Today, like my other days at the zoo, I continued working with our red-tailed hawk Jasper. I have been getting closer and closer to accomplishing a huge goal with him, and today I finally did! Jasper sat on my arm and ate an entire mouse while perched on my arm. It is amazing that a wild animal who was afraid of everyone and everything when I first met him, is now accepting food from me. I have successfully been able to "man" him. On Thursday, we will be putting jesses (the leather straps that go around the legs of birds to handle them and is a common term used in falconry) on Jasper so that I can start taking him out to the pubic to use for presentations. I am very excited.
Also this week we got some of our summer animals that we take care of. They come from the Needham Science Center. One of those animals is a great horned owl named Micetro. I get to start working with and handling him as well.
Today we got a really big skate from the Buttonwood Park Zoo and she is absolutely gorgeous. I'll try to get some good pictures of her soon.
One thing that really surprised me today was how many people had never seen a skunk before. After my skunk presentation today, many people approached me at the end and told me they had never seen one and that they learned a lot. It always makes me feel good when people get something out of my shows and what I have to tell them.
Well that's about all I can think of right now. I'm just so happy about how far I have come with Jasper. I will post pictures of me with him as soon as I can.
-Bethany
Tuesday, June 16, 2009
Mountaintop Removal Week 4
Week 4
7 June
Day 1 (22)
Went to church today. It was really energetic and the sermon was right on. I got to watch over one of the volunteer’s little girl today: super fun. Then I stayed up till 2pm gardening because the above ground greens had to be planted before this cycle of the moon ended. It was a really great lesson in gardening though: I needed it. Due to a recent personal discovery in just how much corn is in our system, I have to get into gardening a lot some day.
8 June
Day 2 (23)
I slept in today then toured the watershed that I’ll be testing in within the following weeks. It was simply beautiful in the area: very few houses and an abundance of nature. In some places you could visually tell that the water was polluted. The issue then is that these people live so far away from civilization, that they can’t really buy water. They had gardens and animals for their own food: a simple, beautiful life.
9 June
Day 3 (24)
I didn’t go to appeals court today. I should have, but I would have fallen asleep. Today is more of a personal day to take care of a few things and rest. At the end of the day we watched an old Stephen Segal film called “Fire Down Below,” about Segal beating up people in the coal companies: obviously not something we support.
10 June
Day 4 (25)
We made final preparations today for the Icthus Festival. We finished fine tuning the brochure I made, finished fine tuning the poster that Jason designed, and other outreach materials. It’s pretty cool to actually do these things after you learn so much about why outreach materials are so important in advocacy. We also finished planting today, but the fencing isn’t up, so the rabbit is having a field day. I’m glad I got to do all of this gardening, since it’s such an important part of sustainability.
11 June-13 June
Days 5-7 (26-28)
Icthus is great so far! I can feel myself really getting closer to God and understanding Him more. We’ve also had some great outreach successes. Some discussions lasted an hour, others short but successful. A lot of people signed up to volunteer. We also made connections with other groups there like organizations and youth groups. A big part of Christians for the Mountains is bringing in groups to educate them about mountaintop removal hands on: not just pictures, movies, and statistics. Groups coming in will go on hikes to appreciate the area and learn about the biodiversity here, then visit mine sites and understand the clear difference. The mine site visits include tours and information from people who live in these communities and are leading activists like Judy Bonds and Maria Gunnoe (winners of the Goldman Environmental Prize). One group that we connected with is a Christian Adventure group that has a creation awareness program; they do trail work and wilderness trips.
Today was the last day of the festival. It's really late at night and we're staying up for a gypsy Christian rock band, then driving back. Some wonderful connections were made on the trip. I feel like I've come to understand how to interact with people boldly to spread a message. I even got a seemingly passive man to say, "Well, I can do that!" When asked to send emails through a website to his representatives and senators about mountaintop removal and the current legislation on it (Clean Water Restoration Act and the Appalachian Preservation Act). A lot of people in Kentucky (this is where the festival was) thought that mountaintop removal wasn't happening anymore (in fact it's happening much, much more) or had never heard of mountaintop removal. The interesting thing is that parts of eastern Kentucky are being strip mined.
