direction.
It was kind of a chilly day to start out with, but it soon turned in to a gorgeous day. My group of people were all really nice; a few jokesters in the crowd, which made them even more fun to be with. And as always, I do tend to talk a lot.
So, about half way thru the zoo I asked one of the guys what time it was – and just about had a heart attack when he said it was 12:15. Not only was I 45 minutes over due, but was also 15 minutes late for my other tour!
That’s not good.
Thankfully, I had Rikki as a shadow that day – she is learning how to give tours (and one hopes she does not learn too much from me!) – so I sent her off to try to find a replacement to finish the tour for me so I could go take care of my Discovery Tour people. Of course, no one had a radio in hand and we had no idea where the volunteer coordinator had gotten off to.
Finally, Mary ended up taking my people off to finish their tour, and I went and gathered up the Discovery Tour patrons – all the while apologizing profusely for the delay.
Two out of six of the people decided to get refunds, unfortunately. But the remaining four gamely went on – and I hope had a good tour. I was so flustered and upset over the debacle that my head was just pounding.
By the time I made it home finally, I actually threw up.
Things don’t always go the way they should.
The group from Ft. Rich had made arrangements ahead of time, saying there might be as many as 50 people attending. Katie, the education director for the zoo, had three tour guides lined up in preparation for them. As it turned out, they only had about 25, so Heather, the volunteer coordinator, got to go off to other duties and Mary and I did the tour.
We had the Ft. Richardson people split themselves into two smaller groups, and Mary went off in one direction with her half while I went off in the other direction.
It was kind of a chilly day to start out with, but it soon turned in to a gorgeous day. My group of people were all really nice; a few jokesters in the crowd, which made them even more fun to be with. And as always, I do tend to talk a lot.
So, about half way thru the zoo I asked one of the guys what time it was – and just about had a heart attack when he said it was 12:15. Not only was I 45 minutes over due, but was also 15 minutes late for my other tour!
That’s not good.
Thankfully, I had Rikki as a shadow that day – she is learning how to give tours (and one hopes she does not learn too much from me!) – so I sent her off to try to find a replacement to finish the tour for me so I could go take care of my Discovery Tour people. Of course, no one had a radio in hand and we had no idea where the volunteer coordinator had gotten off to.
Finally, Mary ended up taking my people off to finish their tour, and I went and gathered up the Discovery Tour patrons – all the while apologizing profusely for the delay.
Two out of six of the people decided to get refunds, unfortunately. But the remaining four gamely went on – and I hope had a good tour. I was so flustered and upset over the debacle that my head was just pounding.
By the time I made it home finally, I actually threw up.
Monday, July 14, 2008
My Weekend in a Nut Shell
Saturday
I went to the Saturday Market to browse the local farmers selection of organic vegetables. I always cook up a big pot of soup on Sunday, so I thought it would be good to purchase local veggies instead of the other stuff. The market is just down the street from me, so I will be able to do this every Saturday on my way to the zoo!
At the zoo, I did my usual Discovery Tour. I had four people sign up for it this time, two from New Zealand and two from Malta. They were all very nice, interesting people, so we had a good tour. I unfortunately went a bit long this time, so they missed their 2:15 bus back to town. There is another bus at 3:15, so they were not totally stranded. I pointed them towards the gift shop and the petting zoo, so hopefully they found something to amuse themselves with for the next hour.
I got home in time to clean up the house a bit before my friend Anne came over. My brother had given me a brand new flat-screen monitor for my computer (aren’t big brother’s wonderful) and since I am totally useless when it comes to electronics, Anne got it all hooked up and working for me. We then took off for some antique shopping and a late lunch/early dinner.
Sunday
I slept in! It felt so good… both Djuna and Thing were curled up with me in bed, and we just laid there basking in the morning sun. Until the Alien started crying, that is. He is so old, and is now blind and going deaf – sometimes he gets lost, or perhaps just lonely. I got up and comforted him for a while, then got dressed and headed out the door for my weekly letter-writing session.
At The Perfect Cup, I sat in my usual corner table and got caught up on my letter writing, ate a leisurely lunch, read a research paper on cinereous vultures, and had several cups of Market Spice tea. All in all, a very relaxing way to spend the afternoon.
On the way out of the mall, I stopped in at the blood bank to give. Unfortunately, my body was not cooperating that day. They could barely find my pulse, and when they stuck the needle in, it punctured the vein – which caused a blood clot to form – which caused the blood to stop flowing into the bag – which caused the nurse to wiggle the needle around, trying to find more blood – which of course caused me to get all weak and feint. Finally, she gave up and sent me home. They were not able to fill the bag, which means they couldn’t use what I was able to give, and I now have a huge bruise on my arm.
Once I got home I just relaxed, made my soup, then sat down with my girls (Thing and Djuna) and did some paper crafts.
I went to the Saturday Market to browse the local farmers selection of organic vegetables. I always cook up a big pot of soup on Sunday, so I thought it would be good to purchase local veggies instead of the other stuff. The market is just down the street from me, so I will be able to do this every Saturday on my way to the zoo!
At the zoo, I did my usual Discovery Tour. I had four people sign up for it this time, two from New Zealand and two from Malta. They were all very nice, interesting people, so we had a good tour. I unfortunately went a bit long this time, so they missed their 2:15 bus back to town. There is another bus at 3:15, so they were not totally stranded. I pointed them towards the gift shop and the petting zoo, so hopefully they found something to amuse themselves with for the next hour.
I got home in time to clean up the house a bit before my friend Anne came over. My brother had given me a brand new flat-screen monitor for my computer (aren’t big brother’s wonderful) and since I am totally useless when it comes to electronics, Anne got it all hooked up and working for me. We then took off for some antique shopping and a late lunch/early dinner.
Sunday
I slept in! It felt so good… both Djuna and Thing were curled up with me in bed, and we just laid there basking in the morning sun. Until the Alien started crying, that is. He is so old, and is now blind and going deaf – sometimes he gets lost, or perhaps just lonely. I got up and comforted him for a while, then got dressed and headed out the door for my weekly letter-writing session.
At The Perfect Cup, I sat in my usual corner table and got caught up on my letter writing, ate a leisurely lunch, read a research paper on cinereous vultures, and had several cups of Market Spice tea. All in all, a very relaxing way to spend the afternoon.
On the way out of the mall, I stopped in at the blood bank to give. Unfortunately, my body was not cooperating that day. They could barely find my pulse, and when they stuck the needle in, it punctured the vein – which caused a blood clot to form – which caused the blood to stop flowing into the bag – which caused the nurse to wiggle the needle around, trying to find more blood – which of course caused me to get all weak and feint. Finally, she gave up and sent me home. They were not able to fill the bag, which means they couldn’t use what I was able to give, and I now have a huge bruise on my arm.
Once I got home I just relaxed, made my soup, then sat down with my girls (Thing and Djuna) and did some paper crafts.
Friday, July 11, 2008
My Visit to the Eye Doctor
I had my first eye exam in probably over 10 years yesterday.
I’ve been having problems with my vision whenever I have a migraine – which those of you who know me know that happens a lot. I am unable to focus, which concerns me a little bit (understatement there). Add in the fact that most everybody in my family wears glasses plus the fact that my job puts me in front of a computer for 10 hours a day – I felt it would be prudent of me to have things checked out.
My appointment was with Dr. Kjome (pronounced “Cho-Me) at the Dimond Vision Clinic – conveniently located next door to the bookstore! I didn’t need to be there until 3:30, but went ahead and left the office at 1:30 so as to have time to browse for some books. Lord knows I need more books!
There was paperwork to be filled out, of course, since I am a new patient. They also ran the typical eye exams on me – but with “new fangled” machines instead of the old eye chart on the wall. The machines are much more accurate, but I must say they do aggravate the head – I started getting a migraine about 2 minutes into the tests. I actually got a little nauseous, even.
Back out in the waiting room, I sat and tried to read my book (“The Firecracker Boys” by Dan O’Neill) and listened to the lady next to me speak on her cell phone for half an hour. It was a fairly private conversation she was having – and yet she didn’t seem to realize (or just plain didn't care) that the whole office could hear her. Cell phones should be banned… but that’s a whole other story.
The doctor was finally able to see me, so they took me back to the exam room. Dr. Kjome is a very nice man, and was very solicitous of my burgeoning migraine. He kept offering to postpone the exam rather than exacerbate the problem, but I decided that since I was going to have a headache anyway, I might as well do what I’d come there to do.
I explained why I was there, and a little of my history. He checked out my eyes and pronounced them healthy. The drops in my eyes stung a little at first, then turned them numb and a little tingly (not the eyes, exactly – they have no nerve endings – but the tissues surrounding the eyes). I could tell from the tissue he gave me to wipe off excess drips with that it was a fluorescent yellow. I could just imagine what my face looked like, so kept wiping my eyes so as to not have yellow streaks down my cheeks.
When all was said and done, I walked out with a prescription for glasses and a bill for $148.00. The glasses are not mandatory, and will not help the migraine problem (I knew going in that he wouldn’t be able to do anything about that; I just wanted to know for sure that there was no serious problem developing) but are to help with my far-sight. Should I feel the need to be able to see things sharper farther away, I can get them.
I’ll have to talk to my family and see what they think. I’d need help picking out glasses anyway, since I probably would get “nerdy” ones if left to my own devices.
As my nephew Robin would say, “Oh Aunt Ruthie… you’re so not cool.”
I’ve been having problems with my vision whenever I have a migraine – which those of you who know me know that happens a lot. I am unable to focus, which concerns me a little bit (understatement there). Add in the fact that most everybody in my family wears glasses plus the fact that my job puts me in front of a computer for 10 hours a day – I felt it would be prudent of me to have things checked out.
My appointment was with Dr. Kjome (pronounced “Cho-Me) at the Dimond Vision Clinic – conveniently located next door to the bookstore! I didn’t need to be there until 3:30, but went ahead and left the office at 1:30 so as to have time to browse for some books. Lord knows I need more books!
There was paperwork to be filled out, of course, since I am a new patient. They also ran the typical eye exams on me – but with “new fangled” machines instead of the old eye chart on the wall. The machines are much more accurate, but I must say they do aggravate the head – I started getting a migraine about 2 minutes into the tests. I actually got a little nauseous, even.
Back out in the waiting room, I sat and tried to read my book (“The Firecracker Boys” by Dan O’Neill) and listened to the lady next to me speak on her cell phone for half an hour. It was a fairly private conversation she was having – and yet she didn’t seem to realize (or just plain didn't care) that the whole office could hear her. Cell phones should be banned… but that’s a whole other story.
The doctor was finally able to see me, so they took me back to the exam room. Dr. Kjome is a very nice man, and was very solicitous of my burgeoning migraine. He kept offering to postpone the exam rather than exacerbate the problem, but I decided that since I was going to have a headache anyway, I might as well do what I’d come there to do.
I explained why I was there, and a little of my history. He checked out my eyes and pronounced them healthy. The drops in my eyes stung a little at first, then turned them numb and a little tingly (not the eyes, exactly – they have no nerve endings – but the tissues surrounding the eyes). I could tell from the tissue he gave me to wipe off excess drips with that it was a fluorescent yellow. I could just imagine what my face looked like, so kept wiping my eyes so as to not have yellow streaks down my cheeks.
When all was said and done, I walked out with a prescription for glasses and a bill for $148.00. The glasses are not mandatory, and will not help the migraine problem (I knew going in that he wouldn’t be able to do anything about that; I just wanted to know for sure that there was no serious problem developing) but are to help with my far-sight. Should I feel the need to be able to see things sharper farther away, I can get them.
I’ll have to talk to my family and see what they think. I’d need help picking out glasses anyway, since I probably would get “nerdy” ones if left to my own devices.
As my nephew Robin would say, “Oh Aunt Ruthie… you’re so not cool.”
Thursday, July 10, 2008
Cute Scientist Guy
It all started back in 2006, when I was trying to decide which Earthwatch Expedition to go on next.
I had several options to choose from – well, ok… I had 125 options to choose from! But I had narrowed it down to just a few. I printed off a brief description and a few photos from each one and showed them to my friend Katie to help me decide. She looked at the Mongolia Wildlife one and said, “Oh, he’s cute – do this one!” She was referring to the scientist in charge of the project, so from that point on he became Cute Scientist Guy.
