Doctor’s Appointment

I had to go to the doctor the other day – not because I was sick, thank goodness, but because I had to get certain forms filled out for my Africa Expedition.

The office is just down the road from me, so I was able to walk there. I arrived with about 5 minutes to spare, so sat down in the waiting room and looked thru the expedition briefing that I’d brought along. Soon enough, the nurse was calling my name and leading me back to the exam room.

She took my weight, my blood pressure, and asked all the normal questions. I handed her the paperwork and explained what the doctor needed to do for me, then sat back and waited for him to arrive.

The office where I go for medical attention has many doctors working there, with many different specialties. When you make an appointment, you can specify which doctor you want or just take whoever is available. I chose the second option and ended up with a doctor I hadn’t seen in quite a while. He is German by descent, and unfortunately has inherited a few of the least desirable qualities of that race; namely the appearance of being rude.

I say “the appearance” because I know that Germans really are not rude – they just appear that way to me because of their abrupt nature. They tend to say exactly what they mean with no beating around the bush, and are very direct in their manners. And I should qualify my use of the term “they” = I have known perhaps two Germans in my life. That’s not really enough to make sweeping generalizations, but I work with what I have and apologize if I offend anybody because of that.

Anyway, the doctor finally walked into the exam room with my paperwork in hand. He was looking thru it as he asked me a few questions, and never once actually looked up at me. He stuck the thingy in my ear, then listened to my lungs, asked me a few more questions, and signed the paperwork. All that for $130.00 (and no insurance).

It just amazes me that he could conduct the entire exam without once looking me in the eye. But, hey – he signed my paperwork: that’s all I really wanted.

So now that the forms are faxed in to the Earthwatch Institute, I can get busy on the next step towards my journey to Africa = getting all the inoculations required!

Packing List

I'm limited to 22 pounds, so I have to be very careful what I bring with me. I need everything I need, but nothing I don't need - if you know what I mean!

Soap/shampoo
Bandages/neosporin
Benedryl cream
Excedrin/Ibuprofen/Immodium
Toothpaste/brush/floss
Brush/comb/hair bands
Hand wipes/hand sanitizer/moisturizer
Deoderant

Flash light
Pocket knife
Camera/batteries/memory card
Electronic reader/batteries
Binoculars
Bug dope/DEET
Sun screen/sun glasses/hat
Water bottle
Field Guides
Clip-on watch/thermometer

Boots/shoes/crocs
Pants/shorts/skirt
Shirts/tanks/jacket
Socks/undies/bras
Sleepwear

Expedition briefing
Passport/visa
Innoculation booklet
Paperwork
Money

Job Interviews

Things have picked up a little bit on the Job Hunting scene. I have actually had two interviews this past week!

The first one was for a State job – I’d be working for the DOT in their Right-of-Way department. The job interview was held in “the upside down building” near the airport.

From an architectural point of view, this building is quite unique. It really does look like it’s upside down! It’s roughly triangular in shape, only the pointy end is on the bottom and the larger flat end it on the top. This was an experiment in seismic construction, trying to find a way to withstand all the earthquakes we get. I think it’s held up quite well since it has held up a good 20-25 years so far. But it’s the only building of its kind, so apparently it did not exactly win the popularity contest.

As an aside here, we have another unique building in Anchorage that was a seismic experiment also: the Wells Fargo Bank on the corner of Benson and Minnesota. This one was built on rollers, some how. I’ve been in it during an earthquake before and I know exactly why it didn’t gain popularity either = that thing rocked worse than a boat on rough seas, and kept going long after the earthquake finished. But again, it’s an older building and it’s still standing – so it must work structurally.

Anyway, back to my job interview.

Turns out I used to work with the lady conducting the interviews back in my pipeline days! I think that’s how I made the first cut: she recognized my name and pulled me out of the huge stack of applicants because of it. I’m definitely okay with that – anything to get to the top of the list.

The interview went well. She asked a lot of very detailed questions about my computer experience as well as my knowledge of surveying and construction processes. She said it would take a while for them to make their decision; it could be as long as 6 weeks. I’m hopeful, but I’m not holding my breath.

My other interview was just this morning, at the Kaladi Brother’s Café on Tudor and Muldoon. This was rather a strange place to have a job interview, I thought – but it was really quite nice. It made me a lot more comfortable and was not nearly as nerve wracking as some offices can be.

The man I spoke with is the founder of a construction company who is hiring two people to help out with a large contract they just got. They do a lot of military work, so it’s all LEED Certified construction (which I really like, being as I am the president of our local USGBC group), and it’s at a minimum a 5-year position. He is a disabled Vet, so is eligible for a lot of the contracts other companies are not.

I had to laugh when I realized the reason my resume got his attention. It wasn’t because of my three years experience with project management (the position he’s hiring for) – it was because I’m a drafter who used to work on the board! He began his career as a drafter, too, so was really excited to meet someone who also started out that way also. He was actually quite surprised when I mentioned my CA experience.

I’m somewhat wary, though. It is a small company and I don’t have good luck with small companies typically speaking. The work they’re doing sounds very interesting, however, and the interview went very well. I’m inclined once again to take a chance, even though my cautious side is telling me not to.

He said he’d have to run the two resumes he picked out (mine and one other) passed the military guys to get their approval. He should know within about two weeks, probably sooner. It almost sounds like the job is mine, although we haven’t discussed a salary yet.

Let’s face it: any salary is better than unemployment…

I Love My Dentist

My normal routine: wake up in the morning. Snap my fingers to get Djuna off my hips. Roll over and snuggle with Thing for a few moments. Get up and make the bed. Stumble down the stairs dodging my girls the whole way. In the bathroom: fill the water bowl for the girls. Brush my hair. Brush my teeth. Floss. Wash my face. Then head back up to my room to get dressed. Face the world one more time.

But Sunday, my normal routine was interrupted. As I flossed my teeth, one of them broke in half and popped out! I stood there for a while with the piece in my hand, wondering what to do now. It was just so unexpected.

And unwelcomed, to say the least. I have no insurance. I have no job. I have no money. What am I supposed to do with half a tooth in my head?

My plan = ignore it.

That worked, believe it or not. It wasn’t hurting me as long as I chewed on the other side and kept my tongue away from it the rest of the time.

During the hike that day, Mother convinced me to call my dentist anyway. I couldn’t just leave it like that: a huge hole in the back of my mouth. Who knows what kind of damage I could do to it, making it even worse in the long run.

So, Monday morning I called Dr. Welch – he’s been my dentist for about 20 years now. Celeste, his assistant, answered the phone and got the whole sob story from me. She told me to come on in anyway and they’d see what they could do.

They had to take an x-ray, of course – to see just how extensive the damage was. Then they packed the hole with some temporary goop, saying that it might pop out again tomorrow or it could last 6 months – they had no way of knowing. Dr. Welsh told me to be careful with it, and showed me how to floss around it. Then they sent me home.

And all of that was FREE!

The very moment I get a job (oh, please let it be soon) I’m to have it taken care of, of course. This really is just a temporary fix.

But still – I can’t believe they did all of that and didn’t charge me a dime!

The Saturday Market

I am so lucky: I have a Farmer’s Market within walking distance of my home!

Each Saturday throughout the summer months I have readily available access to all the fresh, local, organic produce I could ever dream of! Farmers from the Matanuska Valley (my hometown) as well as a few from the Kenai Peninsula gather to offer their produce directly to the consumer rather than thru the middle man (that being the grocery stores).

Today’s market had every type of lettuce you can think of, as well as peas, beets, turnips, zucchini, cucumbers, kohlrabi, chard, kale, parsley, carrots, rhubarb, and strawberries. They even have a few booths offering breads, pastries, jams & jellies, fish, mushrooms, house plants, sod, herbs, teas, lotions, lip balms = all of it Made in Alaska.

You gotta love that!

I came home with a huge bundle of kale, three gorgeous white turnips, and a bag full of fresh-picked Matanuska peas. This will make a fine soup, I’m thinking…

My Djuna is So Talented!

I have not been feeling well of late, so have spent the better part of this past week sitting on the couch wrapped up in my wool blanket and watching TV. My girls have loved this and have taken full advantage the readily available lap.

Last night, Djuna was lying on a pillow in my lap with her head draped over the side. Thing was nestled up beside me, and would occasionally look up at me with a look in her eyes that said, “I love you, Mommy!”

So sweet!

Unfortunately part of my not feeling well involves body aches, which means I really can’t sit in one place for very long. My cats get very annoyed with me because every 10 minutes or so, I have to shift my body and try to find a comfortable position – which disturbs their naps, and that is a cardinal offence!

Whenever I shifted, poor Djuna (or Junie, or June Bug, or my Gorilla Pez Dispenser) would have to wake up and get herself resituated once I settled back down. Each time, she’d go thru this routine of yawning, stretching, and getting up off my lap to await her chance at getting comfortable again so she could go back to sleep.

It may have been the angle I was viewing her from but I swear at one point, she actually stretched her ears! It was the strangest thing I’ve ever seen – I didn’t even know it was possible.

She's so talented!

Expedition Update

I just made the final payment on my expedition – I’m getting excited!

Earthwatch only requires a down payment of $300 to hold your space on an expedition, with the remainder of the costs due 120 days prior to the actual date. I always make sure I have all the money in a bank before I even sign up for one, so my current unemployment situation didn’t impact my ability to go.

I got my ticket all paid for back in January, so that is taken care of. I also got all the hotels booked that I’ll need – both in London and in Nairobi - so that’s all taken care of. The only things left to do is apply for a special visa to get out of Kenya, get my inoculations up to date, and finish filling out all the paperwork.

The visa is a special one, over and above your regular passport, that is required in order to leave Kenya. It costs $50 and is only good for 6 months, so I need to time it just right. I’ll send the paperwork off to Washington D.C. about 6 weeks prior to my expedition, and hope they only take maybe 4 weeks to process them. That will ensure that I have enough time on it, should the worst happen and I get stuck there for whatever reason.