7 June
Day 1 (22)
Went to church today. It was really energetic and the sermon was right on. I got to watch over one of the volunteer’s little girl today: super fun. Then I stayed up till 2pm gardening because the above ground greens had to be planted before this cycle of the moon ended. It was a really great lesson in gardening though: I needed it. Due to a recent personal discovery in just how much corn is in our system, I have to get into gardening a lot some day.
8 June
Day 2 (23)
I slept in today then toured the watershed that I’ll be testing in within the following weeks. It was simply beautiful in the area: very few houses and an abundance of nature. In some places you could visually tell that the water was polluted. The issue then is that these people live so far away from civilization, that they can’t really buy water. They had gardens and animals for their own food: a simple, beautiful life.
9 June
Day 3 (24)
I didn’t go to appeals court today. I should have, but I would have fallen asleep. Today is more of a personal day to take care of a few things and rest. At the end of the day we watched an old Stephen Segal film called “Fire Down Below,” about Segal beating up people in the coal companies: obviously not something we support.
10 June
Day 4 (25)
We made final preparations today for the Icthus Festival. We finished fine tuning the brochure I made, finished fine tuning the poster that Jason designed, and other outreach materials. It’s pretty cool to actually do these things after you learn so much about why outreach materials are so important in advocacy. We also finished planting today, but the fencing isn’t up, so the rabbit is having a field day. I’m glad I got to do all of this gardening, since it’s such an important part of sustainability.
11 June-13 June
Days 5-7 (26-28)
Icthus is great so far! I can feel myself really getting closer to God and understanding Him more. We’ve also had some great outreach successes. Some discussions lasted an hour, others short but successful. A lot of people signed up to volunteer. We also made connections with other groups there like organizations and youth groups. A big part of Christians for the Mountains is bringing in groups to educate them about mountaintop removal hands on: not just pictures, movies, and statistics. Groups coming in will go on hikes to appreciate the area and learn about the biodiversity here, then visit mine sites and understand the clear difference. The mine site visits include tours and information from people who live in these communities and are leading activists like Judy Bonds and Maria Gunnoe (winners of the Goldman Environmental Prize). One group that we connected with is a Christian Adventure group that has a creation awareness program; they do trail work and wilderness trips.
Today was the last day of the festival. It's really late at night and we're staying up for a gypsy Christian rock band, then driving back. Some wonderful connections were made on the trip. I feel like I've come to understand how to interact with people boldly to spread a message. I even got a seemingly passive man to say, "Well, I can do that!" When asked to send emails through a website to his representatives and senators about mountaintop removal and the current legislation on it (Clean Water Restoration Act and the Appalachian Preservation Act). A lot of people in Kentucky (this is where the festival was) thought that mountaintop removal wasn't happening anymore (in fact it's happening much, much more) or had never heard of mountaintop removal. The interesting thing is that parts of eastern Kentucky are being strip mined.
Sunday, June 14, 2009
Week three in the Tree
Just as a heads up, this post covers the dates of May 25-29th. These past two weeks I have been in Harrisburg, PA training with the Army Reserve. In addition, my invitation had expired, so I had to wait for that to get cleared up as well.
So, the week started rainy and ended pretty much the same. It was a week full of slipping and sliding in a mix of Pear and Green Ash Trees. We worked at one group of condos for the entirety of the week. Day one, we spent time pruning a bunch of Pears. We took bigger weight cuts to relieve stress during the winter with snow. I also punched a few holes in the top to let some light and air into the canopy. Last, we used arbor-tape (a polyester-blend fabric) to tie off several leders to eachother for support during the winter. Snow is a big problem with these trees as they have many leders that all grow with very tight V-crotches. Those crotches tend to be weak and will split under a heavy snow-load. That was only the second time I was allowed to tie supports for a tree. I made sure that it was done right, a bowline around each stem with some slack in the middle to allow the tree to move and bend.