Unfortunately, he ended up not being in Mongolia at the time that I was, so I did not get the chance to actually meet him. I did keep chatting with him (via email) however, even after I returned home.
I was so excited about my trip when I got home (despite a fractured knee-cap and dislocated jaw) that I told my friend Katie that she had to find a way to get Cute Scientist Guy to come up to Alaska. Katie is the education director for The Alaska Zoo, so this request was not as unfeasible as it might sound; she suggested our Tuesday Night at the Zoo program as the venue – and Bactrian Camels as the topic.
To be honest, when I suggested that she invite him up I didn’t really think she’d do it. And when I asked him if he’d consider coming up to do the talk, I didn’t really expect him to say yes! But he did say yes, and Katie did find a way to get him up here – and I ended up with a house guest for a week!
I was more than a little nervous on two fronts. First: he is Cute Scientist Guy, after all, and would be sleeping in my house with me for a whole week. Not exactly something that happens to me on a daily basis, if you know what I mean.
Second: I had never actually met the guy and had no idea what he sounded like as a speaker! He could have been exceedingly boring with a high squeaky voice or something. Thank goodness he has a very pleasant voice, and is very easy and interesting to listen to. He was a very nice house guest, too. I had nothing to worry about on that account, either.
Originally, he had planned on having his wife come up with him (I called her Cute Scientist Girl) but she ended up not being able to – so he asked me if I’d consider “playing with him” while he was up for a week.
What? Me? Play with Cute Scientist Guy for a whole week? Do you even have to ask?
Mere seconds after he asked, I started putting together the itinerary for the week! We ended up with a very busy schedule, but I managed to pack it full of all kinds of Alaskan activities.
Saturday: arrive at 10:00 pm
Sunday: air show at military base at 9:00 am, hiking out in Girdwood at 2:00 pm, look for sheep at 5:00
Monday: birding with Audubon Society at 8:30, dinner out in Palmer at 6:30 pm
Tuesday: hiking up in Hatcher’s Pass at 9:00 am, zoo lecture at 7:00 pm
Wednesday: drive out to Denali at 6:00 am
Thursday: drive back to Anchorage at noon, drive out to Seward at 6:00 pm
Friday: 9-hour wildlife watching cruise at 8:30 am
Saturday: Seward SeaLife Center at 9:00 am, hike Exit Glacier at 1:00 pm, drive back to Anchorage at 4:00, birding & wildlife viewing at 7:00 pm
Sunday: birding with Audubon Society at 8:30 am, wildlife watching in Kincaid Park at 10:00, hiking in the Chugach National Forrest at 2:00, dinner at 6:00 pm, drop him off at the airport to depart at 10:00 pm
You can read about most of our adventures together in previous posts on this site. All in all, I think he had a good visit to Alaska – at least, I hope he did.
I had several options to choose from – well, ok… I had 125 options to choose from! But I had narrowed it down to just a few. I printed off a brief description and a few photos from each one and showed them to my friend Katie to help me decide. She looked at the Mongolia Wildlife one and said, “Oh, he’s cute – do this one!” She was referring to the scientist in charge of the project, so from that point on he became Cute Scientist Guy.
Unfortunately, he ended up not being in Mongolia at the time that I was, so I did not get the chance to actually meet him. I did keep chatting with him (via email) however, even after I returned home.
I was so excited about my trip when I got home (despite a fractured knee-cap and dislocated jaw) that I told my friend Katie that she had to find a way to get Cute Scientist Guy to come up to Alaska. Katie is the education director for The Alaska Zoo, so this request was not as unfeasible as it might sound; she suggested our Tuesday Night at the Zoo program as the venue – and Bactrian Camels as the topic.
To be honest, when I suggested that she invite him up I didn’t really think she’d do it. And when I asked him if he’d consider coming up to do the talk, I didn’t really expect him to say yes! But he did say yes, and Katie did find a way to get him up here – and I ended up with a house guest for a week!
I was more than a little nervous on two fronts. First: he is Cute Scientist Guy, after all, and would be sleeping in my house with me for a whole week. Not exactly something that happens to me on a daily basis, if you know what I mean.
Second: I had never actually met the guy and had no idea what he sounded like as a speaker! He could have been exceedingly boring with a high squeaky voice or something. Thank goodness he has a very pleasant voice, and is very easy and interesting to listen to. He was a very nice house guest, too. I had nothing to worry about on that account, either.
Originally, he had planned on having his wife come up with him (I called her Cute Scientist Girl) but she ended up not being able to – so he asked me if I’d consider “playing with him” while he was up for a week.
What? Me? Play with Cute Scientist Guy for a whole week? Do you even have to ask?
Mere seconds after he asked, I started putting together the itinerary for the week! We ended up with a very busy schedule, but I managed to pack it full of all kinds of Alaskan activities.
Saturday: arrive at 10:00 pm
Sunday: air show at military base at 9:00 am, hiking out in Girdwood at 2:00 pm, look for sheep at 5:00
Monday: birding with Audubon Society at 8:30, dinner out in Palmer at 6:30 pm
Tuesday: hiking up in Hatcher’s Pass at 9:00 am, zoo lecture at 7:00 pm
Wednesday: drive out to Denali at 6:00 am
Thursday: drive back to Anchorage at noon, drive out to Seward at 6:00 pm
Friday: 9-hour wildlife watching cruise at 8:30 am
Saturday: Seward SeaLife Center at 9:00 am, hike Exit Glacier at 1:00 pm, drive back to Anchorage at 4:00, birding & wildlife viewing at 7:00 pm
Sunday: birding with Audubon Society at 8:30 am, wildlife watching in Kincaid Park at 10:00, hiking in the Chugach National Forrest at 2:00, dinner at 6:00 pm, drop him off at the airport to depart at 10:00 pm
You can read about most of our adventures together in previous posts on this site. All in all, I think he had a good visit to Alaska – at least, I hope he did.
Wednesday, July 09, 2008
Alaska eBird
What is Alaska eBird?
Alaska eBird is a powerful on-line tool to record your own bird observations made in Alaska or anywhere else in North America.
Why should you use Alaska eBird?
- to organize and maintain your life list
- to create lists of your bird sightings by place, time, or species
- to design maps and graphs of your observations
- to find birding hotspots as you plan your travels
- to discover places to find you “life” birds
- to look for trends and patterns at any geographic scale
- to contribute your observations to science and conservation
How do you use Alaska eBird?
It’s as simply as: register, create checklist, and submit! Alaska eBird is easy to use. Each checklist needs the following:
- where did you go birding?
- Date and observation type
- What did you see or hear?
- Confirmation of your date
That’s it! Don’t worry about someone reporting a flamingo in Alaska because Alaska eBird has a series of filters developed by regional bird experts who review all submissions before they enter the database. This ensures the basic quality of all entries.
Contribute to Science
With each checklist you submit to Alaska eBird, you provide scientists with increasingly valuable data on the distribution and abundance of birds, and you help monitor the health of bird populations and their habitats at Important Bird Areas and other key locations.
Go to – www.ebird.com/ak to begin your birding adventure!
Brought to you by Audubon Alaska http://www.audubonalaska.org/
Alaska eBird is a powerful on-line tool to record your own bird observations made in Alaska or anywhere else in North America.
Why should you use Alaska eBird?
- to organize and maintain your life list
- to create lists of your bird sightings by place, time, or species
- to design maps and graphs of your observations
- to find birding hotspots as you plan your travels
- to discover places to find you “life” birds
- to look for trends and patterns at any geographic scale
- to contribute your observations to science and conservation
How do you use Alaska eBird?
It’s as simply as: register, create checklist, and submit! Alaska eBird is easy to use. Each checklist needs the following:
- where did you go birding?
- Date and observation type
- What did you see or hear?
- Confirmation of your date
That’s it! Don’t worry about someone reporting a flamingo in Alaska because Alaska eBird has a series of filters developed by regional bird experts who review all submissions before they enter the database. This ensures the basic quality of all entries.
Contribute to Science
With each checklist you submit to Alaska eBird, you provide scientists with increasingly valuable data on the distribution and abundance of birds, and you help monitor the health of bird populations and their habitats at Important Bird Areas and other key locations.
Go to – www.ebird.com/ak to begin your birding adventure!
Brought to you by Audubon Alaska http://www.audubonalaska.org/
Tuesday, July 08, 2008
Adopt a Bird Today
The Alaska SeaLife Center is a non-profit organization dedicated to understanding and maintaining the integrity of Alaska’s marine ecosystem through research, rehabilitation, conservation and public education.
Visitors to the center’s seabird aviary are introduced to ten species of seabirds, seaducks and shorebirds, all native to coastal Alaska. These birds aid in creating an awareness of their species and inspire conservation of their vital habitat.
Harlequin Ducks
Common Murre
Horned Puffin
Red-legged Kittiwakes
Rhinoceros Auklet
King Eider
Long-tailed Duck
Tufted Puffin
Pigeon Guillemot
Black Oystercatcher
These birds serve as ambassadors for their wild counterparts and play an important roll in the center’s educational programs.
You can adopt (sponsor) any of these birds for just $50.00 and help the center achieve their goals. You will receive a package containing a photograph and biography of your chosen bird species, a certificate of appreciation, and a letter of receipt since your contribution is tax deductible.
Contact the Seward SeaLife Center at www.alaskasealife.org and adopt a bird today!
Visitors to the center’s seabird aviary are introduced to ten species of seabirds, seaducks and shorebirds, all native to coastal Alaska. These birds aid in creating an awareness of their species and inspire conservation of their vital habitat.
Harlequin Ducks
Common Murre
Horned Puffin
Red-legged Kittiwakes
Rhinoceros Auklet
King Eider
Long-tailed Duck
Tufted Puffin
Pigeon Guillemot
Black Oystercatcher
These birds serve as ambassadors for their wild counterparts and play an important roll in the center’s educational programs.
You can adopt (sponsor) any of these birds for just $50.00 and help the center achieve their goals. You will receive a package containing a photograph and biography of your chosen bird species, a certificate of appreciation, and a letter of receipt since your contribution is tax deductible.
Contact the Seward SeaLife Center at www.alaskasealife.org and adopt a bird today!
Monday, July 07, 2008
Captain's Choice Wildlife Watching Cruise
4th of July this year was spent out on a boat in the ocean – I can’t think of a better way to celebrate!
I drove down to Seward with Rich, my guest from the Denver Zoo, on Thursday evening, checked in to our B&B that night, and got up bright and early Friday morning to get ready for our trip.
We booked our cruise with the Kenai Fjords Tours (www.kenaifjords.com) and chose to take the Captain’s Choice Wildlife Watching Cruise with Mariah Charters. Several people we met along the way to Seward told us that we’d chosen the best one, so we were pretty stoked for our day by the time we got there.
At 8:30 am, we boarded the Misty, with Captain Andrea and First Mate Liza (yes, both females) and 12 other paying customers. The brochure said they had a maximum capacity of 23 people, but I honestly don’t know where they’d put all those people – it was crowded enough with the few we had on board that day.
The weather was typical Seward weather: slightly rainy, mostly cloudy, with seas that were just about to make one sick – but not quite. Rich had his bracelet that uses acupressure points and I had a pocket full of fresh ginger, so neither of us were too worried about getting sea-sick.
After going over the safety features of the vessel, the captain made her way up to the wheel house while the first mate went below to get breakfast ready, and we all settled in to watch Seward pass by us on our way out of the harbor. There were, of course, several sea otters there to wave us on our way – that’s almost a given.
This was one of the best cruises I’ve ever been on for animal sightings: we saw the otters, harbor seals, sea lions, humpback whales, orca’s, birds of all types, and spectacular scenery.
Rich was like a little boy in a candy store: he kept running from one side of the boat to the other, with all four of his cameras at the ready so as not to miss a single shot. I can’t wait to see what he came up with, too – he is a great photographer (despite what he says) and has promised to send me a CD once he gets home and has the time to go through the millions of shots he took on his week-long vacation up here.
9 hours later, we trudged back to the car from the harbor; tired, cold, and worn out – but grinning from ear to ear.
I drove down to Seward with Rich, my guest from the Denver Zoo, on Thursday evening, checked in to our B&B that night, and got up bright and early Friday morning to get ready for our trip.