Since I have traveled out of the country twice before, there really are only two diseases I’m not covered for yet: Yellow Fever and Malaria. The first one will be a shot (maybe two or three?) so I’ll do that about 2 months prior to my expedition, just incase I get a reaction to it. The second one is typically pills that you start taking a week prior to leaving and on thru a month after you return. At least, that’s what I did for my Costa Rica trip – but I think I read somewhere that the malaria in Africa is resistant to certain types of drugs, so it might be a different medication that I need. We’ll see…

The paperwork is partially filled out. Earthwatch has 4 different forms they need for each volunteer: the first one is a personal profile, to let them know who you are and why you chose to go on that particular expedition. The second one is a health questionnaire that lets them know your general health and what special attention you might need. The third one is the travel form that gives them all your flight information so they know when to expect you and how to get hold of you if you’re late. The final one is a liability release – this is field work, after all, and accidents do happen.

It’s the third one is the one that’s holding me up. It has to be signed off by a medical doctor - which requires a physical examination – which in turn requires an actual doctor’s appointment. Since I have no job, I have no insurance. I was really hoping that I would have found a job by now, but since it hasn’t happened yet, and since most places have a 90-day waiting period before insurance kicks in, it looks like I’ll have to pay for it myself.

And the inoculations, too – come to think of it. Perhaps I could combine the two? Get my physical AND my shots all at the same time… I’ll have to think about that.

I Hate It When That Happens!

We had another Family Hike yesterday – up at the Eagle River Nature Center. It was a gorgeous day, with clear blue skies and lots of sun (read: it was excruciatingly hot). The group was small – just Mother, Trish, and myself – but we had fun anyway.

It didn’t quite go as planned, however. We were supposed to have hiked the Dew Mound Trail – a 6 mile loop that heads out to a small lake and loops back around to the nature center again. Unfortunately the cow parsnip had grown so fast and so thick the volunteers at the center hadn’t been able to clear it off the trail yet, so we decided to be safe and simply hike a different trail. We really didn’t want to risk anybody having a bad reaction to it – a trip to the hospital does NOT sound like fun.

The trail we actually did hike is the Albert Loop Trail – a smaller 3 mile loop that takes you out to the beaver ponds and past the river. There is a lot of bear activity out at the nature center on a regular basis, and that day in particular they had just spotted a black bear not 10 minutes prior to our arrival – so we had to be extra careful. If it’s not one thing, it’s another! Hiking in Alaska can be an adventure… but that’s why we love it.

As I said, the day was gorgeous – the company was great – and all in all we had a good hike.

When I got home, I downloaded my memory card onto my computer (all 70 photos) just like I always do. I put them into a temporary folder, then deleted them off the memory card and reformatted it for the next hike.

Once that was taken care of, I went to the temporary folder and copied all the photos out of it and into the Hiking files, where I keep all my pictures. Then I went back to the temporary folder and started weeding thru the pictures, picking out the six best shots. I deleted the ones I didn’t want, made a PDF of the ones I did want, and uploaded the files onto my facebook page.

I am always very careful to delete files I don’t need, and to keep my recycle bin empty as much as possible, so when everything was taken care of and I had it all set up the way I wanted it – I deleted the temp file, emptied the trash can, and cleaned everything off.

Then I went back to my Hiking folder to look at the pictures one more time = only to realize they weren’t there!

All 70 photos were gone!

Apparently what I had done without realizing it was – rather of copying and pasting them into the folder, I created a short-cut instead. So, all those files in my Hiking folder was simply a link back to the temporary folder WHICH NO LONGER EXISTS!

I hate it when that happens…

Cat Sitting

My friend Elizabeth went out of town (out of state, actually) for a long weekend, so asked me to take care of her cats for her while she was gone. I was happy to accept, and even got paid for doing it (this was a surprise – I didn’t really expect that).

She has three cats: Thumbelina, Lumpy, and Moesha. All three of these cats are about five times bigger than my two combined! I’m always amazed at the size of normal cats…one of the draw-backs to having tiny girls, I guess.

Anyway, Lumpy is a gorgeous long haired grey cat. He’s a Norwegian Forest Cat, I think – he has papers, but since he was adopted from a homeless shelter, they got lost somewhere. He is a very sweet cat; friendly and loves to play with a feather on a string. He does have a few issues with the potty, so I had to clean up after him. Thankfully, he wasn’t as bad as my Alien – the clean up was just a matter of picking up the poop from the floor next to his potty.

Moesha is a mutt-cat. I honestly never even saw her: she hid out behind a pile of clothing in the closet the whole time I was there. I did see the occasional ear poking out, so I think she’s a chocolate brown colored cat. Elizabeth assured me that was normal behavior for her, so I wasn’t too worried. I did check on her each day to make sure she was still there, but other than that I didn’t have much interaction with her.

Thumbelina was the problem child. Contrary to what you might expect from a cat named Thumbelina, this girl is HUGE. I’ve never really seen a cat quite that large. Her name comes from the fact that she has extra digits on each paw – two thumbs for each foot. She is all nice and lovey-dovey to her owner… quite a different story for every other person on the planet. And unfortunately she’s the one who had to have medication administered each day.

She has a colon problem and gets her medicine smeared into her ear once a day (the ear provides quick access to blood vessels, allowing the meds to be absorbed into her system quickly and painlessly). Elizabeth showed me how to do it, so nice and easy.

Quite a different story when I tried it. Thumbelina turned into the Cat from Hell in about two seconds flat.

My first day, I attempted to do it on my own. I had a towel and threw it over her, then tackled her with the entire weight of my body. I actually had her down and immobilized, but couldn’t reach the meds so had to let her go. There was no second chance. Thumbelina was hissing, spitting, growling, howling, and running. And I have to admit, I was shaking. She can be pretty intimidating…

I let her calm down for about an hour, then went downstairs to the café and got reinforcements. Once again, a towel thrown over the cat – this time with somebody else holding her down – allowed me to very quickly smear the meds in her hear. In about 2 minutes it was done, and we left Thumbelina to recover on her own.

The following three days, I brought my roommate to help me. We managed to get her each time with minimal stress for all involved. Thumbelina managed to wound both of us, but not too badly. I think everybody involved was very happy when Elizabeth came home!

Living with a Roommate

I’m happy to report that having a roommate again, after over 20 years of living alone, has not been as bad as I feared it would be. I lucked out, I think…Trish turned out to be a very nice girl.

She’s younger than I am – about the age my niece Katy is – and is definitely a night owl. If she had her “dream schedule” she would stay up each night till probably 4:00 or 5:00 in the morning, then sleep in each day till 1:00 in the afternoon. Me, I’m in bed by 10:00 and up by 6:30 usually.

Her work schedule is not so flexible, however – although it is a rotating one. Some weeks she’s on the 1-10 shift, then she’s on the 9-6 shift, then the 6-3, the 8-5, and then back to the 1-10 shift. It’s all very confusing but she has a schedule printed out that she follows, so she always knows when to set her alarm each morning. I rarely even see her more than a few minutes a day during the week.

Our weekends have been quite fun, though. She’s really interested in seeing as much of the state as she can during her short time here, so I’ve been taking her out hiking all over the place. She joins in on our Family Hiking Series, so has been to the Coastal Trail, the Power Line Pass Trail, the Matanuska River Trail, and will go with us this Sunday to the Dew Mound Trail out in Eagle River. I’ve also taken her to Winner Creek, which is one of my favorite trails out in Girdwood. In the few weeks left to her, she’ll go with us on several other hikes as well, including up to Hatcher’s Pass and out to the South Fork Eagle River (two more of my favorites).

Mother kindly invited us out to dinner at the farm, so the other day we took off right after work. It was a nice sunny day, so the farm with beautiful with all the flowers and gardens growing. The chickens were out and about, but the turkeys were busy setting on their nests so we didn’t get to see them. We even got to meet the burros, although I couldn’t get them to talk to us. Mother fixed a special meal for Trish featuring moose meat and halibut filets, along with home-grown salad (picked right there from her garden), yams, corn on the cob, yogurt & berries, and cinnamon rolls. We ate so much it hurt…

Our best weekend yet was when we got to go to Seward for a cruise out in the fjords! We drove out to Seward Friday after work, getting to our hotel by 8:30 that night. We boarded the boat Saturday morning and headed out by 10:00. We got to see all sorts of animals: humpback whales, orcas, porpoises, sea lions, harbor seals, sea otters, and birds of ALL kinds. We even got to see a HUGE hunk of the Aialik Glacier fall off into the ocean (captain said it was bigger than 3 houses), creating a wave over 100’ tall. On the way back in to harbor we got to stop off at Fox Island for an all-you-can-eat dinner of prime rib, salmon, and king crab! The next morning we had about 2 hours to spend at the Sea Life Center. Admittedly, that’s not nearly enough time – but at least she got to see it, and did some shopping at the gift shop for some souvenirs.

Hopefully, she’ll go home at the end of the month with some good memories of her time here. Maybe even she’ll come back some day!

Green Building Council Update

My biggest task as chair of the CRGBC-AK group (Cascadia Region Green Building Council – Alaska Branch) has been to ensure that meeting notices get out to everybody.

I am rather anal and obsessively tidy so this is relatively easy for me. I created a template for both the meeting announcements and the meeting minutes: I simply fill out the pertinent items each time and have it ready to go in a flash. The announcement goes out a week before the meetings, with a reminder email going out the day before. The meeting minutes go out the day after the meeting (or as soon as I get them written up, depending on my schedule).

Creating the distribution list is an on-going thing. I got the main list consisting of actual paid members from our director and have been adding names to it on a regular basis. Eventually, I’ll have the whole group on one list. From that we can start recruiting more actual paid members and generate more activity in general.