The other trees we did were some Green Ash. These trees are not the prettiest trees, but they can survive a lot of abuse, and their deep green in the summer does look neat. For these, we did some real quick weight cuts and took off the lowers that were bending really far down. My boss found a girdling root on one and did a root collar excavation on it. The trunk was girdled the entire way around. Hopefully the tree will make it. I put up a picture of the crown. You can see how thin the foliage is and how sick it looks compared to the other trees.
The last two days were the more important, as we were taking out branches on the condos, deadwood and the lowers. I was able to put my training to the test by pruning a branch out that was over the condo roof and over a lightpost. I tied it off using a clove hitch secured by a half-hitch. Then, I put a scarf on the far-lower side and did the back-cut with my handsaw, leaving extra holding wood on the topside. It swung out picture perfect and my boss lowered it to the ground without hittig anything. Success! I included some before and after shots so you can see the difference!
Each day, we were pretty much racing the rain. We started out usually with the rain, it would let up, then we would work our butts off to get a section complete, just in time for it to start pouring. It made for an interesting week. One day, my boss took me over to do a fertilizing job to kill some time. We fertilized about 35 evergreen foundation plantings to help with overall health and vigor. We also took a ride over to another town to spray a woman's cherry tree for winter moth. It was the first spray I got to do. We used hort oil mixed with a stomach poison. I had to be aware, because there was a crew working in her garage nearby, and I had to wait to make sure they were inside, and that the wind was not blowing. I wore a mask and goves for protection. First I sprayed from the underside of the tree outwards, then moved to the outside and moved around, drenching the entire tree. While I was doing that, my boss lined up some more work while we were there, and I ended up spraying a Mugo Pine before we left. This was being eaten by sawfly, so I sprayed it with the same chemical we used on the cherry, since it works for most leaf-eating larvae.
So, after some short wet days, we had a farewell brunch for my co-worker, Jesse, who was recently hired by the state of MA to work on the Asian Long Horned Beetle epidemic that had engulfed the entire Worcester Area and now has hit a few surrounding towns. I will miss him as a mentor and friend. He taught me a lot last summer, and I hope his skill is put to good use at his new job!
Until Next week...
Peace!
Saturday, June 13, 2009
Week 5 with 14 fawns
Thats right, we now have 14 fawns! Many of the newest fawns are from a customer who is paying Fawn Country to hand raise them for him so that he may have a tame herd. One of them is from a doe, Spirit, in one of our pens. She gave birth to a buck and a doe this past saturday. The doe was pulled about 24 hours after birth as the mother is not as tame as they would like her to be.
One recent discovery was made involving one of our fawns. Miss Ann, our is not a Miss Ann, but rather an Andrew! Some how, this important fact was missed. Bucks, as a rule are not hand raised for safety reasons. There are exceptions however, such as when a buck becomes ill and his best chance of survival is to be pulled from the mother.
It's been getting rather hectic with 14 fawns to care for, along with keeping an eye on all the does. The does will chase each other sometimes and its important to know who is being chased by who. If a doe is kept running, her fawns could starve. If such behavior is caught early, the does can be separted. The doe pen also needs to be walked frequently. Not just to make sure the does are healthy, but also to check to see of there are any new fawns, and to make sure any current fawns are healty. Fawns in the doe pen are checked for a full belly, and for cleanlyness and ant bites around their rear ends. Fire ants are a big problem here in Texas and will literally eat the fawns from the inside out. The fawns response to the bites is to play dead, so it is very important to check for bites, and to check the pen for ants.
A reason to check to see if the rear is clean, is not just to see if the mother is tending to her fawn, but a dirty butt can be a sign of an illness. Many times, the first sign of an illness can be found by looking at the fecal matter of the fawn. The quality and smell of it, and how often it is removed from the body, can inform us if the fawn is ill. But this is where it can be a bit complicated. How the fecal matter of a healty fawn looks, and how frequently is it voided from the body ( some will go almost every meal, while other onle once a day), is affected by the age of the fawn, thier diet (are they eating just milk, or milk and pellets?) and external temperature. Really hot weather can affect how the fecal matter looks. This is all very important information to know, and is rather challanging to absorb. But I am getting better at analyzing fawn waste, it just takes practice.
peace out!