We booked our cruise with the Kenai Fjords Tours (www.kenaifjords.com) and chose to take the Captain’s Choice Wildlife Watching Cruise with Mariah Charters. Several people we met along the way to Seward told us that we’d chosen the best one, so we were pretty stoked for our day by the time we got there.
At 8:30 am, we boarded the Misty, with Captain Andrea and First Mate Liza (yes, both females) and 12 other paying customers. The brochure said they had a maximum capacity of 23 people, but I honestly don’t know where they’d put all those people – it was crowded enough with the few we had on board that day.
The weather was typical Seward weather: slightly rainy, mostly cloudy, with seas that were just about to make one sick – but not quite. Rich had his bracelet that uses acupressure points and I had a pocket full of fresh ginger, so neither of us were too worried about getting sea-sick.
After going over the safety features of the vessel, the captain made her way up to the wheel house while the first mate went below to get breakfast ready, and we all settled in to watch Seward pass by us on our way out of the harbor. There were, of course, several sea otters there to wave us on our way – that’s almost a given.
This was one of the best cruises I’ve ever been on for animal sightings: we saw the otters, harbor seals, sea lions, humpback whales, orca’s, birds of all types, and spectacular scenery.
Rich was like a little boy in a candy store: he kept running from one side of the boat to the other, with all four of his cameras at the ready so as not to miss a single shot. I can’t wait to see what he came up with, too – he is a great photographer (despite what he says) and has promised to send me a CD once he gets home and has the time to go through the millions of shots he took on his week-long vacation up here.
9 hours later, we trudged back to the car from the harbor; tired, cold, and worn out – but grinning from ear to ear.
Seward SeaLife Center
I took advantage of 10 years worth of volunteering at the zoo to request a favor from Shannon Jenson, the Curator of The Alaska Zoo, last week.
Dr. Reading was in town to give his lecture for our Tuesday Night at the Zoo program and wanted to go to Seward while he was here, so I asked Shannon to arrange for some of the scientists at the Seward SeaLife Center to meet with us and show us around.
I am so glad I did – we had a great time!
At their suggestion, I booked us for their regular behind-the-scenes tour, available to anybody who pays the extra $20 per person. This is a very informative tour which takes you back behind the exhibits (as the name suggests!) and explains the science and technologies being used.
You really get a sense of just how impressive it is over there when you stand next to the huge filtration systems, seawater intake valves, and quarantine tanks back there! We even got to go back to the scientists’ offices to watch them as they do a video-survey of the sea lions on Chiswell Island where they keep track of the babies who had just been thermally marked (which basically means branded).
After the tour we were met by Nicole Brandt, the head of the “bird people” who take care of the puffin exhibit. I love that exhibit – it’s one of my favorites there at the center.
Several of the birds have nested and laid eggs this year, so – in order to ensure that all the eggs have a chance at hatching, they have taken the eggs away from the nests (leaving fake ones in their places so the female birds will continue to lay on them) and placed them in incubators. Once the eggs begin to hatch – which could happen any day now – they will put them back under their respective moms so that they will have a normal birth and the females will take care of them just like nothing ever happened.
They have nesting boxes scattered throughout the exhibit, hidden amongst the nooks and crannies in the rocks. The back of the boxes are easily accessibly to the scientists, so they can monitor the nestlings health and make sure everything is going according to plan. Nicole showed us several of them, but not the occupied ones! Don’t want to disturb anything…
The best part of all, however, was when she took us into the exhibit! We got to walk around in there, with all the birds coming to check us out. They are just adorable things, and quite habituated to humans so they’d come right up to us – and peck at us, too! I wanted to pick up this one horned puffin – he was too cute, and really looked like he wanted to jump up into my lap.
After spending about half an hour with all the birds, we finally let Nicole get back to work and met up with the supervisor of the mammal department, whose name I am afraid I have forgotten. She was just as nice as Nicole, however, and took us back to the holding pens to talk about all the research going on with mammals.
Sugar, one of the female Stellar’s sea lions, was hanging out with her. What a beautiful animal she is! And quite verbal, too – which means she did a lot of “burping” at us while we were there. Her handler said that what she really wanted was a treat, so was ready, willing, and able to do anything that might be requested of her in order to get one!
Their male Stellar’s sea lion, Woody, is in full rut-mode this season – so we were not able to meet with him. The sealife center has moved to a no-contact method of working with him due to the fact that he weighs well over 2,000 pounds and could inflict some serious damage if he felt like it. He is a character at the best of times, but when you add in all the raging hormones the rut brings on – he’s best left alone.
All in all, this was a great SeaLife experience – for both of us!
Dr. Reading was in town to give his lecture for our Tuesday Night at the Zoo program and wanted to go to Seward while he was here, so I asked Shannon to arrange for some of the scientists at the Seward SeaLife Center to meet with us and show us around.
I am so glad I did – we had a great time!
At their suggestion, I booked us for their regular behind-the-scenes tour, available to anybody who pays the extra $20 per person. This is a very informative tour which takes you back behind the exhibits (as the name suggests!) and explains the science and technologies being used.
You really get a sense of just how impressive it is over there when you stand next to the huge filtration systems, seawater intake valves, and quarantine tanks back there! We even got to go back to the scientists’ offices to watch them as they do a video-survey of the sea lions on Chiswell Island where they keep track of the babies who had just been thermally marked (which basically means branded).
After the tour we were met by Nicole Brandt, the head of the “bird people” who take care of the puffin exhibit. I love that exhibit – it’s one of my favorites there at the center.
Several of the birds have nested and laid eggs this year, so – in order to ensure that all the eggs have a chance at hatching, they have taken the eggs away from the nests (leaving fake ones in their places so the female birds will continue to lay on them) and placed them in incubators. Once the eggs begin to hatch – which could happen any day now – they will put them back under their respective moms so that they will have a normal birth and the females will take care of them just like nothing ever happened.
They have nesting boxes scattered throughout the exhibit, hidden amongst the nooks and crannies in the rocks. The back of the boxes are easily accessibly to the scientists, so they can monitor the nestlings health and make sure everything is going according to plan. Nicole showed us several of them, but not the occupied ones! Don’t want to disturb anything…
The best part of all, however, was when she took us into the exhibit! We got to walk around in there, with all the birds coming to check us out. They are just adorable things, and quite habituated to humans so they’d come right up to us – and peck at us, too! I wanted to pick up this one horned puffin – he was too cute, and really looked like he wanted to jump up into my lap.
After spending about half an hour with all the birds, we finally let Nicole get back to work and met up with the supervisor of the mammal department, whose name I am afraid I have forgotten. She was just as nice as Nicole, however, and took us back to the holding pens to talk about all the research going on with mammals.
Sugar, one of the female Stellar’s sea lions, was hanging out with her. What a beautiful animal she is! And quite verbal, too – which means she did a lot of “burping” at us while we were there. Her handler said that what she really wanted was a treat, so was ready, willing, and able to do anything that might be requested of her in order to get one!
Their male Stellar’s sea lion, Woody, is in full rut-mode this season – so we were not able to meet with him. The sealife center has moved to a no-contact method of working with him due to the fact that he weighs well over 2,000 pounds and could inflict some serious damage if he felt like it. He is a character at the best of times, but when you add in all the raging hormones the rut brings on – he’s best left alone.
All in all, this was a great SeaLife experience – for both of us!
The Perpetual Kettle
If anybody is going down to Seward in the near future and is looking for a place to stay, I recommend The Perpetual Kettle. This is a very nice little Bed & Breakfast about 6 miles out of town, nestled into the woods next to a little river with all kinds of birds and wildlife just out your window.
The accommodations are very neat and tidy, with a country flair reflected in the color schemes and furnishings throughout the house. The proprietress is very friendly, going out of her way to ensure that her guests are comfortable and well fed.
My guest and I are both vegetarians, and while this did initially throw a loop in her plans for breakfast, she quickly overcame the initial “Uh oh” moment and served up a tasty fruit salad the first morning, and had bagels & jamb for the next day. She had brownies sitting out for us that evening, even, and tea & coffee is available at any hour.
Our room was cozy, with two twin-sized beds laid out with beautiful quilts and a fuzzy teddy bear that reminded me of my Thing (my cat, whose hair feels just like the teddy bear did). We could have opted for a queen size bed in the other room, but since my guest is married I didn’t think that would go over very well with his wife back home!
We were lucky enough to be there in time to meet their 9 little yellow lab puppies who had opened their eyes just the day before.
I love the smell of puppies in the morning!
You can check their website out at: http://home.gci.net/~perpetualkettlebandb/
The accommodations are very neat and tidy, with a country flair reflected in the color schemes and furnishings throughout the house. The proprietress is very friendly, going out of her way to ensure that her guests are comfortable and well fed.
My guest and I are both vegetarians, and while this did initially throw a loop in her plans for breakfast, she quickly overcame the initial “Uh oh” moment and served up a tasty fruit salad the first morning, and had bagels & jamb for the next day. She had brownies sitting out for us that evening, even, and tea & coffee is available at any hour.
Our room was cozy, with two twin-sized beds laid out with beautiful quilts and a fuzzy teddy bear that reminded me of my Thing (my cat, whose hair feels just like the teddy bear did). We could have opted for a queen size bed in the other room, but since my guest is married I didn’t think that would go over very well with his wife back home!
We were lucky enough to be there in time to meet their 9 little yellow lab puppies who had opened their eyes just the day before.
I love the smell of puppies in the morning!
You can check their website out at: http://home.gci.net/~perpetualkettlebandb/
Family Hike Series - Part 5
We had all the ingredients for a true Alaskan Experience at our last Family Hike: we got lost out in the deep underbrush, we had to keep a vigilant watch for marauding bears, we were being eaten alive by great swarms of mosquitoes, we had only a handful of cherries to share between the 6 of us, and only two people had water with them.
As one might suspect by reading the above list, the hike took considerably longer than planned. Mother and Kelly had both planned on shooting up on the mountain afterwards, but were thinking that the others had gone on without them since they were so late.
Rachel and Ellie had nothing in particular planned, but since Ellie did so well (she didn’t complain about being tired at all, even though she so clearly was and had every right to say so) they ended up stopping somewhere to get a special treat to celebrate the fact that we did finally find our cars again.
My guest Rich (from the Denver Zoo) and I had dinner plans that night, but were in no particular hurry – however, we had just come from Kincaid Park where we hiked for about 3 miles along the Coastal Trail, looking for wildlife (and found a mother moose with two calves!), so were getting more than a little tired ourselves.
Poor Rich: he kept saying “I know exactly where we are. We need to take THIS trail.” He finally had to admit that he had no idea where we were - not an easy thing for a biologist who routinely treks for miles out in the Mongolian Steppes.
A majority vote put us on a trail that did eventually lead us out of the woods, thankfully. We’re guessing now that we ended up going about 8 miles instead of the 4 we had planned on.
The original intent was to take the new Campbell Tract Loop trail that circumnavigates the Campbell Creek Science Center and the BLM Land Management offices in the Chugach National Forest – a place that has been in the news a lot lately, due to a girl being mauled by a bear not 5 days prior to our hike! We had several people with bear spray and bear bells, and spent the entire time talking amongst ourselves, so felt relatively safe enough.
The problem was the maps. The BLM has trail markers out, but it seemed like each one had a different map on it. The map I had downloaded from their webpage was not matching up with any of the trail markers, and even if it did I had somehow managed to leave the thing in the car up at the trailhead anyway! By the time we got to a map that made any kind of sense to us, we realized we’d gone WAY off the mark and were miles away from where we wanted to be.
I think this hike will not be put back on the list for a while. Let’s let the BLM update all their trail markers first before going back there. On a more positive note: our next hike out at Gull Rock will be an 11-mile hike… so this hike could be viewed as a warm-up hike for that one!
As one might suspect by reading the above list, the hike took considerably longer than planned. Mother and Kelly had both planned on shooting up on the mountain afterwards, but were thinking that the others had gone on without them since they were so late.
Rachel and Ellie had nothing in particular planned, but since Ellie did so well (she didn’t complain about being tired at all, even though she so clearly was and had every right to say so) they ended up stopping somewhere to get a special treat to celebrate the fact that we did finally find our cars again.