Of course, having meeting announcements and minutes is only part of the program: you also need speakers for each meeting. So I’ve been working on our schedule, too. I’ve got speakers lined up through November, and have sent out an email asking for input from the group as to what/who they might like to have as a guest speaker.

I have a lunch meeting next week to hopefully line up another one!

Speaking of lunch meetings, I had one just last week with our Events Coordinator, brain-storming over ways to get people more interested in our group. We got some good ideas going, and hope to have an event each month. I believe the event for July is going to be a group hike followed by a pot-luck cook-out. This will be a good way to get people outside and talking together: sort of a social gathering more than an actual learning event. Later on we’ll work on things like panel discussions, workshops and the like.

Four times a year, the Cascadia Region has a teleconference meeting for all the branch chairs; I got to participate in my first one last week. There were a lot of people on the line from Oregon, Washington, British Columbia, and Alaska! We all talked about things that were going on in each branch; what works well, what needs worked one, and what is being planned for the future. It was really enlightening being part of this phone call, I must say. It gave me a lot of ideas to pass on to our Events Coordinator and to our Membership Coordinator, too.

All in all, it’s going pretty well so far. Let’s hope I can keep the momentum going…

And if you’re at all interested in Energy Efficiency and finding a better way = feel free to join us. We meet on the third Tuesday of each month, from noon to 1:00.

We’d love to see you there!

Lots Going On in My Life

My own life is pretty busy lately too. Once again, I’ll offer up a brief recap of all the goings on for you.

Family Hiking

Our Family Hiking season is in full swing, finally. I do enjoy hiking – especially with family and friends. Our last hike, however, wasn’t so much fun. We met down at the Pt. Woronzof parking lot and headed off on the coastal trail towards Kincaid Park. Normally, this is one of my favorite stretches on the coastal trail: it’s away from downtown, so you don’t have to walk past people’s back yards, or deal with parking lots every 10 feet. Instead, you get the ocean on one side of the trail and the forest on the other side = both spectacular in their own rights. This time of year, and this year in particular, the mosquitoes are just woken up from their winter hibernation – and they are HUNGRY. It was bad at first, and just kept on getting worse the farther into the woods we went. By the time we finally decided to turn around and head back to the car, we were almost running to get away from the nasty little beasts. I had to laugh: my sister-in-law wanted me to take a picture of one of the mile markers for her. I had to snap a shot as fast as humanly (and technologically) possible just to avoid loosing a pint of blood. I hope that shot was worth the sacrifice I made to get it!

Our next hike is going to be much better. It’s up in the mountains, so the bugs wont be as bad (they don’t really like high winds, and it’s typically windy up there) – and at this time of summer the trail should be cleared of all the snow & ice. Last year, we tried it a bit too early and had to make our way thought drifts of snow that were up to my hips! I’ll let you know how it goes later one…

Bird TLC

As I mentioned in my previous posting, I gave a tour at the zoo to a friend who volunteers at Bird TLC a few weeks ago – and she returned the favor by giving me a tour of Bird TLC! I’ve never been there before, so this was quite a treat for me. It’s rather an industrial sort of building; not very impressive from the outside. Once you get inside, though, you start to see all the work they manage to do in there. It’s really quite something! They take in injured and orphaned birds from all over the state and nurse them back to health so they can be rehabilitated and released back out into the wilds, where they belong. Unfortunately, some birds that come into their establishment can never be re-released. That’s how the zoo gets all of their birds: the ones who couldn’t live by themselves. I got to see a lot of really cool birds on my tour: a nest of tiny little chickadee hatchlings, some older not-quite-flighted-yet magpie chicks, a red-tailed hawk recovering from a car accident, a tub full of baby ducklings of various breeds, several bald eagles out back who are too injured to ever be released, and one bird who was seriously injured laying flat out on its back all bundled up in bandages (I don’t know what kind of bird that was – but it was big enough to have been an eagle).

Seward with Mother

Mother decided that she wanted to take a drive out to Seward the other day, so she invited me to go with her. Her excuse was to look at some property she found for sale, but honestly she just likes Seward. Any excuse will do! And I was quite happy to go along, too. We took off about 10:00 from my house and got to the Summit Lake Lodge just in time for a late lunch. From there, it was just a short way to Seward, so we were able to check in to our hotel by 2:00. Once we got all our stuff stored away, we headed out to the lake that’s just on the outskirts of town. There’s a boardwalk that goes around part of the lake, and a footpath that completes the loop. We’d never been on that trail before, so it was quite fun for us. We saw a lot of wildflowers, interesting houses, HUGE rocks, and the cutest little creek that ambles by a park bench. Dinner that night was at a Chinese place we’d never tried before: I have to say I wasn’t overly impressed. It wasn’t bad, but it wasn’t that good either.

Early to bed means early to rise: we got checked out of the hotel and made our way to Exit Glacier for a nice stroll there. Again, we tried a few trails that we’d never been on before, so it was fun too. I had to laugh: at one point we came across these three girls walking up towards the trail from the river bed. They were barefoot – which is impressive since it’s cold and rocky – and one of the girls called out to us, saying “Whatever you do, don’t go wading in the river: it’s Cold!” I laughed and said “Well, yeah - it’s a glacier river!” A guy behind us just about fell over, he was laughing so hard. He thought it was so funny they hadn’t realized a glacier river would actually be cold! Some things you just have to experience yourself to understand.

We headed on home from Exit Glacier with me driving while Mother napped. At Summit Lake Lodge, we stopped for a brief snack (Mother made chocolate cookies for the trip), switched places at the wheel, and headed on back to Anchorage.

And yes, we did look at property while in Seward: turns out the property listed in the newspaper add was being rented out to a family who had no idea the property was posted for sale! We may have inadvertently stirred up a hornets nest, there.

Eklutna Flats with Lorna

In preparation for my up-coming Africa trip, I am practicing my photography skills as much as possible in order to be Africa-worthy once I get there! My friend Lorna, herself a published photographer with several books under her belt, has been quite helpful in that endeavor (Thank You Lorna!) and took me out to the flats just outside of town a while back. The wild Iris were just beginning to open up, and the Choclate Lilies were everywhere – as was a flower called False Soloman’s Seal, a very pretty little white one with a leaf pattern that was fascinating to me. We had a great time wandering thru the fields, ending up out at the river delta where it meets the ocean. It was a bright and sunny day – not the best conditions for taking photos, but I wasn’t complaining – and best of all the bugs were not up yet, so we weren’t plagued by bloodsuckers to the point of going insane trying to avoid them. We got some really nice shots, too!

Job Hunting

My job hunt continues; nothing promising yet – but a few with potential. The worst shock of the week was getting a letter from the state telling me that my unemployment had run out. Thankfully, I qualified for extended benefits or I would really be in trouble!

Roommate

Trish and I are getting along great – partially because she’s gone most of the time, but also because she is a nice person. She’s only here for a few months, so wants to get out as much as possible to see the sights. We’ve been going out on little hikes, just the two of us, as well as joining in on the Family Hikes. This weekend, we’re heading out to Seward for a cruise out in the Kenai Fjords (yay!) and next week we’re hoping to take the train from Whittier to Fairbanks.

Lots Going On at The Alaska Zoo

I’ve been slightly remiss in my blogging duties, so I’ll try to do a brief recap here of all the goings on at the zoo lately. I had thought it would slow down since school is out and there are no more field trips to deal with, but this month seems to be just as frantic as last month - just in a different way.

Tuesday Night at The Zoo

This is one of my favorite events here at the zoo: we have lectures each Tuesday night throughout the summer months highlighting a different zoo animal, giving people a chance to meet the zookeepers and ask any questions they might have. We try to have that animal on hand – if at all possible – so they can see it up close. We sometimes even have guest speakers come from outside to give the talks: our kick-off lecture this season was by Dr. David Kenny V.M.D., the Field Veterinarian for the Conservation Biology Department of the Denver Zoological Foundation. This one was of particular interest to me since he is part of the team working on the Mongolia project I got to join in on last year. Check out our website for more information on the TNATZ program!

http://www.alaskazoo.org/tnazfnaz.htm

Guided Encounters

I’ve done several Guided Encounters this month. This is a special tour that groups or individuals actually pay for, so I always try to give them their money’s worth. I get to take them behind the scenes at the Polar Bear Exhibit, which is always fun. Sometimes, if we’re lucky, the polar bears will come over to check us out: this gives people an up-close encounter with an incredibly awesome animal.

One of the funnest groups I’ve had in a long time was a troop of Girl Scouts from Kodiak. There were about 10 little girls, age 10-12, along with their 4 chaperones and their troop leader. We had such a great time together; they even sang to me at the end of the tour! I’ve never been sung to before…

Just the other day I got to do one for a class from The Imaginarium consisting of about 8 little 5-year olds and their 2 teachers. They were a fun group too – but Oh My Gosh! What a handful 5-year olds can be. William was the cutest, and of course he was the one who got into trouble the most. I was very impressed with how his teachers dealt with him.

Other Tours

A couple years ago, I took a Nature Writing Workshop with a local author and about 12 other people. We met once a week for 12 weeks and critiqued each other’s writing, learning a lot in the process. One of the ladies I met in the class happens to volunteer at Bird TLC, a group the zoo works very closely with. She contacted me a few weeks ago wanting to take me up on my offer of a guided tour at the zoo. I was very happy to take her and her husband around: she had worked with our Stellar’s Jay in his time of convalescence, so I made sure she got to meet him again.

Last week I happened to be in the right place at the right time and got the opportunity to give a Golf Cart Tour! Our zoo sits on about 25 acres of dirt & gravel paths, so we have a (very old) golf cart that we can offer to patrons who have difficulty getting around. It has to be arranged ahead of time, and I’m thinking there might be a fee involved – but it is available if anybody really needs it. The gentleman who requested it this time was a very nice man who was recovering from lower-back surgery and had never been to the zoo before. Pat Lampi, the director of the zoo, had planned on giving him the tour – but since I happened to show up at the admittance building at just the right time, I volunteered to give it instead and let Pat get back to work. I love golf cart tours! Golf carts just so much fun to drive: it’s like riding bumper cars. Thankfully, my guests (the man and his wife) had as much fun as I did, and didn’t mind the occasional mishaps with the cart.