My guest Rich (from the Denver Zoo) and I had dinner plans that night, but were in no particular hurry – however, we had just come from Kincaid Park where we hiked for about 3 miles along the Coastal Trail, looking for wildlife (and found a mother moose with two calves!), so were getting more than a little tired ourselves.
Poor Rich: he kept saying “I know exactly where we are. We need to take THIS trail.” He finally had to admit that he had no idea where we were - not an easy thing for a biologist who routinely treks for miles out in the Mongolian Steppes.
A majority vote put us on a trail that did eventually lead us out of the woods, thankfully. We’re guessing now that we ended up going about 8 miles instead of the 4 we had planned on.
The original intent was to take the new Campbell Tract Loop trail that circumnavigates the Campbell Creek Science Center and the BLM Land Management offices in the Chugach National Forest – a place that has been in the news a lot lately, due to a girl being mauled by a bear not 5 days prior to our hike! We had several people with bear spray and bear bells, and spent the entire time talking amongst ourselves, so felt relatively safe enough.
The problem was the maps. The BLM has trail markers out, but it seemed like each one had a different map on it. The map I had downloaded from their webpage was not matching up with any of the trail markers, and even if it did I had somehow managed to leave the thing in the car up at the trailhead anyway! By the time we got to a map that made any kind of sense to us, we realized we’d gone WAY off the mark and were miles away from where we wanted to be.
I think this hike will not be put back on the list for a while. Let’s let the BLM update all their trail markers first before going back there. On a more positive note: our next hike out at Gull Rock will be an 11-mile hike… so this hike could be viewed as a warm-up hike for that one!
Thursday, July 03, 2008
The Snow Leopard Cubs Have Died
I'm sorry to say that I just found out both cubs have died.
Damn...
There are so few of these animals left in the world, this is a huge loss.
I'm sure our zookeepers are really upset about this. If you have any prayers you can spare, please think of us.
Damn...
There are so few of these animals left in the world, this is a huge loss.
I'm sure our zookeepers are really upset about this. If you have any prayers you can spare, please think of us.
Baby Snow Leopards!
PRESS RELEASE
Alaska Zoo director, Pat Lampi announces that Molly, our female snow leopard, gave birth to two babies Tuesday night. The first cub was born at 5:22 p.m. and the second born at 6:23 p.m. One cub passed away this morning and the second cub is in critical, but stable condition.
The cub that passed away died of complications due to a cleft palate. The surviving cub is female and has no congenital abnormalities. She is learning how to nurse off a bottle and her chances for survival increase daily. The two babies were pulled from their mom after she turned aggressive toward one of the cubs. The cub will be hand raised by zoo staff. Molly, the mother is recovering and doing well.
If all goes well, we hope to have a photo opportunity for the media in the next few days with our new baby snow leopard.
Alaska Zoo director, Pat Lampi announces that Molly, our female snow leopard, gave birth to two babies Tuesday night. The first cub was born at 5:22 p.m. and the second born at 6:23 p.m. One cub passed away this morning and the second cub is in critical, but stable condition.
The cub that passed away died of complications due to a cleft palate. The surviving cub is female and has no congenital abnormalities. She is learning how to nurse off a bottle and her chances for survival increase daily. The two babies were pulled from their mom after she turned aggressive toward one of the cubs. The cub will be hand raised by zoo staff. Molly, the mother is recovering and doing well.
If all goes well, we hope to have a photo opportunity for the media in the next few days with our new baby snow leopard.
Wednesday, July 02, 2008
Tuesday Night at the Zoo - Part 5
Last night was Dr. Richard Reading’s presentation on the Bactrian Camel at The Alaska Zoo, part of our Tuesday Night at the Zoo program.
We were all very excited to have Dr. Reading come speak at our zoo for several reasons. Not only is he the first to speak of these animals for us (very interesting creatures, to say the least) but he is the also scientist I worked with in Mongolia when I went to study the Argali sheep! He is based at the Denver Zoo, but works all over the world on various projects – one of which is the Bactrian Camel project he spoke on last night.
He began his talk giving a brief description of Mongolia, since most people don’t really know that much about the place. Turns out Mongolia is roughly the same size as Alaska and sits on the same latitude as the line that divides the U.S. from Canada. It has wild temperature swings ranging from 65 below in the winter to over 100 in the summer, and 40 degree swings in a 24-hour period are not uncommon! The bulk of the Mongolian population live in Ulaanbaatar, their capitol city, with the remainder living a nomadic life out on the Steppes.
He then told a bit about some of the research he’s involved with, on animals like the argali, the ibex, and some other larger animals, as well as the smaller ones like the pallas cat, foxes, wolves, and even the hamsters and hedgehogs native to the area. His favorite subject is birds, and he works with several of them over there as well: the cinereous vulture, with the 10-foot wing span, is truly an impressive bird!
From there he moved on to the camel research, mostly describing just how difficult it is to even find the animal, let alone research it. The area where they live is a vast open plane that covers an area equivalent to roughly four Yellowstone parks! Add to that the fact that there may be less than 1000 of them left, and you can see how difficult it can be. That doesn’t take in to account the mechanical difficulties you can encounter. If you’re 250 miles out in the middle of nowhere when your vehicle breaks down – you better know how to jerry-rig it to limp it back to town somehow!
The question and answer part of his presentation was rather up-staged by the arrival of our female Bactrian camel, Tula. She is elderly and arthritic (she’s 15 years old, which – according to Dr. Reading – is quite old) but is still a beautiful animal. The kids all got a chance to either pet her or feed her a twig of birch tree browse.
We were all very excited to have Dr. Reading come speak at our zoo for several reasons. Not only is he the first to speak of these animals for us (very interesting creatures, to say the least) but he is the also scientist I worked with in Mongolia when I went to study the Argali sheep! He is based at the Denver Zoo, but works all over the world on various projects – one of which is the Bactrian Camel project he spoke on last night.
He began his talk giving a brief description of Mongolia, since most people don’t really know that much about the place. Turns out Mongolia is roughly the same size as Alaska and sits on the same latitude as the line that divides the U.S. from Canada. It has wild temperature swings ranging from 65 below in the winter to over 100 in the summer, and 40 degree swings in a 24-hour period are not uncommon! The bulk of the Mongolian population live in Ulaanbaatar, their capitol city, with the remainder living a nomadic life out on the Steppes.
He then told a bit about some of the research he’s involved with, on animals like the argali, the ibex, and some other larger animals, as well as the smaller ones like the pallas cat, foxes, wolves, and even the hamsters and hedgehogs native to the area. His favorite subject is birds, and he works with several of them over there as well: the cinereous vulture, with the 10-foot wing span, is truly an impressive bird!
From there he moved on to the camel research, mostly describing just how difficult it is to even find the animal, let alone research it. The area where they live is a vast open plane that covers an area equivalent to roughly four Yellowstone parks! Add to that the fact that there may be less than 1000 of them left, and you can see how difficult it can be. That doesn’t take in to account the mechanical difficulties you can encounter. If you’re 250 miles out in the middle of nowhere when your vehicle breaks down – you better know how to jerry-rig it to limp it back to town somehow!
The question and answer part of his presentation was rather up-staged by the arrival of our female Bactrian camel, Tula. She is elderly and arthritic (she’s 15 years old, which – according to Dr. Reading – is quite old) but is still a beautiful animal. The kids all got a chance to either pet her or feed her a twig of birch tree browse.
Hatcher's Pass
I took my guest from Denver up to Hatcher’s Pass yesterday for some hiking around the old gold mine up there. What a beautiful day it was: crispy cool temperatures, sunny spots to warm up in, and lots of wildlife to observe!
Rich, the guy visiting for a week, really wants to see some Dall Sheep. He is a scientist who is studying the Argali seep over in Mongolia, which are related to our Dalls, so it’s really more than just a personal wish. However, we have not yet been able to find any. I had thought we might up there, but no such luck.
What we did find was a nice little trail that meandered its way across the mountains, in and out of rock outcroppings and over the various creeks that flow through the area. There were all kinds of flowers out, so he got to take lots of close-ups with one of his cameras.
The man has three cameras, by the way. One small one for the close-ups; one medium sized one for the everyday shots; and one serious one for the really important shots – and that one has multiple lenses that he switches out all the time.
We also saw a lot of birds. Rich is an avid birder, and is always on the lookout for one he’s never seen before. We managed to spot an owl perched on top of a small spruce tree way, way, way over across a creek gorge at the entrance to the park. We looked at it thru his binoculars, but didn’t get a very good look at it – binoculars are only so good, even the best of them. He thinks it might have been a short-eared owl.
The best treat, at least in my mind, was coming across a hoary marmot in one of the biggest rock out-croppings! He was so cute – out sunning himself on the rocks. Rich managed to get relatively close to it and got a whole bunch of pictures. When it ducked back down into it’s den, I sidled up next to Rich and we both sat there quietly till it came back.
My camera is not nearly as good as his, but I did get some really good photos that I’m rather proud of. If anybody wants to see them, just let me know. I’ll figure some way of showing them off perhaps.
Rich, the guy visiting for a week, really wants to see some Dall Sheep. He is a scientist who is studying the Argali seep over in Mongolia, which are related to our Dalls, so it’s really more than just a personal wish. However, we have not yet been able to find any. I had thought we might up there, but no such luck.
What we did find was a nice little trail that meandered its way across the mountains, in and out of rock outcroppings and over the various creeks that flow through the area. There were all kinds of flowers out, so he got to take lots of close-ups with one of his cameras.
The man has three cameras, by the way. One small one for the close-ups; one medium sized one for the everyday shots; and one serious one for the really important shots – and that one has multiple lenses that he switches out all the time.
We also saw a lot of birds. Rich is an avid birder, and is always on the lookout for one he’s never seen before. We managed to spot an owl perched on top of a small spruce tree way, way, way over across a creek gorge at the entrance to the park. We looked at it thru his binoculars, but didn’t get a very good look at it – binoculars are only so good, even the best of them. He thinks it might have been a short-eared owl.
The best treat, at least in my mind, was coming across a hoary marmot in one of the biggest rock out-croppings! He was so cute – out sunning himself on the rocks. Rich managed to get relatively close to it and got a whole bunch of pictures. When it ducked back down into it’s den, I sidled up next to Rich and we both sat there quietly till it came back.
My camera is not nearly as good as his, but I did get some really good photos that I’m rather proud of. If anybody wants to see them, just let me know. I’ll figure some way of showing them off perhaps.
Monday, June 30, 2008
Earthwatch: Mongolia
I did another Earthwatch presentation at the Elim Café this weekend, this time on my Mongolia Expedition.
It was not very well attended, but I did have at least 8 people there, so that’s not entirely bad. One group of three were there because the daughter was heading out to Mongolia herself, soon, and wanted some tips on what to expect out there. I believe she is going to volunteer at one of the orphanage/hospitals in UB (that’s short for Ulaanbaatar, their capitol city).
Once again, I had to make due with the dwindling amount of supplies I have on hand because the box of new supplies the headquarters sent me has not arrived yet. It’s ok, because I keep all the flyers and pamphlets they mail out – but since I only have one copy of those, I need to keep them and cannot let anybody take them home, as they seem to want to do. I also brought along all the books I have on Mongolia and the wildlife out there – those are always good to pass around. And to really set the mood, I had my CD of Mongolian Throat Singing playing in the background both before and after the talk.
The people at the café are very nice people, and I almost have them all sold on going somewhere with Earthwatch!
Their barrister is very much into coffee and the sustainable farming of it, so that’s rather an easy sell: Earthwatch has several expeditions dealing with that subject, down in Costa Rica.
The marketing director has a sister who is interested in one of the archaeology ones, and since I am as well I find it very easy to talk to her about the possibility of going.
As with most people I know, money is unfortunately a deciding factor. These expeditions are not free! There are numerous ways of making it work, so I keep bringing as many options to their attention as I can come up with. Hopefully, some day soon, I will be able to sit and listen to THEIR presentations!
It was not very well attended, but I did have at least 8 people there, so that’s not entirely bad. One group of three were there because the daughter was heading out to Mongolia herself, soon, and wanted some tips on what to expect out there. I believe she is going to volunteer at one of the orphanage/hospitals in UB (that’s short for Ulaanbaatar, their capitol city).
Once again, I had to make due with the dwindling amount of supplies I have on hand because the box of new supplies the headquarters sent me has not arrived yet. It’s ok, because I keep all the flyers and pamphlets they mail out – but since I only have one copy of those, I need to keep them and cannot let anybody take them home, as they seem to want to do. I also brought along all the books I have on Mongolia and the wildlife out there – those are always good to pass around. And to really set the mood, I had my CD of Mongolian Throat Singing playing in the background both before and after the talk.
The people at the café are very nice people, and I almost have them all sold on going somewhere with Earthwatch!
Their barrister is very much into coffee and the sustainable farming of it, so that’s rather an easy sell: Earthwatch has several expeditions dealing with that subject, down in Costa Rica.
The marketing director has a sister who is interested in one of the archaeology ones, and since I am as well I find it very easy to talk to her about the possibility of going.
As with most people I know, money is unfortunately a deciding factor. These expeditions are not free! There are numerous ways of making it work, so I keep bringing as many options to their attention as I can come up with. Hopefully, some day soon, I will be able to sit and listen to THEIR presentations!
Family Hike Series - Part 4
Wow – what a gorgeous hike that was! I have to say the Winner Creek Trail is one of my favorite hikes.
Mother, Noel, Hank, Myself and my guest, Rich Reading from Denver, did the hike together. It was a great day for hiking, too – the weather was perfect for it, and the trails were in very good condition.
There has been a considerable amount of trail maintenance done on the trail lately – a lot more boardwalks installed so you don’t have to trudge thru all that muck and mud. On a sad note, the “hand-bucket” thingy has been taken down and replaced by a regular bridge. We were all really looking forward to hauling ourselves across the gorge in that bucket…
We of course ate lunch afterwards at the Bakery – you simply cannot do that trail without stopping by there! The staff working at the Bakery seem to be all from Russia, with only one English speaking person in the bunch. They somehow managed to turn Noel’s name into a 4-sylable word! I can’t even begin to spell that one out phonetically… As always, the food was delicious. I’m never sure if it’s because it’s good food or because we just came in from 2.5 hours of hiking out in the elements, you know what I mean?
On the drive back into town, Rich and I pulled over into just about every pull-out there is so that he could take pictures. That creek where the “combat fishing” takes place was particularly beautiful. We saw two juvenile eagles hanging out with their parents, waiting for their meals to be tossed up onto the beach for them. Amazingly enough, we also saw a Harbor Seal in the creek! Who knew they would be there!
Potter’s Marsh was Rich’s favorite pull-out, however – he is an avid birder, so really appreciated all the nesting water birds. We saw two sets of fluffy little baby birds on the beach. Oddly enough, you could walk right up to them – their parents weren’t attacking, like I fully expected them to (memories of Arctic Terns dive-bombing us each year at the lake kept running thru my mind)
Mother, Noel, Hank, Myself and my guest, Rich Reading from Denver, did the hike together. It was a great day for hiking, too – the weather was perfect for it, and the trails were in very good condition.
There has been a considerable amount of trail maintenance done on the trail lately – a lot more boardwalks installed so you don’t have to trudge thru all that muck and mud. On a sad note, the “hand-bucket” thingy has been taken down and replaced by a regular bridge. We were all really looking forward to hauling ourselves across the gorge in that bucket…
We of course ate lunch afterwards at the Bakery – you simply cannot do that trail without stopping by there! The staff working at the Bakery seem to be all from Russia, with only one English speaking person in the bunch. They somehow managed to turn Noel’s name into a 4-sylable word! I can’t even begin to spell that one out phonetically… As always, the food was delicious. I’m never sure if it’s because it’s good food or because we just came in from 2.5 hours of hiking out in the elements, you know what I mean?
On the drive back into town, Rich and I pulled over into just about every pull-out there is so that he could take pictures. That creek where the “combat fishing” takes place was particularly beautiful. We saw two juvenile eagles hanging out with their parents, waiting for their meals to be tossed up onto the beach for them. Amazingly enough, we also saw a Harbor Seal in the creek! Who knew they would be there!
Potter’s Marsh was Rich’s favorite pull-out, however – he is an avid birder, so really appreciated all the nesting water birds. We saw two sets of fluffy little baby birds on the beach. Oddly enough, you could walk right up to them – their parents weren’t attacking, like I fully expected them to (memories of Arctic Terns dive-bombing us each year at the lake kept running thru my mind)
Thursday, June 26, 2008
There’s a snake in there!
When I was about 25 or so, I had a pet snake I’d named Ssadi. She was a rather large Corn Snake that I’d gotten as a 1-year-old baby and raised to adulthood. She was beautiful, too: a deep orange with brown & black diamonds down her back, and a black & white checkered belly.
My friend Kevin (aka: Aqua-Aerobics Man) wanted to meet her, so one day when she had to go to the vet’s, we arranged that I would stop by his work after the appointment and show her to him.
He was at the University pool that afternoon, coaching a high school swim team. When I walked in he was at the opposite end of the pool, which was full of loud, boisterous teenagers. Using only hand gestures and facial expressions, he asked me if I had the snake with me, and I replied that she was tucked in my shirt.
I actually had two shirts on: a t-shirt and a sweatshirt (and yes, I was over-heating in the pool room), and Ssadi was wrapped around my waist in between the two.
We made our way alongside the pool to meet together in the middle, with all the teenagers watching (Coach has a girl come meet him!). When we met up, Kevin reached out and took the neck of my sweatshirt and pulled it out so he could look in.
“Oh, Wow!” he exclaimed.
And then he realized that the entire swim team had stopped their activities and were now staring at him in dumbfounded amazement.
“There’s a snake in there!” he told them.
Right… sure there is.
You could tell by the looks on their faces that they didn’t believe him, so I said “No, really – there is!” all the while trying to extricate her from around my waist.
When I finally got her out so they could see that there was indeed a snake in there, they all burst out laughing.
Kevin was blushing.
My friend Kevin (aka: Aqua-Aerobics Man) wanted to meet her, so one day when she had to go to the vet’s, we arranged that I would stop by his work after the appointment and show her to him.
He was at the University pool that afternoon, coaching a high school swim team. When I walked in he was at the opposite end of the pool, which was full of loud, boisterous teenagers. Using only hand gestures and facial expressions, he asked me if I had the snake with me, and I replied that she was tucked in my shirt.
I actually had two shirts on: a t-shirt and a sweatshirt (and yes, I was over-heating in the pool room), and Ssadi was wrapped around my waist in between the two.
We made our way alongside the pool to meet together in the middle, with all the teenagers watching (Coach has a girl come meet him!). When we met up, Kevin reached out and took the neck of my sweatshirt and pulled it out so he could look in.
“Oh, Wow!” he exclaimed.
And then he realized that the entire swim team had stopped their activities and were now staring at him in dumbfounded amazement.
“There’s a snake in there!” he told them.
Right… sure there is.
You could tell by the looks on their faces that they didn’t believe him, so I said “No, really – there is!” all the while trying to extricate her from around my waist.
When I finally got her out so they could see that there was indeed a snake in there, they all burst out laughing.
Kevin was blushing.
Aqua-Aerobics Man!
When I got home from the zoo Tuesday night, I found a very unexpected message on my answering machine from a guy I hadn’t seen in about 15 years! It took me a while to place him, but I finally figured out who he was. Many years ago I had taken an aqua-aerobics class; the instructor turned out to be a very nice guy named Kevin.
He was in town this week to attend his brother’s daughter’s wedding, and looked me up on a whim. We wanted to get together and catch up on everything, but with his flight leaving that night and my schedule being so booked (as it always seems to be) it looked like we wouldn’t be able to – but he somehow managed to squeeze in a few minutes here at the office, so I got to see him after all.
He looks good! He is, after all, an aqua-aerobics instructor who has lived in Hawaii for the past 6 years. I have his phone number & email address now, so we can stay in touch at least.
Who knows – maybe a trip to Hawaii is in my near future?
He was in town this week to attend his brother’s daughter’s wedding, and looked me up on a whim. We wanted to get together and catch up on everything, but with his flight leaving that night and my schedule being so booked (as it always seems to be) it looked like we wouldn’t be able to – but he somehow managed to squeeze in a few minutes here at the office, so I got to see him after all.
He looks good! He is, after all, an aqua-aerobics instructor who has lived in Hawaii for the past 6 years. I have his phone number & email address now, so we can stay in touch at least.
Who knows – maybe a trip to Hawaii is in my near future?
Wednesday, June 25, 2008
Tuesday Night at the Zoo – Part 4
The title of the program last night was “Planet Insect” given by Fred Sorenson of the University of Alaska Cooperative Extension Service.
I had heard Fred talk before on the subject of bugs, and remembered that he was a fabulous speaker. In fact, I’m rather proud to say that it was my idea to have him be a part of our TNATZ programs this year! Katie, our education director at the zoo, told Fred after his talk that his spot on next year’s program is pretty much guaranteed – he was that good!
What makes Fred such a great speaker is that he is truly excited about the subject. He’s very animated when he speaks, and uses his entire body to illustrate his point. And he comes with his own bug collection – trays of all kinds of bugs, displayed on the boards with tiny pins thru their bodies.
The program started out with him asking the crowd what kind of pets they had: dogs, cats, reptiles, and the like. Turned out that only one individual in a crowd of well over 50 people had an insect for a pet.
Why is that?
According to Fred, and I have to agree with him, humans are almost instinctually “freaked out” by insects because they are so NOT like us. They have too many legs, they don’t have a recognizable face with ears and eyes where they belong, and their life cycles are so alien to ours.
Speaking of aliens, the movie “Alien” (staring Sigourney Weaver) was actually based on insectoid behaviors!
After talking about insects and all their fascinating facts & statistics, he turned the kids loose on the lawn. He had a bunch of little glass vials with lids which he handed out to everybody, telling them to go find a bug!
And find bugs, they did.
Some really cool ones, too. One little girl even managed to find a bug that stumped the expert: Fred did not know what it was. I told her that she should go to school to become an Entomologist so that she could figure out what it was for herself!
I had heard Fred talk before on the subject of bugs, and remembered that he was a fabulous speaker. In fact, I’m rather proud to say that it was my idea to have him be a part of our TNATZ programs this year! Katie, our education director at the zoo, told Fred after his talk that his spot on next year’s program is pretty much guaranteed – he was that good!
What makes Fred such a great speaker is that he is truly excited about the subject. He’s very animated when he speaks, and uses his entire body to illustrate his point. And he comes with his own bug collection – trays of all kinds of bugs, displayed on the boards with tiny pins thru their bodies.
The program started out with him asking the crowd what kind of pets they had: dogs, cats, reptiles, and the like. Turned out that only one individual in a crowd of well over 50 people had an insect for a pet.
Why is that?
According to Fred, and I have to agree with him, humans are almost instinctually “freaked out” by insects because they are so NOT like us. They have too many legs, they don’t have a recognizable face with ears and eyes where they belong, and their life cycles are so alien to ours.
Speaking of aliens, the movie “Alien” (staring Sigourney Weaver) was actually based on insectoid behaviors!
After talking about insects and all their fascinating facts & statistics, he turned the kids loose on the lawn. He had a bunch of little glass vials with lids which he handed out to everybody, telling them to go find a bug!
And find bugs, they did.
Some really cool ones, too. One little girl even managed to find a bug that stumped the expert: Fred did not know what it was. I told her that she should go to school to become an Entomologist so that she could figure out what it was for herself!
Tuesday, June 24, 2008
Earthwatch Presentations
I gave an Earthwatch presentation a few weeks ago at a new café called the Elim Café. It started out being very poorly attended, with only café staff on hand. I decided to go ahead and show my power-point to them anyway, and am glad I did because people trickled in throughout the presentation. By the time I finished, I had about 10 people sitting there.
I used my “Earthwatch in General" presentation with all the gorgeous photographs provided to me by the main headquarters in Massachusetts. I thought that would be a good way to draw people in because it gives me a chance to talk about all the possible expeditions, not just my own. I also get to talk about the research being done, the results they’ve had so far, and the potential for the next 10 years.
The café is an internet café, and it just so happened that there were a few random guys on computers when I started. Of course, I interrupted their gaming (or surfing, or emailing, or… or…) – and I did apologize for that – but they told me afterwards that they didn’t mind because they got interested in my presentation.