Animal Updates

Spring in Alaska means there are lots going on with the animals. Moose are giving birth all over town, which unfortunately means lot of orphans: Moose –vs- Car = Orphan. We have 6 of them in the infirmary right now. Baby moose are just the cutest little things but require a lot of hands-on attention when orphaned. They get bottle fed about 6 times a day and typically drink up to 3 gallons of formula each day per baby. This means hours and hours of mixing formula!

Our own musk ox gave birth just three days ago! He/She is a rambunctious little one already, testing out wobbly legs by running real fast and bumping in to things. Apparently turning corners is not as easy as one might think! Mom gets a little concerned whenever her baby gets too far away from her, but one growl sends it right back underneath her, safely tucked between her legs. We don’t know what the sex is yet: it’s a little difficult to tell right off the bat and there’s no way we’re getting in there to look. Mother is WAY too protective for us to attempt that.

The two bear cubs that came to us last fall have finally been moved into their new exhibit. The Bear Cub Den took a bit of prep work to be safe for them, but finally they’re in there and are enjoying the great outdoors. The old elephant house was the perfect place for them when they first arrived: it gave us easy access to them to monitor their health & progress (they were severely underweight and malnourished) but nothing beats clean fresh air and actual dirt to play in!

We got some sad news this past week, too, unfortunately. Sally, our female river otter, died very unexpectedly. A necropsy (an autopsy performed on an animal) revealed that she died of heart failure brought on by renal failure. Sally was brought to us about 5-6 years ago as a tiny little pup who was barely alive. She required months of tube feeding: a tube stuck down into her stomach through which food was given to her. She pulled though and turned in to a lovely young lady, just a joy to watch as she expertly maneuvered her way around the pool of water with her mate Turbo. She will be greatly missed.

Hike with My Roommate, Trish

For Trish’s first day in Alaska, I took her up to the Eagle River Nature Center for a hike! That is one of my favorite places to go and I thought it would be a good introduction to our beautiful state for her: she loved it!

The center was offering one of their free programs that day, titled SPRING WILDFLOWER WALK: naturalist UTE OLSSON will lead a search for the Calypso orchid, wild violets and other early Alaskan spring wildflowers along the Albert Loop trail (3 miles roundtrip). I really like Ute Olsson and know that she is very knowledgeable about this kind of thing, so I thought it would be a really interesting one to attend.

Unfortunately, a whole lot of other people thought the same thing. There were perhaps 35-40 people bunching around Ute trying to hear what she was saying and to see what she was pointing at. Trish and I decided that just wasn’t what we came for, so we ditched the group and headed out on our own.

Back in Anchorage it was overcast and chilly, with spurts of rain off and on – so Trish and I had dressed in sweaters and raingear. In Eagle River, however, it was a bright, clear, sunny day with just the slightest breeze to refresh you as you hike along the trails. It was gorgeous out: we were so happy to be there, even if we did have to peel a layer or two off as we went along. And of course, once again, I forgot to bring my water bottle.

I’m not very familiar with the Albert Loop Trail, but it’s well marked so we had no problems finding our way. It has several boardwalks built out over the water, giving access to some spectacular views along the way. The mud had, for the most part, dried up allowing for easy walking. We even came across a couple of Blue Jays playing in the bushes alongside the trail.

Our hike also gave me an opportunity to practice up on my plant-identification skills, although I had forgotten to bring my books with me so there were some I just couldn’t remember. Trish was polite enough to be interested in everything – and had lots of questions of her own to ask. Before we knew it, we were back at the main center and found that two hours had passed!

Funny: Trish kept saying “The air smells different – I can’t quite figure out what it is.” I thought maybe it was just a whole new ecosystem, with all new plants, animals, and even soil that made things smell so different to her. She thought perhaps it was the remoteness of it all (not so much pollution in the air). Regardless, she loves the smell and kept taking in deep breaths and looking about her with a smile on her face.

Discovery Tours are Back!

This is my favorite kind of tour to give at the zoo: it’s offered every day from Noon to 2:00 and costs $20 (this includes entrance to the zoo). For that, you get a guided tour of the zoo, behind-the-scenes visits with both the polar bears and the tigers, and all the information I can think of about both animals AND plants, as well as some personal history of my life in Alaska. It’s open to anybody who signs up for it and you don’t need to make reservations: just show up, pay the fee, and off we go!

It took a bit of study to prepare for it, I have to admit. Prior to its conception, I barely knew a thing about plants. The education director for the zoo printed out a few pages of information on a handful of plants that can be found at the zoo, so I at least had that to begin with. But I love to learn new things, so took it upon myself to find out more.

The Eagle River Nature Center offers free programs to the public pretty much every Sunday throughout the year on various subjects, some of which were happily on the native plant life in the area. I attended a few of them - with my camera, clipboard, notepad, and pen in hand – and ended up getting to know the presenter well enough to ask him for one-on-one help.

Let’s call him The Plant Guy.

The Plant Guy was very knowledgeable about native plant species and took me on several hikes around the area, answering all my “What’s this one?” questions and giving me all the information he had on them. He even agreed to come with me to the zoo and led an informal training session with our tour guides. He also happened to be the president of the Alaska Native Plant Society group and invited me to several of their outings, introducing me to Verna Pratt (a local native plant HERO) and giving me all sorts of new contacts for more information.

On top of all that I did some research on my own: taking an on-line botany class, buying several native plant guides for the area, and scouring the local newspaper for articles on plants, gardening, and the fight against invasive species.

All in all, I discovered a love for plants that I didn’t know I had. They are truly fascinating creatures, and it has made my hiking all the more wonderful by opening a whole new landscape to my vision.

Getting back to the subject of the tour, I think my guests have fun with it (and me). The first one of the season is always a bit nerve-wracking however. Over the winter, with all the snow & ice, one tends to forget about plants and green stuff – so when summer finally does arrive again, I always worry that I’ve forgotten everything. I typically will go to the zoo with my books for a walkabout on my own, just to reacquaint myself with the plants and try to pick up a few new tidbits to share with my guests. So by the time I actually do a Discovery Tour, with actual paying guests, I feel more confident that I can give them their money’s worth.

My first tour this year was with a local man and his wife, as well as their guest from out of state. Unfortunately, that guest happened to be a Biologist who is moving up here to work with our local Fish & Game people – so that added a whole new level of intimidation on me, because I knew that he knew stuff I didn’t and would spot my mistakes immediately!

Thankfully, though, he was very nice and if I did make any goofs, he didn’t bring them to my attention. He actually asked a lot of really in-depth questions and got me going on some really fascinating subjects. That did make us about half an hour late finishing the tour, but since nobody had any pressing chores waiting to be done, it was ok.

I even managed to put in a plug for our Tuesday Night at the Zoo program, telling them about the speaker who is coming up from the Denver Zoo to present our first one:

“Travel Diaries of a Zoo Vet” – Dr. David Kenny V.M.D. will share animal highlights from his travels conducting research as a Field Veterinarian for the Denver Zoo Conservation Biology Department. Join us for this talk at The Alaska Zoo at 7pm on Tuesday June 2 and help us kick-off our annual "Tuesday Night at the Zoo" summer lecture series. Each Tuesday features a different speaker and topic, sponsored by ConocoPhillips and Anchorage Daily News. Admission rates apply, with no additional charge for attending programs.

I Have a Roommate

I picked her up at the airport last night. So far, she’s nice; we’ll get along fairly well, I think.

Getting ready for her was an ordeal, to say the least. I’ve already told you about the closet issue. That was bad enough, but it pales in comparison to moving the computer – to say nothing of getting the furniture arranged! Talk about an aching back… I may never move again.

Thank God for good friends! Lorna went above and beyond the call of duty, I have to say. I met with her on Wednesday at the Terra Bella Café for some tea and to look at her photographs, and happened to mention that I had no idea how I was going to deal with the computer. She very generously offered to help out.

Little did she know what she was signing up for!

I got most of the small stuff moved ahead of her arrival, so when she did show up all we would have to do was the big stuff. The real bugger turned out to be the desk. I don’t like the desk in the first place but can’t afford a different one at the moment. Taking it apart and putting it back together turned out to be … difficult, to put it mildly.

With some rather impressing body contortions and a few acrobatic moves, we finally did manage to get it put back together. And I must say – it looks rather spiffy in its new corner! She got the computer hooked back up again, and GCI got the internet working again – so I’m up and running.

Then we tackled the furniture.

My sister-in-law had a bed for me to borrow, along with a night stand. The trouble was getting it from Palmer to Anchorage. Both she and my brother are currently down with tonsillitis, and had spent the previous day in the hospital: neither was in any condition to move furniture. My mother had a truck, but it has no top and it was raining pretty heavily (still is, for that matter).

Once again Lorna stepped up to the plate and offered her van.

So, we drove down to my brother’s house to pick up the furniture - only to discover that the bed wouldn’t fit into her van! The four of us did some brainstorming and came up with a plan.

We put the mattress and other smaller stuff into Lorna’s van. We put the frame into my brother’s truck (which also has no top). I drove his truck into Anchorage with Lorna following me in her van, and we put all the furniture into my garage. The following day, Reed drove Heather’s car to work, while Heather hitched a ride with my mother who was coming in to shampoo my carpets. Heather drove their truck home, Mother and I worked on my carpets, and everybody got their cars back.

Whew!

The carpet cleaning went very well, I must say. I had spot cleaned the worst areas with a solution designed specifically for cat urine (poor little Alien didn’t use his potty much) so along with the cleaning solution she had all the stains are now gone. I’m not very happy with the smells, however… I can still smell cat urine. I’m hoping that will dissipate with open windows and a candle.

Moving the furniture was my next battle, and for this I called on my friend Bryan.

That bed frame turned out to be almost more of a hassle that it’s worth! When we picked it up from Heather’s house, she told me “What ever you do, don’t take it a part! The frame is twisted, so getting it put back together again is REALLY difficult.” But when Bryan and I tried to get it up the stairs into the house, it simply wouldn’t fit. We had to take it apart.

That’s when we discovered that not only did we not have the proper tool to get the screws undone (they required an Allen wrench, not a flat or Phillips screw driver) but the screws themselves had been stripped and were darned near impossible to get out. He finally managed somehow, by applying bruit strength I think, and we got it disassembled and up into the room where we found out that it was a BREEZE to get back together! Perhaps having spent all that time as an actual bed got the frame bent back into shape? Regardless, I was very happy about that and was able to get the final touches on her room just in time to go pick her up.

Today, I’m going hiking… and I’m NOT moving ANY furniture!

Oh, My Aching Back!

I’ve made a bit of progress today in my attempt to rearrange the house for my new roommate. In fact, I may have done too much – at least, according to my lower back: I’m getting spasms as we speak. Sleep tonight may not be very restful.

I feel good about how much I accomplished, though. I went thru all my clothes and weeded out the ones I haven’t worn in at least a year, and ended up with a pile of clothes on the floor that would have stood taller than me had it not fallen over.

I kept a tally of it as I bagged it all so that I could deduct the donation on my taxes this year. I ended up with 10 dresses, 65 shirts, 25 sweaters, 12 pair of pants, 13 pair of shoes, 10 coats, 1 robe, 1 sleepshirt, and 2 pantsuits.

I took them down to the Alaska Women’s Resource office off Northern Lights Boulevard between C Street and Arctic. If you have women’s clothing you no longer use, please consider giving to them! Talk to Megan at 279-5000 to arrange everything.

Once I got all my clothes weeded out, I organized the closet in my own bedroom in order to fit them all. This entailed cleaning out the dresser that’s in there so that I could use the drawers for clothing rather than for miscellaneous stuff. This also entailed cleaning out the closet in my library so that I could store the miscellaneous stuff there instead. I also had to clean out the coat closet downstairs as well as the entry way where I keep a lot of shoes.

So, by cleaning out one closet (in the spare room) for my roommate, I ended up cleaning out three other closets (my bedroom, the library, and the coat closet downstairs). I also ended up waxing the wood floor in the entry way; might as well, since it was cleaned off anyway.

After taking 7 large bags full of clothing to the Ak. Women’s Resource office and treating myself to lunch at the Middle Way Café, I then decided to face the computer issue.

I called GCI and scheduled an appointment for them to come give me another hook-up downstairs. I worked out somewhat of a plan for how I want to arrange things down there. And I cleaned out the file drawer, throwing away unnecessary paperwork and filing stuff that had been piled up for (I’m embarrassed to say) almost a year now.

I was on a roll by this time, so I gathered together all the CDs scattered all over the house, and from the car as well, and put them back in to their place in the CD cabinet. Then I cleaned the kitchen and got the dishes washed.

The highlight of the day was finding a wooden box stored in the back of one of my closets that I’d forgotten I had. I love wooden boxes (strange, I know – but I do) and this one is just perfect for organizing all my hand-made cards! I think it used to be either from an old library or office or something – it has divider cards in it, labeled with the alphabet, and an adjustable backstop so I can store however many cards I have at the time.

I love it!

Camping in Seward

This week I got to go camping out on the beach in Seward with my friend Elizabeth. We had a great time, even though it rained all night and was quite chilly.

Elizabeth is taking some really difficult math classes at the University, so really needed to take a break from all that heavy thinking. She drove directly from her last class of the week to my house Thursday afternoon. We packed up my car and headed out from there.

I’d like to take a moment to brag, here: I drive just a regular old car. It’s a 2001 Nissan Sentra - nothing special, but I like it. It does get GREAT gas mileage, however – even better, in my opinion, than some of those high-priced hybrid cars. We drove all the way to Seward and back on LESS than half a tank of gas!

Anyway, our camping spot was at Miller’s Landing. If you drive through Seward and keep going passed the huge waterfall, you eventually end up at a little point sticking out into the ocean. I’ve been out that way before, but this was my first time staying there.

As we were driving out I saw something in the ocean, so we stopped to see what it was. I was amazed to see a group of roughly 8-9 sea lions just hanging out in the water, flapping their flippers and burping like sea lions do. I don’t think I’ve ever seen that many so close to town before. We looked around and actually found about 5-6 groupings of them. We thought perhaps there must be some good munchies or something, to attract that many of them.

We eventually got our spot located and went to work setting up camp. The tent Elizabeth brought was a nice little one, a two-man tent and supposedly easy to assembly. I have to admit it did take a while to figure out exactly how to put the thing together, but with both our brains working on the problem we did eventually get it figured out.

Then Elizabeth got our camp fire going and our dinner cooking. She is a great cook, by the way. The few times she’s invited me over for dinner have been eagerly accepted, and I always return home happily full of great food. This time our dinner consisted of a couple fillets of salmon and some Great Harvest bread with locally made cheese. Later on, sitting by the campfire at night, we consumed a bottle of wine and some organic free-trade chocolate that went perfectly with our conversation.

I have my niece to thank for our conversation that night. She is writing a paper for her history class titled “Ethiopia and the Civil Rights Movement” and had sent me the rough draft asking for my advice. Elizabeth and I spent a good two hours reading it and taking notes on what we thought might make it better. It was a very stimulating evening; we hardly noticed the rain except for the fact that it made my red pen bleed all over the paper. I hope Katy can read our notes, although I did summarize them in an email for her.

Having nearly frozen to death out in the Gobi desert last year, I learned my lesson and brought not only my sleeping bag but also a self-inflating insulated pad to sleep on AND a blanket to lay over me! I’m so glad I did, because – as I mentioned earlier – it was a chilly night. It also rained all night long.

We awoke around 6:00 am to the sounds and smells of the forest mixed in with the ocean nearby. A perfect way to wake up! Breakfast consisted of potatoes, onions, and eggs with more Great Harvest bread & cheese followed by a nice HOT cup of tea over in the office where we paid for our camping site.

We had taken our time with breakfast so it wasn’t until around 10:00 that we walked through the front door of the Seward Sealife Center. As we were standing at the ticket counter I realized I had forgotten to bring the paper that had the names of the people we were supposed to meet written on it, but one of the girls working there overheard me and asked “Are you Ruth and Elizabeth from The Alaska Zoo?” She called the education director down to the admissions counter, and he took us back to the mammal research area.

And by the way, thank you Katie Larson for getting that arranged for us. The zoo has sort of an unofficial partnership with the Sealife Center, helping each other out whenever possible – so with just a few emails and phone calls our behind-the-scenes adventure was all arranged!

We got to meet one of the female Stellar sea lions, an orphaned sea otter, and some of the harbor seals – all of whom were hanging out in the research area. The center is attempting to breed the Stellar sea lions this year, so we were not able to meet their male. He’s pumped full of hormones at the moment, and is quite dangerous and unpredictable. We did get a brief tour of their facilities and some insight into the research currently going on, which was very interesting because Elizabeth is currently *studying the field of marine debris* and was asking all kinds of in-depth questions. The scientists working there were more than happy to talk about their projects.

*Clarification: I don’t know exactly what degree Elizabeth is working towards. As soon as I find out, I will come back and edit this posting to correctly reflect the title, since I know it’s a lot of hard work and should be acknowledged as such by giving it the proper name.*

We poked around the public side of the center, also. Amazingly enough Elizabeth had never been there, so everything was brand new and exciting to her. I have been there almost every year since it opened, but I love it and loved showing it to her. The puffin exhibit is always a favorite, as is Woody the male Stellar sea lion – who is roughly 2,200 pounds and is just plain HUGE!

We rounded out our visit to the center by hitting the gift shop. I could spend hundreds of dollars there. They have some beautiful art work on sale, as well as some really interesting books & DVDs. Elizabeth got a couple books and a shark puppet for her nephew, and we headed off to find a place to eat a late lunch.

A hike up to Exit Glacier concluded our trip to Seward, and we arrived home by around 7:30 Friday night. Now Elizabeth is back to work on her math homework, and I’m getting back to my job hunting.

First Hike of the Season

We had our first hike of the season this weekend! I am of course referring to our annual Family Hiking Series, which this year began with the Ship Creek Trail.

As usual, I arranged to meet up with everybody at the trailhead at 2:00. This meant heading downtown to the parking lot of one of our local tourist shops, called The Ulu Factory.

I wasn’t sure who would be there. Mother usually goes to all of the hikes but was in Cordova this time with my niece Tara. I had heard from my friend Tina saying that she planned to go, but as you know sometimes other things come up. I was prepared to go it alone, but was happy to see not only Tina and her daughter Shannon, but also my sister Kelly and her daughter Laurel. I was even happier to see that Laurel had brought her son Corbin along too! Half-way through the hike, my friend Tuesday and her buddy showed up as well; but they were walking a bit faster than we were, so they headed off by themselves after a brief meeting with our group.

Ship Creek Trail is a nice, wide, paved path that winds along beside Ship Creek through the industrial section of town. It’s about 2.6 miles long, from the Ulu Factory to Tyson Elementary in Mountain View. It was only just opened to the public last year, but already I can see the bicyclers and roller-bladers are claiming it. Unfortunately, so are the homeless people – but we honestly didn’t see nearly as many as we had last year, so maybe they’ve moved on to a less populated spot.

Corbin, who just turned 1 year old a few weeks ago, rode on his mother’s back in a nice little backpack. He is learning all sorts of new words, and is a very happy little boy. He chortled and laughed pretty much the whole two hours we were out there. Once we made it back to our cars, we sat out on the grass a while, letting him stretch his legs a bit and get a change of diaper. He is such a doll…

Our next hike will be on the coastal trail, from Pt. Woronzof up towards Kincaid Park.