Pretty much everybody that was there picked up brochures, postcards, and/or the catalog to look thru. I had asked for supplies from the headquarters ahead of time, but hadn’t received their package yet – so just brought in what I had and passed that out.
Hopefully I will get the re-supply package this week, since I am scheduled to give another presentation at the same café on Saturday. This one is to be on my Mongolia expedition, so I will bring all the books I read ahead of time to prepare for it.
I also have two discs of Mongolian Throat Singing music – I wonder if I can have that playing in the background both before and after my talk? That would make it interesting, I’m sure.
I used my “Earthwatch in General" presentation with all the gorgeous photographs provided to me by the main headquarters in Massachusetts. I thought that would be a good way to draw people in because it gives me a chance to talk about all the possible expeditions, not just my own. I also get to talk about the research being done, the results they’ve had so far, and the potential for the next 10 years.
The café is an internet café, and it just so happened that there were a few random guys on computers when I started. Of course, I interrupted their gaming (or surfing, or emailing, or… or…) – and I did apologize for that – but they told me afterwards that they didn’t mind because they got interested in my presentation.
Pretty much everybody that was there picked up brochures, postcards, and/or the catalog to look thru. I had asked for supplies from the headquarters ahead of time, but hadn’t received their package yet – so just brought in what I had and passed that out.
Hopefully I will get the re-supply package this week, since I am scheduled to give another presentation at the same café on Saturday. This one is to be on my Mongolia expedition, so I will bring all the books I read ahead of time to prepare for it.
I also have two discs of Mongolian Throat Singing music – I wonder if I can have that playing in the background both before and after my talk? That would make it interesting, I’m sure.
Learning a New Computer Program: REVIT
We had a 3-day training session at work last week, to get the whole company on board with the new computer program = Revit.
I hate new computer programs. I am not a computer geek, and would love nothing more than to stay with what I am comfortable with.
That being said, I have to admit that I do like this new program. The potential is very exciting.
It’s a Building Information Management tool, otherwise known as BIM. BIM is becoming an industry standard so our office needs to be on board as soon as possible: we want to lead the pack, not follow it.
The learning curve is going to be a rough one: a lot of people are going to have to change completely the way they come at their designs now.
Because I am on the CAD Standards Committee here at the office, I felt that I should know the program ahead of the in-house training, so I took a crash course offered by one of the local dealers here in town, Alaska Computer Brokers.
The crash course was a 16-week class condensed down into one 8-hour day. Talk about overload! My brain made it till about 3:30 before shutting down.
I have the book and a disc containing all the training files from that class, a demo disc from AutoCAD, and the program itself has some tutorials in the help file.
That’s what I’m working on now – trying to get familiar with the program so that I can (theoretically) answer questions that other people will have once the office gets up and running on it.
I hate new computer programs. I am not a computer geek, and would love nothing more than to stay with what I am comfortable with.
That being said, I have to admit that I do like this new program. The potential is very exciting.
It’s a Building Information Management tool, otherwise known as BIM. BIM is becoming an industry standard so our office needs to be on board as soon as possible: we want to lead the pack, not follow it.
The learning curve is going to be a rough one: a lot of people are going to have to change completely the way they come at their designs now.
Because I am on the CAD Standards Committee here at the office, I felt that I should know the program ahead of the in-house training, so I took a crash course offered by one of the local dealers here in town, Alaska Computer Brokers.
The crash course was a 16-week class condensed down into one 8-hour day. Talk about overload! My brain made it till about 3:30 before shutting down.
I have the book and a disc containing all the training files from that class, a demo disc from AutoCAD, and the program itself has some tutorials in the help file.
That’s what I’m working on now – trying to get familiar with the program so that I can (theoretically) answer questions that other people will have once the office gets up and running on it.
Alien's Vet Appointment
Alien went to the doctor on Saturday. I packed his box up with a portable heater and some towels, so he was purring in the car on the way over.
The doctor was one we hadn’t met before. She was very nice, and was properly impressed with the Alien. She kept saying how handsome he is, and what a sweet cat.
We like her.
He’s lost weight, which is both good and bad. Good because he was overweight – bad because it wasn’t due to any diet change, but rather due to old age instead.
She checked his eyes and determined that he can see light, at least. Beyond that is anybody’s guess. He’s still bumping into chairs and whatnot. I have to be careful and make sure his pathways are cleared of obstructions. He knows where the food is, and the potty…
As for his hearing, she thought that cleaning out all the gunk would help – other than that, there’s no real way of knowing what he hears since he’s always been a little off on associating sound with anything.
He hates having his ears cleaned, by the way. She actually had a vet tech come in to do it for him. He did a very good job, and Alien lived thru it (barely).
All in all, he’s relatively healthy and should be around a while longer.
The doctor was one we hadn’t met before. She was very nice, and was properly impressed with the Alien. She kept saying how handsome he is, and what a sweet cat.
We like her.
He’s lost weight, which is both good and bad. Good because he was overweight – bad because it wasn’t due to any diet change, but rather due to old age instead.
She checked his eyes and determined that he can see light, at least. Beyond that is anybody’s guess. He’s still bumping into chairs and whatnot. I have to be careful and make sure his pathways are cleared of obstructions. He knows where the food is, and the potty…
As for his hearing, she thought that cleaning out all the gunk would help – other than that, there’s no real way of knowing what he hears since he’s always been a little off on associating sound with anything.
He hates having his ears cleaned, by the way. She actually had a vet tech come in to do it for him. He did a very good job, and Alien lived thru it (barely).
All in all, he’s relatively healthy and should be around a while longer.
Anual Family Zoo Day
Our annual Family Zoo Day went very well this year. I was a little cranky at first, but once I realized I was snapping at people, I made myself calm down and ended up having a very good time.
We rented the greenhouse again this year so we had a place to settle down and eat, without having to worry about any weather - which turned out to be nice anyway. The greenhouse cost quite a bit so everybody paid $5.00 per person to help cover it; that worked out very well.
The gardener at the Zoo does an incredible job with all the plants: that greenhouse is spectacular! The biggest job of the day is trying to keep Mother from pinching off parts of all the plants to take home and try to grow herself!
I made everybody play a game again, too. I made cards that had a letter of the alphabet on top and six categories listed down the side (Mammal, Plant, Bird, Fish, Insect, and Reptile) and we all had to come up with a name for each category starting with the letter listed on the top of the card. It was a pretty good game: everybody got into it and did three or four cards each. There were some rather inventive animals, I must say. My favorite was my niece Tara. She had the letter G so for the reptile category, she wrote Godzilla.
Once everybody had eaten their fill, we went out and walked around the zoo for a while. There’s a lot going on at the zoo this year!
Our new Amur tigers arrived finally! 4-year old brothers name Korol and Kunali, from New York. They’re gorgeous, of course. We could just see a bit of orange peeking thru the bushes back in the back corner. My niece, Lauren, kept wondering how a very large orange cat was able to hide so well. You would think they’d stick out like a sore thumb.
We have lots of new babies at the zoo this year: a baby musk ox, two baby caribou, two baby moose, a baby harbor seal, and a yearling camel. Best of all, we just MIGHT have (cross your fingers and toes!) baby snow leopards!
The baby musk ox caused a bit of commotion the other day = she got out of her pen and into the bigger enclosure with the big male musk ox. Poor thing got a little battered and bruised before they were able to get her back in the smaller pen with her mother again! Male musk ox do love to head-but things…
A few weeks ago, a cruise ship down in the southeastern part of the state came across a baby mountain goat standing next to its dead mother. They picked her up and brought her to us – we now have her in quarantine, and she is the cutest little thing! She cries all day, but is quite feisty and very healthy. Hopefully, she will go in with the mountain sheep once she’s big enough.
We also have a musk rat, a raccoon that had been confiscated at the airport, and a golden eagle that came to us from a rescue place down in Oregon.
We rented the greenhouse again this year so we had a place to settle down and eat, without having to worry about any weather - which turned out to be nice anyway. The greenhouse cost quite a bit so everybody paid $5.00 per person to help cover it; that worked out very well.
The gardener at the Zoo does an incredible job with all the plants: that greenhouse is spectacular! The biggest job of the day is trying to keep Mother from pinching off parts of all the plants to take home and try to grow herself!
I made everybody play a game again, too. I made cards that had a letter of the alphabet on top and six categories listed down the side (Mammal, Plant, Bird, Fish, Insect, and Reptile) and we all had to come up with a name for each category starting with the letter listed on the top of the card. It was a pretty good game: everybody got into it and did three or four cards each. There were some rather inventive animals, I must say. My favorite was my niece Tara. She had the letter G so for the reptile category, she wrote Godzilla.
Once everybody had eaten their fill, we went out and walked around the zoo for a while. There’s a lot going on at the zoo this year!
Our new Amur tigers arrived finally! 4-year old brothers name Korol and Kunali, from New York. They’re gorgeous, of course. We could just see a bit of orange peeking thru the bushes back in the back corner. My niece, Lauren, kept wondering how a very large orange cat was able to hide so well. You would think they’d stick out like a sore thumb.
We have lots of new babies at the zoo this year: a baby musk ox, two baby caribou, two baby moose, a baby harbor seal, and a yearling camel. Best of all, we just MIGHT have (cross your fingers and toes!) baby snow leopards!
The baby musk ox caused a bit of commotion the other day = she got out of her pen and into the bigger enclosure with the big male musk ox. Poor thing got a little battered and bruised before they were able to get her back in the smaller pen with her mother again! Male musk ox do love to head-but things…
A few weeks ago, a cruise ship down in the southeastern part of the state came across a baby mountain goat standing next to its dead mother. They picked her up and brought her to us – we now have her in quarantine, and she is the cutest little thing! She cries all day, but is quite feisty and very healthy. Hopefully, she will go in with the mountain sheep once she’s big enough.
We also have a musk rat, a raccoon that had been confiscated at the airport, and a golden eagle that came to us from a rescue place down in Oregon.
Tuesday, June 17, 2008
Family Hike Series - Part 3
Sunday was the third hike in our Family Hike series: we went up to Eklutna Lake and spent a very pleasant 2 hours walking around the shores of one of the most beautiful lakes I have ever seen.
I met Mother at the parking lot for the Thunderbird Falls trailhead and left my car there – after transferring all the stuff back and forth, of course. It seems there’s always stuff that I need to pass on to her, and she always has stuff to pass on to me!
Once that was all taken care of, I climbed into her truck and we took off together from there. The trailhead for the Eklutna Lake trail is about 10 miles from that parking lot, heading up the hill a good enough distance that our ears were popping.
Coincidentally, my brother Stewart had worked the job that paved that road. He has pictures of it on his website:
http://nopeople.com/homepage/Eklutna%20Project/Eklutna01/Eklutna%20Project.html
Once we got to the trailhead we parked the truck and got our gear gathered together. I keep my backpack loaded with all the stuff I need for each hike, like my plant book, my tree book, my animal tracks book, my trail book, my bear spray & whistle, my bug dope, my camera, my binoculars (yes, it is a tad bit heavy) but there always seems to be something missing. This time it was my water. Again. You’d think I would learn to have a bottle in there, since it seems I’m always forgetting the water.
I did have a new toy to play with: my friend Rikki had given me a compass for my birthday, so I had that out and was walking around the parking lot while waiting for the rest of the gang to show up. Mother would ask me, “Where do you think the bathroom is?” and I would reply, “I don’t know – but North is that way!”
Very helpful, I’m sure.
Right on time, Rachel and her family drove up and parked right beside us. David, her husband, and Elly, her daughter, were all very excited to be out with us that day. It was Father’s Day, and this was his choice for celebrating it. My kind of guy!
It had been many, many years since anybody in our little group had been there, which meant that nobody really knew which direction we were supposed to go – so we just chose a path that looked interesting and took off. We ended up back by the dam, which was really cool. I had hoped to be able to see that – although, I must admit it wasn’t as impressive as I’d thought it would be.
Eklutna Lake is where Anchorage gets it’s water & some of it’s power from – so I thought the dam would be this huge powerful thing. It actually was quite small, and looked like any old concrete bunker that just happened to have water on one side.
The lake itself is very large; if we had walked all the way around it, it would have taken 2 days (or so my trail book says)! We just went part of the way, and had fun identifying plants as we went.
Yes, I got to use my books!