New Roommate

Well, I’m doing it. I’m getting a roommate.

I have to admit to a bit of apprehension over the issue: I haven’t lived with another human being for over 20 years! I don’t know how this will go…

But financial difficulties call for extreme measures, so I talked to the curator of the zoo and told her that I could house the summer intern this year.

There are several advantages to this:

1. She’s female

2. She works for the zoo, which not only tells me what kind of person she most likely is but also I’m located nearby so she doesn’t need a car – just a bike or a good pair of walking shoes

3. She’ll only be here for 9 weeks – long enough to help out with my bills until I can find a job, yet short enough that I don’t freak out if it turns out we don’t get along.

She arrives from Wisconsin on May 30, so this gives me almost a week to prepare for her. I have a lot of rearranging to do.

First thing is to tackle my clothes. I have all my clothes in the closet that will be hers (it’s bigger than the closet in my own room) which need to be weeded through and moved over. I now have a HUGE pile on the floor in here, ready to be donated to the women’s shelter. While I’m at it, I’m also going to go through the coat closet downstairs and get rid of old coats I never wear anymore, thereby making room for her coats.

Next thing to tackle is the computer. I need to get it set up downstairs now, but have no real idea of where to put it. I need to figure that out because I’ll have to get GCI to come punch yet another hole through my house to provide internet access. I’d also really like to get a different computer desk. I don’t like the one I have, but really can’t afford a new one so will most likely just keep it anyway.

Once that’s all taken care of, I need to deal with the carpet in this room. Alien, God rest his soul, was a dear sweet cat - but he did manage to pee just about everywhere in here. The carpet really needs to be replaced, as does the molding around the base of the wall – but again, I just can’t afford that. What I will do is a deep cleaning with Mother’s carpet shampooer, and then will have to strategically arrange furniture to hide the worst spots.

Speaking of furniture, that leads me to my next problem. I have no furniture! I think I can borrow a bed from either Mother or my sister-in-law, and I’m hoping to find a night stand for her. I have a bookshelf in the garage she can use, and I’m planning on leaving the chair in here (Djuna has claimed it, since it has her heating pad on it).

Somewhere during all of this, I will have to clean out her bathroom. I have towels and all that, so really it’s just a matter of getting a few little nick-nacks out so she can put her own nick-nacks in. And I really should get the fridge arranged so that she can have a couple shelves for her food.

All in all, it’s a doable thing: it just takes a bit of work. OH, and I should probably make sure she has a key!

I’m So Excited

My favorite author has come out with a new book! I got it today and am so looking forward to reading it.

Here’s what the Barnes & Noble website has to say about it:

The Link: Uncovering Our Earliest Ancestor
- by Colin Tudge

Synopsis

For more than a century, scientists have raced to unravel the human family tree and have grappled with its complications. Now, with an astonishing new discovery, everything we thought we knew about primate origins could change. Lying inside a high-security vault, deep within the heart of one of the world’s leading natural history museums, is the scientific find of a lifetime — a perfectly fossilized early primate, older than the previously most famous primate fossil, Lucy, by forty-four million years.

A secret until now, the fossil — “Ida” to the researchers who have painstakingly verified her provenance — is the most complete primate fossil ever found. Forty-seven million years old, Ida rewrites what we’ve assumed about the earliest primate origins. Her completeness is unparalleled — so much of what we understand about evolution comes from partial fossils and even single bones, but Ida’s fossilization offers much more than that, from a haunting “skin shadow” to her stomach contents. And, remarkably, knowledge of her discovery and existence almost never saw the light of day.

With exclusive access to the first scientists to study her, the award-winning science writer Colin Tudge tells the history of Ida and her place in the world. A magnificent, cutting-edge scientific detective story followed her discovery, and The Link offers a wide-ranging investigation into Ida and our earliest origins. At the same time, it opens a stunningly evocative window into our past and changes what we know about primate evolution and, ultimately, our own.

Biography

Colin Tudge is a biologist by education and a writer by inclination—on biology, food and agriculture, and the philosophy of science. His books include The Tree, Feeding People Is Easy, Consider the Birds, and The Time Before History.

For more information about the author, go to www.colintudge.com

Lauren’s Graduation Ceremony

My niece, Lauren, graduated from high school last night.

I went to the Performing Arts Center in Anchorage to attend the ceremonies along with my sister Noel (her mother), my brother Reed and his wife Heather, her grandmother Martha, the Pastor of their church and his wife, and our friends Lisa & Mark. Lauren also had some friends sitting with us, but I’m so bad with names… I’ve forgotten them!

The group of students graduating was from the IDEA Homeschool Program from out in the valley. There was quite a few of them up there, too: I didn’t do an actual headcount, but I’d estimate there were roughly 80+ kids.

It was a very well-choreographed event, with every child knowing exactly where to sit and when to stand; no one stumbled or got out of line (although one girl almost fell off the bleachers when she sat down a little funny). They even had the parents participating.

I was, of course, the super-proud Auntie and got all emotional about my little niece standing up there accepting her diploma AND the scholarship she won for being in the top 10% of her class. I just don’t know how parents can do that on a daily basis: I’d be an emotional wreck if I had kids of my own.

Each child had an opportunity to say a little something before accepting their diploma: most offered thanks to God, their parents, their siblings, and their friends (almost always in that order). Not all of them to advantage of it, but some did.

I have to say one of the more emotional events was when a girl named Jerusalem was called. She walked up to the microphone and got out a paper from which she read her prepared speech. I think she did this because she knew she’d get too emotional to do it without the props.

Turns out, she’s a Hale child. Alaskans will recognize that name from four years ago when the state prosecuted and convicted a man known as Papa Pilgrim. He and his family lived up on a homestead in the mountains near McCarthy. He was convicted of some very serious charges and was given a 14-year sentence, but died in prison back in 2008.

Jerusalem thanked her “new” parents for taking her out of that situation – “unspeakable” was the word she used – and for showing her what a real family should be like, allowing her to grow and learn and have a normal teenage life.

My niece sat in the second row almost dead center of the group. Her beautiful red hair made her stand out, so she was easy to keep an eye on. Her mother handed her diploma to her while I stood by the steps leading up to the stage and got some pictures.

You can see them on my facebook account, if you’re interested!

CRGBC-AK

I’d like to take this opportunity to introduce you to the new Cascadia Region Green Building Council - Alaska Branch (CRGBC-AK) president.

Me.

I’ve been a member of the CRGBC-AK for about 3 years now, and have participated in the group as often as I could, but I never thought I’d be the leader of the group. I’m rather nervous of the idea, truth to tell. I’m more of a follower than a leader.

But they really needed somebody to pick up the reigns, and since I’m a really good organizer and can keep things neat and orderly – they all thought I would be good at the job.

Time will tell.

The Alaska branch of the CRGBC is relatively new. Not many people even know we exist, or if they do they don’t know exactly what it is we do. Our goal for this coming year is to educate people on Energy Efficient Building Practices and to raise awareness of both ourselves and our beliefs.

We don’t really have much of a branch website yet but you can visit the headquarters website and get a better idea as to who we are.

www.cascadiagbc.org

Critter Classes at the Zoo

I’ve been doing a lot of Critter Classes at the zoo lately. The school year is almost ended, so classes from all over the state are getting in that last field trip: a critter class offers a great way to keep little ones engaged for half an hour before turning them loose onto zoo grounds!

I typically meet the class at the admissions booth where they divide themselves up into groups. My classroom can hold 50 people; but for littler ones, it’s best to keep the classes to around 20 kids - otherwise it just gets too much and you loose control of the kids. I have no idea what the other groups do while I take the first group inside – I assume they wander the zoo until it’s their turn to come in.

Inside, I have the kids find a seat, filling up the front rows first and filtering on back to the last row. We have tables set up three across and three deep, each one seating three students. We also have extra chairs scattered here and there for the adult chaperones.

I introduce myself and go over a few of the ground rules (indoor voices, raise your hand, don’t talk while I’m talking, etc…) and then I get to the exciting part of the class.

I have four tubs full of critter stuff: pieces of fur, sculls, bones, teeth, horns, antlers, feathers, and whatnot. I typically take something out of the tub and hold it up for the class to see. Then I ask the kids to raise their hands if they can guess what animal it comes from. Since I only have about 20 minutes with each group, I usually only call on 2 students to see what they think it might be. Sometimes they surprise me and get it, but most times they’re way off (“Is it a dinosaur bone?”). Once we identify what animal it comes from, I’ll tell them a little bit about the animal in general and about the animal we have at the zoo that matches it, maybe even show them a photograph of the zoo animal.

At this point, I call on volunteers from the adult section to hand-walk the item around the class, making sure each child has a chance to feel it, inspect it, smell it, what ever. When I first started doing these classes, I just let the kids pass the items around – but that quickly turned in to a tug-o-war over who gets to hold what and for how long. It’s just so much easier to have the adults help out – even if they did think they were going to just sit back and let me handle the kids a while!

These classes can be a lot of fun, but I learned early on that I should not do them if I’m working on a migraine. The classroom is really bad for echoes! One tiny little voice can reverberate all over the room until it’s turned into a very loud roar. Multiply that by 20+ little kids, all of whom are SO excited to be at the zoo, and the critter stuff is SO gross, or SO cool – you get the picture, I’m sure.

Has Anybody Read This Book?

When I was in high school, probably around 1978 or so, I read a book.

I don’t remember the name of it, nor do I remember the author, but I‘d really like to read that book again. If I can only find somebody who knows what I’m talking about and can give me the missing information!

The basic story is about a man. He’s a very rich man – perhaps the owner of a factory or a big building. He gets burned in a fire, and ends up retreating from society because of the scars. He automates his factory – or building – to the point where he lays everybody off; now it’s just him in the building.

He goes out at night when everybody else is asleep, and comes across a zoo that has been emptied out, all except for a seal that has somehow been abandoned (like that would ever happen in real life!). He befriends the seal and takes it back “home” with him.

He nurses it back to health, builds a huge tank for it, and basically heals a part of himself in the process of taking care of the injured animal.

One day, he decides to take the seal for a swim in the actual ocean. The seal has such a good time he realizes that it needs to be set free. So he goes about having an underwater house built for himself so he can go live with his seal.

One thing leads to another, and you find yourself in the Marianas Trench with the guy and his seal. The trench is so deep that the oxygen bubbles from his scuba gear go down instead of up, leading the man in the wrong direction. He runs out of oxygen and becomes disoriented even further – and winds up taking his mask off.

Does this sound familiar to anybody? Can anybody tell me the title and author of this book?

Anybody?

Ptarmigan Valley Trail

Aqua Aerobics Man’s new truck had to go to the shop for some maintenance work the other day, so I agreed to take him to his recertification class that night. Since it was out in Chugiak and would be 4 hours long, I browsed thru my hiking book and came up with a trail I had never been on before and decided to check it out.

Contrary to all visual evidence, it is springtime in Alaska – and that means bears, so I brought along my backpack loaded down with bear spray, books, binoculars, a water bottle, and my bear whistle. Unfortunately, what it did not contain was mosquito repellant. I really need to get some in there, because springtime in Alaska also means mosquitoes, and they are hungry.

They had the actual parking lot for the trail blocked off, so I had to park my car down the hill a ways at a gravel pit and start my hike out there. That should have told me right off the bat that I was looking at an up-hill hike. Of course, I should have known that to begin with since the book did say that there was some elevation gain.

Ptarmigan Valley is a multi-use trail, so it’s nice and wide to allow for snowmachines, dogsleds, 4-wheelers, you name it. Springtime in Alaska also means break-up: there’s still quite a lot of ice and snow left on the ground, interspersed between patches of mud the occasional dry spot. I had on my good hiking shoes, though, so wasn’t too worried about the terrain.

The elevation gain was a problem, however. I just don’t do up-hill very well: even though my legs have no problem tackling the hills, my head starts pounding almost immediately. Normally I would take some migraine medication prior to starting a hike like that, but I had let my purse run out so didn’t have any on hand.

I would love to say that the surrounding area was just gorgeous, with a view to die for – and I can tell that further on into summer it actually would be. But right now, with no green to be seen and nothing but mud and volcanic ash everywhere – it really was awful looking.

On closer inspection however, I did find that green is beginning to peek thru the winter debris. Trees as just starting to push out their first leaf-buds and plants on the ground have started to send out their first tendrils. Having just attended that lecture on edible wild plants, I actually had a light snack as I headed up the hill.

I end up at Little Peter’s Creek Valley before having to turn around due to trail conditions. Little Peter’s Creek Valley is listed as being 2.5 miles from the trail head, which puts my round trip hike was 5 miles. I must say, that pretty impressive given that it’s the first real hike of the season and I’m NOT in shape.

As always, even on level ground, heading back to the trail head is much faster than the trip out – so I was back in my car a lot sooner then I planned on. Rather than try another trail, I simply drove back to the high school where I’d dropped Aqua Aerobics Man off.

I had forgotten to bring along the book I’m currently reading (Deeper, by Jeff Long) so got the books out of my hiking pack and read thru those instead, re-familiarizing myself with them:
- Hiking Alaska: a Falcon Guide, by Dean Littlepage
- Animal Tracks of Alaska: a Lone Pine Field Guide by Sheldon & Hartson
- Birds of Alaska: a field guide by Stan Tekiela
- Alaskan Wildflowers by Verna Pratt
- Alaska Trees and Shrubs by Leslie Viereck

It was such a nice sunny day I laid out on the hood of my car. I had the windows rolled down so I could hear Norah Jones singing thru my CD player. The birds were playing up in the sky. The high school baseball team was practicing in the field off to my left.

Everything was going great until all of a sudden the music stopped. I thought maybe there was something wrong with my disc (which greatly upset me, because I love Norah Jones) but I could‘t see any visual scratches or anything like that. When I tried to put it back in the player, it wouldn’t go back in.

That’s when I figured out what had happened. Apparently in my car, you can’t listen to an entire CD without turning the car back on = the battery died! I couldn’t believe it, but I was stuck with no jumper cables and a dead car.

Thankfully one of the staff members took pity on my and got my car going again before Aqua Aerobics Man got out of his class. I felt really silly about the whole thing and didn’t really want to admit to him that I’d done that.

So of course, that was the first thing I said when he came out of the door and walked over to my car. But, we had a good laugh about it and headed back in to town.

Our first stop was Fred Meyer’s to get some jumper cables. I had to put my shoes back on since I had taken them off after my hike, so we sat in the parking lot for a while till I got everything put back in order. I stood up, locked the car and shut the door.

Then I turned around, looked into the car, and saw my keys sitting there on the driver’s seat.

This just wasn’t my day!

We actually had to call a cab to come break in to my car to retrieve my keys for me…

Random Quotes

The following are a couple of random quotes taken from some books I'm reading.

The first quote is taken from a book that is extremely well writen: I'd highly recommend it to anybody interested in either the bible, Judaism, or the Middle East.

The second quote is taken from the film appreciation section of the book, and is taking about a film called "L'Age D'Or" (or in English "The Golden Age") which was made in 1930. Oddly enough, this film made the top ten list for Best Ever Made.


Walking the Bible
by Bruce Feiler

Inside the museum we left our bags and proceeded into the atrium. More like a warehouse than an archive, the Egyptian Museum feels like a giant pharaonic pawn shop, where four-thousand-year-old sarcophagi are stacked on top of three-thousand-year-old cartouches on top of five-thousand-year-old mummies. And everything needs dusting. Founded in 1858, the museum outgrew its current facility within months and has never quite recovered. Allowing one minute for each object, it would take nearly nine months to view its 136,000 artifacts. Forty thousand more objects lie crated in the basement, where many have sunk into the ground, requiring excavations. Egypt: where even the museums are archaeological sites.

An Incomplete Education
by Judy Jones and Wiliam Wilson

May as well begin with the documentary footage of the scorpions. Not that it prepares you for the bandits, or the Majorcans, or the fellow kicking a violin down the street. In a way, it does prepare you for the man and his mistress, though not necessarily for the mud they’re rolling in. Things are a little more upbeat at the marquis’ party (ignore the kitchen fire and the gamekeeper who shoots his little boy), especially once the man and mistress get out to the garden, where they try to have sex while seated in two wicker garden chairs. Try, that is, until he is summoned inside to take the minister’s phone call and she busies herself with the toe of the statue. At some point somebody throws a Christmas tree, and archbishop, a plough, a stuffed giraffe, and several pillowfuls of feathers out a window. Then, before you know it, we’re leaving a chateau in the company of four worn-out orgiasts; look for a cross, covered with snow and festooned with a woman’s hair. The End – accompanied by a happy little Spanish march, the kind you might hear at a bullfight.

Edible Wild Plants in Alaska

I joined Mother and my friend Elizabeth up at the Eagle River Nature Center today for a talk on edible wild plants in Alaska. Summer is upon us finally, and for me that means doing the Discovery Tour at The Alaska Zoo. I used this talk as a refresher course on the material I’ll need.

It was a great talk with a slide show followed by a short hike on some trails to see the plants in person. Not that you could see much; summer may be here, but Green isn’t yet.

Briefly, here’s the rundown of some common edible plants.

Please do keep in mind that you may have allergies to some of these foods, so use caution with all plants until you know for certain that they are safe for you. Please also be sure of your identification; some plants that are poisonous mimic others that are edible.

In a disturbed area (for example, the ditch alongside the roadway), you might find horsetail, pineapple weed, dandelion, yarrow, plantain, wild mustard, shepherds purse, lambs quarter, chickweed, goldenrod, stinging nettle, wormwood, sorrel, and Dock.

In a forest, you might find willow trees, cottonwood trees, red elder, red current, raspberry, devil’s club, cranberry, dogwood, sphagnum moss, fiddle head ferns, and watermelon berries.

The speaker didn’t really talk much about plants found in meadows, since there really aren’t any meadows nearby the nature center – but she did mention the cow parsnip, which can be eaten if great care is taken in the harvesting. Some people find that they are severely allergic to this plant, so it might be best to just avoid it and eat celery from the grocery store instead.

All of these plants listed above are edible in one form or another; raw, boiled, steamed, or roasted. On some you eat the leaves, others you’d eat the stalks.

There are several books available to guide you in harvesting the abundance that nature provides. Feel free to head out to the Nature Center and check out their selection!

The Return of Aqua Aerobics Man

He’s back!

He’s in Anchorage for a few months to get his apartment buildings in order again, and to reinstate himself as a lifeguard for the municipality. He showed up at my doorstep a week ago, having just gotten in. It was a very nice surprise.

Today he called to tell me he’d bought himself a new truck, so of course we had to go try it out. It’s a Chevy – which is cool. An older model, but I don’t know the year. It’s jewel-tone blue with a hard top on the bed that matches. It even has a CD player, so I brought along some music to listen to.

We drove out to the coastal trail and sat on the railing overlooking the ocean for a while; chatting and watching the people go by. Then we headed off for Point Woronzof to sit on the railing there and watch the people go by. We relocated one more time, out to Kincaid Park – but didn’t have any railing to sit on. There was plenty of people to watch, however – I’ve never seen the parking lot so full before.

By that time we realized we were hungry, so we headed over to the Arctic Roadrunner for a burger (I assured him there was food for me to eat there). He ran in to some friends of his, so we joined them outside next to the creek.

It was such a gorgeous day out! I loved it…

After eating our dinner, we decided to head south and ended up at one of my favorite trail heads. Again, we sat on the railing – but this time we watched the ocean for a while. Rather, we watched where the ocean should have been – the tide was out, and I do mean OUT. There was nothing but mud out there for as far as the eye could see practically.