I met Mother at the parking lot for the Thunderbird Falls trailhead and left my car there – after transferring all the stuff back and forth, of course. It seems there’s always stuff that I need to pass on to her, and she always has stuff to pass on to me!
Once that was all taken care of, I climbed into her truck and we took off together from there. The trailhead for the Eklutna Lake trail is about 10 miles from that parking lot, heading up the hill a good enough distance that our ears were popping.
Coincidentally, my brother Stewart had worked the job that paved that road. He has pictures of it on his website:
http://nopeople.com/homepage/Eklutna%20Project/Eklutna01/Eklutna%20Project.html
Once we got to the trailhead we parked the truck and got our gear gathered together. I keep my backpack loaded with all the stuff I need for each hike, like my plant book, my tree book, my animal tracks book, my trail book, my bear spray & whistle, my bug dope, my camera, my binoculars (yes, it is a tad bit heavy) but there always seems to be something missing. This time it was my water. Again. You’d think I would learn to have a bottle in there, since it seems I’m always forgetting the water.
I did have a new toy to play with: my friend Rikki had given me a compass for my birthday, so I had that out and was walking around the parking lot while waiting for the rest of the gang to show up. Mother would ask me, “Where do you think the bathroom is?” and I would reply, “I don’t know – but North is that way!”
Very helpful, I’m sure.
Right on time, Rachel and her family drove up and parked right beside us. David, her husband, and Elly, her daughter, were all very excited to be out with us that day. It was Father’s Day, and this was his choice for celebrating it. My kind of guy!
It had been many, many years since anybody in our little group had been there, which meant that nobody really knew which direction we were supposed to go – so we just chose a path that looked interesting and took off. We ended up back by the dam, which was really cool. I had hoped to be able to see that – although, I must admit it wasn’t as impressive as I’d thought it would be.
Eklutna Lake is where Anchorage gets it’s water & some of it’s power from – so I thought the dam would be this huge powerful thing. It actually was quite small, and looked like any old concrete bunker that just happened to have water on one side.
The lake itself is very large; if we had walked all the way around it, it would have taken 2 days (or so my trail book says)! We just went part of the way, and had fun identifying plants as we went.
Yes, I got to use my books!
Thursday, June 12, 2008
Discovery Tours at the Zoo
The summer season is finally upon us, which means two things to me: the tourists are here (in droves!) and I get to give my favorite tour at the zoo!
Each summer, from the end of May till around the beginning of September, we offer The Discovery Tour every day, from Noon till 2:00. Actually, we started out calling it a Naturalist Tour, but decided after the first year that The Discovery Tour sounded better. Since I do have to work my regular job (the one I actually get paid to do) I can only do the weekend tours, but it’s still a lot of fun.
For a mere $20.00, a tourist (or a local – we don’t discriminate!) can receive a 2-hour guided tour and learn about not only the animals of the zoo but also the plants, and how they interact. For good measure, I throw in a lot of Alaskan history as well as my personal experiences growing up here.
I have a lot of fun with this tour, but it does require a bit of training to be able to give them their money’s worth. I have taken quite a few classes, read a lot of books, done a lot of on-line research, and picked the brains of a lot of experts around town in preparation for this tour! I don’t mind in the least, however. I love to learn everything I can about the plants and animals, and really enjoy telling people what I’ve learned.
My first tour this season was for a couple from Australia. The lady was so excited to be there: she was cute. The guy was a really nice man – well, both of them were. It was really fun to spend a couple hours with them.
My second tour wasn’t quite as fun as the first one, but was still a good tour. This time it was for a gentleman from Fairbanks who had guests up from Michigan.
One thing I’m not too pleased with about these tours is that you never know who will sign up for them. You show up about half an hour ahead of time, and sit there and wait to see if you’ll have a tour that day or not. Sometimes you might have as many as 20, sometimes none. Most often it’s about 2-6 people, which is very doable.
Each summer, from the end of May till around the beginning of September, we offer The Discovery Tour every day, from Noon till 2:00. Actually, we started out calling it a Naturalist Tour, but decided after the first year that The Discovery Tour sounded better. Since I do have to work my regular job (the one I actually get paid to do) I can only do the weekend tours, but it’s still a lot of fun.
For a mere $20.00, a tourist (or a local – we don’t discriminate!) can receive a 2-hour guided tour and learn about not only the animals of the zoo but also the plants, and how they interact. For good measure, I throw in a lot of Alaskan history as well as my personal experiences growing up here.
I have a lot of fun with this tour, but it does require a bit of training to be able to give them their money’s worth. I have taken quite a few classes, read a lot of books, done a lot of on-line research, and picked the brains of a lot of experts around town in preparation for this tour! I don’t mind in the least, however. I love to learn everything I can about the plants and animals, and really enjoy telling people what I’ve learned.
My first tour this season was for a couple from Australia. The lady was so excited to be there: she was cute. The guy was a really nice man – well, both of them were. It was really fun to spend a couple hours with them.
My second tour wasn’t quite as fun as the first one, but was still a good tour. This time it was for a gentleman from Fairbanks who had guests up from Michigan.
One thing I’m not too pleased with about these tours is that you never know who will sign up for them. You show up about half an hour ahead of time, and sit there and wait to see if you’ll have a tour that day or not. Sometimes you might have as many as 20, sometimes none. Most often it’s about 2-6 people, which is very doable.
Tuesday Night at the Zoo – Part 3
Last night was our third program in the TNATZ series, this time given by our zoo veterinarian, Dr. Riley Wilson.
Those of you who know Dr. Riley, from The Pet Stop, know he is a wonderful man. Everybody loves him, from the humans to his patients! He is, however, rather uncomfortable speaking in public, so sometimes his programs can get a little … off.
Katie, the education director here at the zoo, helped him out a bit more this year by bringing three animals into the greenhouse for his presentation. That gave him something to talk about, and got the ball rolling (as they say).
We had Peabody, one of the great horned owls, on hand (literally) – with his handler Jana. Next we had Chance, the red fox who was so badly injured as a kit – along with his handler Mary. Last but certainly not least, we had Karuna, one of our ball pythons – and I got to stand in as her handler!
All three of the animals did very well. Peabody was slightly nervous, but didn’t do much more than look around the place. Chance was amazing – I’m so pleased to see him looking so healthy! He was nervous, and kept running around Mary’s legs on his leash. She’d hold him and he’d settle down for a while, then struggle to be put down again. Karuna was great: she just kinda hung out around my neck for a while, then started to sniff around a bit. Towards the end, she actually started to squeeze on my neck just a little too hard – but nothing to get concerned about. She was just flexing her muscles, I think.
Dr. Riley spoke of what it means to be a veterinarian, how he got to be the Zoo Vet, and all the different types of care the animals receive. The audience (and we had about 46 people!) asked all sorts of questions afterwards, and Dr. Riley did great in answering them all.
Channel 11 was on hand that night, filming a bit-piece story of things to do out and about town. I’m told that I was on TV this morning! I wonder if anybody else saw it…
Those of you who know Dr. Riley, from The Pet Stop, know he is a wonderful man. Everybody loves him, from the humans to his patients! He is, however, rather uncomfortable speaking in public, so sometimes his programs can get a little … off.
Katie, the education director here at the zoo, helped him out a bit more this year by bringing three animals into the greenhouse for his presentation. That gave him something to talk about, and got the ball rolling (as they say).
We had Peabody, one of the great horned owls, on hand (literally) – with his handler Jana. Next we had Chance, the red fox who was so badly injured as a kit – along with his handler Mary. Last but certainly not least, we had Karuna, one of our ball pythons – and I got to stand in as her handler!
All three of the animals did very well. Peabody was slightly nervous, but didn’t do much more than look around the place. Chance was amazing – I’m so pleased to see him looking so healthy! He was nervous, and kept running around Mary’s legs on his leash. She’d hold him and he’d settle down for a while, then struggle to be put down again. Karuna was great: she just kinda hung out around my neck for a while, then started to sniff around a bit. Towards the end, she actually started to squeeze on my neck just a little too hard – but nothing to get concerned about. She was just flexing her muscles, I think.
Dr. Riley spoke of what it means to be a veterinarian, how he got to be the Zoo Vet, and all the different types of care the animals receive. The audience (and we had about 46 people!) asked all sorts of questions afterwards, and Dr. Riley did great in answering them all.
Channel 11 was on hand that night, filming a bit-piece story of things to do out and about town. I’m told that I was on TV this morning! I wonder if anybody else saw it…
Animal Observations At The Zoo
I am helping a friend out with her thesis at UAA on the behavioral patterns of captive polar bears, as opposed to behavioral patterns of wild polar bears. This basically means that I spend my Friday evenings observing Ahpun and Lyutyik, the two polar bears we have at the zoo.
On the one hand, I love to watch those two; they are such beautiful animals (I’m slightly biased, but not much). On the other hand, it’s quite boring just sitting there. It’s cold, it’s uncomfortable, it’s buggy…
I have a stop-watch that beeps at me every 15 seconds. I sit and watch the bears and when the beep sounds, I write down exactly what they’re doing at that very minute.
I do this for 2 hours.
Even worse, my friend does this for 8 hours, 7 days a week!
This is why I’m helping her: she’s exhausted!
On the one hand, I love to watch those two; they are such beautiful animals (I’m slightly biased, but not much). On the other hand, it’s quite boring just sitting there. It’s cold, it’s uncomfortable, it’s buggy…
I have a stop-watch that beeps at me every 15 seconds. I sit and watch the bears and when the beep sounds, I write down exactly what they’re doing at that very minute.
I do this for 2 hours.
Even worse, my friend does this for 8 hours, 7 days a week!
This is why I’m helping her: she’s exhausted!
Thursday, June 05, 2008
Taking the whole "alternate energy sources" thing just a little too far!
Boy, did I have one strange dream last night.
It was our company dinner and the place we were eating was using this huge toad as a means of generating electricity. The toad, who was about the size of a small dog, couldn’t generate a whole lot of electricity, so it was fairly dark.
The toad was also providing dinner: you would break off pieces of him, which turned into miniature copies of himself, and that’s what you were supposed to eat for the main course.
I was – of course – trying to save all the little toads, while Lauri and Brian (co-workers) got into a scuffle with the toad over their dinner. They each grabbed an arm & a leg of the big toad and were pulling on him trying to get their meal out of him.
It was our company dinner and the place we were eating was using this huge toad as a means of generating electricity. The toad, who was about the size of a small dog, couldn’t generate a whole lot of electricity, so it was fairly dark.
The toad was also providing dinner: you would break off pieces of him, which turned into miniature copies of himself, and that’s what you were supposed to eat for the main course.
I was – of course – trying to save all the little toads, while Lauri and Brian (co-workers) got into a scuffle with the toad over their dinner. They each grabbed an arm & a leg of the big toad and were pulling on him trying to get their meal out of him.
Wednesday, June 04, 2008
Tuesday Night at the Zoo - Part 2
Last night was the second in the Tuesday Night at the Zoo series. It was my first one, however, since I had missed the actual first one while I was in Fairbanks. From the sounds of it, the actual first one was VERY well attended: they had between 80-90 people show up! That’s almost unheard of, but they attribute that to both the subject matter (Polar Bears and Climate Change) and to the fact that our advertizing is a little better this year.
We may not have had such a huge turnout last night, but with 46 people we were still scrambling to get enough chairs and elbow room for everybody!
The title of the presentation was “Drawing Zoo Animals” by the Sketch-n-Safari guys, Leon Rabinovitch & Steve Carson. They spent the hour showing people how to draw all the different zoo animals (with a dragon thrown in for good measure). The audience really seemed to be having a good time.
Setting up for the event was interesting. The education department has been relocated to three different areas around the zoo: Katie’s office is currently still in the old Ed building (which is due to be torn down this summer) but will soon be moved to – I think – the old elephant house. The reptiles and education critters have already been moved there, so she’ll have company when she gets settled in. All the education supplies are either in the garage behind the coffee shop or in various closets scattered around the office building.
Poor Katie: whenever she has a program to put on (which is almost a daily thing this year) she has to run all over the zoo to gather up her supplies. That’s hard enough under normal circumstances, but you throw in the fact that she’s 4 months pregnant and is beginning to feel slightly uncomfortable with it, and that just exacerbates the problem ten-fold!