I think it was about 9:00 by that time, so we headed back to my house for a movie. He picked thru my selection and came up with “The Arrival”

Have I mentioned that he’s also a masseuse?

I’m sitting there, on the floor in front of him sitting on the couch. I’m trying to watch the movie, all the while every fiber of my body is screaming “AQUA AEROBICS MAN IS SITTING RIGHT BEHIND ME!!!!” And then he starts to rub my neck for me…

In my defense, we had been talking about my neck problems, as well as my penchant towards migraines.

But… one thing leads to another, and well… I don’t really remember what the end of the movie is like.

Unemployment

Today marks the one-month anniversary of my unemployment. I’m still angry about that, but am working diligently to rectify the problem.

Each day I spend a few hours online, searching the jobsites and sending out applications to anything that looks promising. To date, I’ve contacted 36 companies – some of them had positions listed on the job boards, but most I just contacted “cold”.

Occasionally, I get an actual interview out of the contact. Four companies have had me come in to talk with them so far. Three of them ended up saying that I just wasn’t what they were looking for; I’m holding out hope for the last one, though. The job I applied to sounds perfect for me, and the people giving the interview looked like they were impressed with me.

It is a part-time position, however. That’s not exactly what I want, but I think I can work with it. The zoo has a part-time position available also (as a Naturalist, which is what I do anyway – might as well get paid for it) so I could juggle the two jobs simultaneously and make ends meet that way. Once the zoo job ends in September, I could perhaps convince the other part-time job to switch over to full-time, or could search for another part-time one elsewhere.

I’ve had a lot of help from friends and family. Evelyn, a former coworker from KPB, invited me to attend a NAWIC meeting (National Association of Women in Construction) which resulted in several leads and even an interview. Brian, another former coworker from KPB, tried very hard to get me in to the company he now works for – and I’m still holding on to a shred of hope that it might actually happen. Mother scours the papers for me each day, forwarding any promising leads she finds and giving me lots of options to think about.

Thankfully I am still eligible for unemployment money from the government, and also thankfully that amount has been raised since the last time I was on it. That will cover all my living expenses, with the mortgage being taken care of by the severance pay from Nvision.

I’m still thinking about the possibility of getting a roommate, although my first choice fell through. The zoo hired a new zookeeper who moved in from Arizona. She had thought she would rent from me, but decided that her dog would not enjoy sharing a house with two cats.

Now I’m looking in to perhaps getting the summer interns as roommates. I’ve even been asked if I’d consider letting two of them stay here. I could get bunk beds in my spare room, I suppose. Since they’d be summer interns, I would only have to deal with them for 3-4 months. Time enough to get on my own two feet by then…

Friends: Old and New

With all this time on my hands, I’ve actually been catching up with some a lot of old friends. Not that they’re old – just that it’s been a while since I last saw some of them.

Tina is a girl I went to high school with. I ran in to her on facebook a while back and finally arranged to meet up with her for coffee/tea at Terra Bella’s. I hadn’t seen her for well over 25 years!

I have to admit we didn’t really hang out together back then. I was the silent, shy type with only one or two close friends. But Tina is a very nice person, and I truly enjoyed talking with her. We managed to sit there and chat for over 2 hours!

Another old friend I ran into on facebook is Joe. He and I worked together back about 15 years ago. He’s now married and has several daughters – but back then we were both single and flirted unashamedly the entire time we worked with each other.

I was a little nervous about meeting with him, I must admit. I wondered if the attraction would still be there, and if I’d need to worry about anything on that account. But – again – it was great just to sit there and chat with an old friend for 2 hours (at Kaladi Bro’s, not Terra Bella’s).

Don’t get me wrong – the attraction is definitely still there! But the nerves dissipated almost immediately after sitting down. He is a great guy, and very easy to talk to. He loves his family and thoroughly enjoys being both a husband and a dad.

I’ve even managed to make a new friend – an accomplishment for me, considering the fact that I used to be such a shy loner!

Lorna is a photographer that I met at one of the Earthwatch presentations I gave a few months ago. She likes to take close-ups of insects = just the sort of photos I would take, if I knew how. She has very generously offered to take me out to the flats come springtime (oh, will it EVER get here?) to give me some pointers on how to use my camera.

I want to get better at photography so that when I’m in Africa I will get some great shots!

Just yesterday she and I spent a couple hours at the zoo, chatting and visiting all the animals there. We had lunch together afterwards at the Tap Root Café and made some plans to get together for shooting later on. She’s a slope worker, on a two-and-two schedule, so we have to wait till next time she’s in town.

Added to time spent with old and new friends, I’m also spending time with family. I head out to Palmer about once every other week for lunch with Mother, walking with my sister, brother, and anybody else who happens along, as well as just hanging out in the valley (a nice change from big city life).

Family has also been coming in to town to spend time here: my sister has to take her daughter to the doctor’s each week, so I’ve met up with them each time for lunch afterwards. My sister-in-law has been in a few times, bringing her beadwork along. We sit and do our crafts for a couple hours, then go out and walk somewhere or maybe do some window-shopping. And just the other day, Mother came in to walk with me and my friend Elizabeth, looking at houses for sale downtown.

Unemployment sucks, don’t get me wrong – but I have to say I’m enjoying time spent with good friends and family!

New Addition to my Family

I am happy to announce a new addition to my family: I am now the proud parent of a dozen earthworms!

I must admit I hadn’t intended to get earthworms. I went with my mother and sister to a lecture out at the Eagle River Nature Center to learn about composting and came home with them.

Its all Noel’s fault: she talked me in to it.

But it’s kind of cool, actually. They will live in a Rubbermaid tote in my kitchen, and will eat all the scraps from my organic veggies. The soil they produce will go to my sister – which is why she convinced me to get the worms in the first place All I have to do is get them set up and keep them happy.

The first thing I need to do is go get the Rubbermaid tubs; two of them that nest inside each other. The outside one is to contain the “tea” or liquids that they produce. The inside one will have holes drilled in the bottom, for drainage, and along the sides, for air. The lid will keep them contained to prevent any mass escape attempts (trust me, the last thing I want is hundreds of earthworms making the trek across my kitchen counters in search of a better homeland).

Inside the tub, I’m to put shredded newspaper, straw, coffee grounds, and a little bit of dirt. The earthworms will mix all that together, along with their poop, to create good, rich, organic soil for my sister’s garden!

A big thanks goes out to Terra Bella’s Café, who gave me a huge bag of organic coffee grounds! They didn’t even bat an eye when I explained that it was for my worms.

I plan to feed them the scraps from my CSA box. I had been giving them to the zoo for some of the animals there. I can still give them some, though – I don’t think my worms will need it all.

The types of foods an earthworm likes are just what I eat: lots of leafy vegetables, root vegetables, “soup” vegetables (the exception would be onions – they don’t like onions) etc… And since I’m not a meat eater, they won’t have to worry about accidentally getting any animal products.

Currently, there are about a dozen earthworms. They’re tiny red ones – not the big fat juicy ones you have out in your garden; for some reason that type doesn’t do well in an indoor composting system. Once they get themselves established in the totes I will set up for them, they will start to reproduce till I have hundreds of them. At that point, I will separate some out to create composting systems for anybody who might want to try it out. Let me know if you’re interested, and I’ll keep you in mind!

The lady giving the lecture at the nature center even gave some advice on some common problems encountered with the indoor earthworm composting systems:

If they stink = drill more air holes in your tubs; put more bedding in the tubs; slow down on the feeding for a while to let the worms catch up

If the worms try to escape = their environment might be too dry or too wet; they might need more food; there might be too many worms for the tub; they might need more bedding

If you get fruit flies = burry the food a little bit deeper in the soil; don’t feed any fruits or citrus to the worms

So – my task for today is to get the tubs. We’ll see how well I do at raising Earthworms.

The Alaska Zoo

A lot has been happening at the zoo for me this month, mostly due to the fact that I am unemployed once again and have time on my hands. It’s also spring time – FINALLY - so all the schools in the state are getting in as many field trips as they can before the end of the school year.

I have done lots of guided tours; sometimes as many as two or three each week, with attendance ranging anywhere from six kids and two adults to 50 kids and 25 adults. Some of these schools are from right here in Anchorage; others have come to us from as far away as the Aleutian Islands. Ages have ranged anywhere from 6 years old on up to their teens.

They have all been fun groups, though. How can they not be fun = they’re at the zoo!

The animals are loving spring. They all seem to be a lot more active now, enjoying the sunshine and taking advantage of all this light. Soon enough we might even start seeing some GREEN around here. I am so ready for that…

Spring does tend to bring out the “love” in some animals. I don’t know for sure of any pregnancies, but there are a few possibilities.

We have taken steps to ensure that we don’t get babies with a few of our animals: the male caribou has been sequestered, as has the male yak. We simply don’t have room for larger herds.

Spring also brings out the need for certain male tigers to assert themselves as being the more dominant male. This means our zoo vet has had a busy month, patching up paws and cleaning up torn ears. It got so bad for a while there that neither boy would go in to the dens at night, thereby forgoing their meals for over a week!

Smitty, the zookeeper in charge of the tigers, was rightfully concerned and made the decision to have them both neutered. This will hopefully stop them from fighting and calm them down considerably.

There have been a couple events at the zoo this month. I’ve already told you about the Easter Egg Hunt in a previous posting. April 18 was National Kids Day, which we coupled with our Earth Day celebration. We had a record attendance of over 3,000 people come to the zoo that day! The line for admittance was crazy; it wrapped all the way around the parking lot. The line for cotton candy was almost the same length. I have to admit it was very draining to work there that day, but I think people had fun.

Coming up for the month of May we have the Kid’s Fun Run, a Bear Aware Day, Migratory Bird Day, and a lot more guided encounters. I will be busy, I’m sure…