If anybody is feeling particularly generous at the moment, you might consider donating an electric pencil sharpener to the zoo. That sounds so small and insignificant, but I tell you: we had boxes and boxes of pencils to hand out, and barely a tenth of them were sharpened! We had plenty of tablets of paper, and tons of crayons, pens, and markers thankfully, so everybody had something to write on and with regardless.
We would have preferred to have held the program outside under the big tent, but Alaskan weather is unpredictable at best – so, we erred on the side of caution and put them all in the greenhouse. That seemed to work just fine.
We may not have had such a huge turnout last night, but with 46 people we were still scrambling to get enough chairs and elbow room for everybody!
The title of the presentation was “Drawing Zoo Animals” by the Sketch-n-Safari guys, Leon Rabinovitch & Steve Carson. They spent the hour showing people how to draw all the different zoo animals (with a dragon thrown in for good measure). The audience really seemed to be having a good time.
Setting up for the event was interesting. The education department has been relocated to three different areas around the zoo: Katie’s office is currently still in the old Ed building (which is due to be torn down this summer) but will soon be moved to – I think – the old elephant house. The reptiles and education critters have already been moved there, so she’ll have company when she gets settled in. All the education supplies are either in the garage behind the coffee shop or in various closets scattered around the office building.
Poor Katie: whenever she has a program to put on (which is almost a daily thing this year) she has to run all over the zoo to gather up her supplies. That’s hard enough under normal circumstances, but you throw in the fact that she’s 4 months pregnant and is beginning to feel slightly uncomfortable with it, and that just exacerbates the problem ten-fold!
If anybody is feeling particularly generous at the moment, you might consider donating an electric pencil sharpener to the zoo. That sounds so small and insignificant, but I tell you: we had boxes and boxes of pencils to hand out, and barely a tenth of them were sharpened! We had plenty of tablets of paper, and tons of crayons, pens, and markers thankfully, so everybody had something to write on and with regardless.
We would have preferred to have held the program outside under the big tent, but Alaskan weather is unpredictable at best – so, we erred on the side of caution and put them all in the greenhouse. That seemed to work just fine.
Tuesday, June 03, 2008
Human Anatomy
While in Fairbanks with my cousin Chris last week, I got to spend some time in the classroom where he teaches Human Anatomy.
The room had all kinds of plastic models of just about every part of the body you can think of. He went over most of them, telling me all the parts and how the work together. My favorite was a torso that could either be male or female, depending on what parts were attached to it. That day it happened to be female.
I finally got to see how it was possible to have 32 feet of intestines crammed into one’s body cavity!
Also in the room were actual skeletons, both human and animal (mostly cats). Chris showed me a man in a cabinet that was of Asian descent: he was put together in such a way as to be movable, so you could see how the joints work and how everything fits together. He was quite short, actually – possibly 5’-6” or so, as compared to my 6’-0” height. Another human skeleton was kept in a box, unassembled – thereby giving students a chance to attempt to put one together themselves.
One of the major highlights of my visit to the anatomy lab was to hold a human brain in my hands! Gloved, of course (me, not the brain). The chemicals used to preserve human tissue are not something you really want to soak in. The brain was surprisingly heavy for its size, I thought. Chris pointed out all the pieces/parts to it, and talked of how it functions.
The other highlight of my visit was the chance to look thru the microscopes. I had never done that before, and I must say it takes some skill. You can’t just look and see things easily. You have to adjust your vision in some strange way that can’t be explained – you just have to figure it out on your own.
When I finally “got it” it almost felt like I had flipped a switch in my head. I was able to go from looking in the scope to looking up at Chris with relative ease - after a bit of practice, that is.
The slides were arranged in boxes so you could pick and choose what you wanted to see. I looked at bone slivers, muscle tissue samples, amphibious skin samples… all kinds on cool stuff. I even got to see blood cells and cells that were dividing and multiplying. While I was looking at the premade slides, Chris got some pond water out and prepared a few slides so I could see the bugs living there – they were actually quite cute!
When we got back to Chris’s cabin for the night, he loanded me a book to read called “Stiff” by Mary Roach. This is a book that is readily available at most any bookstore, and is about “The Curios Lives of Human Cadavers.” He thought that since I had such a good time in the anatomy lab, I might enjoy reading it – and I totally am!
However - while this book is, without doubt, a very interesting and well-written book, I must admit that I cannot advise reading it while trying to eat lunch!
Especially if you’re eating brown rice, black beans, and scrambled eggs over crisp corn tortilla’s while reading about surgeons practicing their plastic surgery techniques on severed heads at a facial anatomy refresher course.
I may never eat at that restaurant again.
The room had all kinds of plastic models of just about every part of the body you can think of. He went over most of them, telling me all the parts and how the work together. My favorite was a torso that could either be male or female, depending on what parts were attached to it. That day it happened to be female.
I finally got to see how it was possible to have 32 feet of intestines crammed into one’s body cavity!
Also in the room were actual skeletons, both human and animal (mostly cats). Chris showed me a man in a cabinet that was of Asian descent: he was put together in such a way as to be movable, so you could see how the joints work and how everything fits together. He was quite short, actually – possibly 5’-6” or so, as compared to my 6’-0” height. Another human skeleton was kept in a box, unassembled – thereby giving students a chance to attempt to put one together themselves.
One of the major highlights of my visit to the anatomy lab was to hold a human brain in my hands! Gloved, of course (me, not the brain). The chemicals used to preserve human tissue are not something you really want to soak in. The brain was surprisingly heavy for its size, I thought. Chris pointed out all the pieces/parts to it, and talked of how it functions.
The other highlight of my visit was the chance to look thru the microscopes. I had never done that before, and I must say it takes some skill. You can’t just look and see things easily. You have to adjust your vision in some strange way that can’t be explained – you just have to figure it out on your own.
When I finally “got it” it almost felt like I had flipped a switch in my head. I was able to go from looking in the scope to looking up at Chris with relative ease - after a bit of practice, that is.
The slides were arranged in boxes so you could pick and choose what you wanted to see. I looked at bone slivers, muscle tissue samples, amphibious skin samples… all kinds on cool stuff. I even got to see blood cells and cells that were dividing and multiplying. While I was looking at the premade slides, Chris got some pond water out and prepared a few slides so I could see the bugs living there – they were actually quite cute!
When we got back to Chris’s cabin for the night, he loanded me a book to read called “Stiff” by Mary Roach. This is a book that is readily available at most any bookstore, and is about “The Curios Lives of Human Cadavers.” He thought that since I had such a good time in the anatomy lab, I might enjoy reading it – and I totally am!
However - while this book is, without doubt, a very interesting and well-written book, I must admit that I cannot advise reading it while trying to eat lunch!
Especially if you’re eating brown rice, black beans, and scrambled eggs over crisp corn tortilla’s while reading about surgeons practicing their plastic surgery techniques on severed heads at a facial anatomy refresher course.
I may never eat at that restaurant again.
Monday, June 02, 2008
Family Hike Series - Part 2
June 1 - Powerline Pass Trail
I had my doubts when I pulled into the parking lot at the trail head yesterday. It was blowing the kind of wind that can knock you off your feet if you’re not carful – and I just knew that most people would not be expecting that and so would not be dressed properly. There was also a considerable amount of snow still on the ground, as well – we were, after all, at about 2500 feet. But we persevered and ended up with a most excellent hike!
Mother, Kelly, Myself, Reed, Heather, Pam, Adriana, David, Elley, and Rose made up our hiking group this time – although Heather, Pam and Adriana turned back very shortly after beginning due to being too cold. Mother impressed me by gamely plowing thru the snow at the beginning of the trail to make it to the cleared off portion – I was afraid she would not be able to traverse the snow & ice. In fact, there were several instances of people suddenly breaking thru the crust on top and falling thru almost 2 feet to the ground below.
Once we got to the main trail, the going was much easier; except for the wind. That was blowing right at our faces the whole way out. The way back was much easier even if it was up hill the whole way – the wind at our backs made the steep incline barely noticeable.
I did remember to wear the right shoes this time, so my feet gave me no problems at all. I managed to get snow down my socks, but other than being uncomfortable, that wasn’t enough to ruin the day. I had a great time!
I had my doubts when I pulled into the parking lot at the trail head yesterday. It was blowing the kind of wind that can knock you off your feet if you’re not carful – and I just knew that most people would not be expecting that and so would not be dressed properly. There was also a considerable amount of snow still on the ground, as well – we were, after all, at about 2500 feet. But we persevered and ended up with a most excellent hike!
Mother, Kelly, Myself, Reed, Heather, Pam, Adriana, David, Elley, and Rose made up our hiking group this time – although Heather, Pam and Adriana turned back very shortly after beginning due to being too cold. Mother impressed me by gamely plowing thru the snow at the beginning of the trail to make it to the cleared off portion – I was afraid she would not be able to traverse the snow & ice. In fact, there were several instances of people suddenly breaking thru the crust on top and falling thru almost 2 feet to the ground below.
Once we got to the main trail, the going was much easier; except for the wind. That was blowing right at our faces the whole way out. The way back was much easier even if it was up hill the whole way – the wind at our backs made the steep incline barely noticeable.
I did remember to wear the right shoes this time, so my feet gave me no problems at all. I managed to get snow down my socks, but other than being uncomfortable, that wasn’t enough to ruin the day. I had a great time!
Sunday, June 01, 2008
Vacation in Fairbanks
I'm back!
I went to Fairbanks for a week to spend some time with my cousin. I just got back last night, so today will be spent unpacking and getting resettled in at home. My cats are like Velcro this morning!
I took the train up on Monday. That was a nice trip. Long, but still nice. I left the train station in Anchorage at 8:00 am and didn't get in to Fairbanks untill around 8:30 pm. I did, however, get to see a Mother Moose and a brand new born baby, 2 black bears, an eagle in its nest, and even got to see Denali - the whole thing, even! It is so tall it has its own weather system around it, and is usually covered with clowds - but I got a beautiful view.
Chris, my cousin, works at UAF in thier biology department, so I got to spend some time in his lab with him. He was extracting DNA from some blood samples taken from some common mures (water fowl) out in the Pribolof Islands. I had never had any lab experience, so it was fun for me. I think he thought I would be bored, but I loved it.
He even took me over to the classrooms where he teaches and let me look thru the microscopes! And, as a bonus, I got to hold a human brain in my hands! How cool is that?
We went to the Large Animal Research Station (LARS) and looked at the Musk Ox and Caribou. We went to the Alaska Bird Observatory (ABO) and looked at birds. We went to the Museum and looked at the exhibits there (they have some really nice dinosaur bones). We took his dog Pato out for a swim in the Chena River.
We had a great time - but I must say, I'm glad to be home. I took a flight home on Alaska Airlines because I knew that I'd want to just get home as quickly as possible (just one hour as opposed to 8 hours by train).
Thanks, Chris!
I went to Fairbanks for a week to spend some time with my cousin. I just got back last night, so today will be spent unpacking and getting resettled in at home. My cats are like Velcro this morning!
I took the train up on Monday. That was a nice trip. Long, but still nice. I left the train station in Anchorage at 8:00 am and didn't get in to Fairbanks untill around 8:30 pm. I did, however, get to see a Mother Moose and a brand new born baby, 2 black bears, an eagle in its nest, and even got to see Denali - the whole thing, even! It is so tall it has its own weather system around it, and is usually covered with clowds - but I got a beautiful view.
Chris, my cousin, works at UAF in thier biology department, so I got to spend some time in his lab with him. He was extracting DNA from some blood samples taken from some common mures (water fowl) out in the Pribolof Islands. I had never had any lab experience, so it was fun for me. I think he thought I would be bored, but I loved it.
He even took me over to the classrooms where he teaches and let me look thru the microscopes! And, as a bonus, I got to hold a human brain in my hands! How cool is that?
We went to the Large Animal Research Station (LARS) and looked at the Musk Ox and Caribou. We went to the Alaska Bird Observatory (ABO) and looked at birds. We went to the Museum and looked at the exhibits there (they have some really nice dinosaur bones). We took his dog Pato out for a swim in the Chena River.
We had a great time - but I must say, I'm glad to be home. I took a flight home on Alaska Airlines because I knew that I'd want to just get home as quickly as possible (just one hour as opposed to 8 hours by train).
Thanks, Chris!
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