One recent discovery was made involving one of our fawns. Miss Ann, our is not a Miss Ann, but rather an Andrew! Some how, this important fact was missed. Bucks, as a rule are not hand raised for safety reasons. There are exceptions however, such as when a buck becomes ill and his best chance of survival is to be pulled from the mother.
It's been getting rather hectic with 14 fawns to care for, along with keeping an eye on all the does. The does will chase each other sometimes and its important to know who is being chased by who. If a doe is kept running, her fawns could starve. If such behavior is caught early, the does can be separted. The doe pen also needs to be walked frequently. Not just to make sure the does are healthy, but also to check to see of there are any new fawns, and to make sure any current fawns are healty. Fawns in the doe pen are checked for a full belly, and for cleanlyness and ant bites around their rear ends. Fire ants are a big problem here in Texas and will literally eat the fawns from the inside out. The fawns response to the bites is to play dead, so it is very important to check for bites, and to check the pen for ants.
A reason to check to see if the rear is clean, is not just to see if the mother is tending to her fawn, but a dirty butt can be a sign of an illness. Many times, the first sign of an illness can be found by looking at the fecal matter of the fawn. The quality and smell of it, and how often it is removed from the body, can inform us if the fawn is ill. But this is where it can be a bit complicated. How the fecal matter of a healty fawn looks, and how frequently is it voided from the body ( some will go almost every meal, while other onle once a day), is affected by the age of the fawn, thier diet (are they eating just milk, or milk and pellets?) and external temperature. Really hot weather can affect how the fecal matter looks. This is all very important information to know, and is rather challanging to absorb. But I am getting better at analyzing fawn waste, it just takes practice.
peace out!
Thursday, June 11, 2009
Greetings from Thailand!
Greetings from Thailand! I'm here at the Wildlife Friends Foundation Thailand in Phetchaburi, Thailand. I arrived here on Sunday, June 7th and got a tour of the facility. WFFT is not a zoo, it's rescue center that rescues wildlife in thailand that are being mistreated, especially for those who are trained for exploitation. The public is allowed to come in and visit but they will not be seeing animals that are in such good health, a lot of these animals have been traumatized.
On my first and second day here I was assigned to work with the bears. We started our day at 6:30am. Our first duties were to clean their enclosures and scatter their food about. The enclosures are made so that they are as close to being real habitats as possible--that is why we scatter the food around in places such as on top of climbing areas, in tunnels, or even underground so that the bears have to dig for their food.
On my third and fourth day (today) I was assigned to work with some of the primates. At 6:30 am, my group and I were assigned to do food preparations. This included cutting up the fruits for all of the primates and distributing them as needed. In Thailand, this can be one of the more hectic chores, only because it is so hot here and there are millions of flies around, and the food house, where the food is prepared, is their favorite spot to hang around. After that, the primate areas are separated into three sections, for yesterday and today, my group was assigned to the biggest area. Feeding the primates is a very difficult task, especially with gibbons, because when they see you coming with the food, they just want to reach out and grab it, and from personal experience, I can tell you that there arms are a lot longer than they appear! After they eat we collect the bowls, wash them, and then do it all over again in the afternoon. There are other duties that need to be done around the center, such as scrubbing the feeding stations, collecting garbage, and composting. The center has great composting system!
So far the experience has really given me a great insight to what my career path will lead me into. It's hard work, but it's very rewarding. We were shown a video when we first arrived about the rescue of one of the bears. Some of these animals had never seen trees or grass before. a lot of the gibbons spent years of their lives in cages that were just too small for them. All of the work I have done so far has been exactly what I expected it to be. Everything from collecting garbage, to observations, to food prep is going to help me get a head start in the captive wildlife care and education field.
Internet access is very limited around the area I am in, so blog updates will be minimal with no photos, but be sure to look forward to more updates from Thailand!
-Amanda Smith
On my first and second day here I was assigned to work with the bears. We started our day at 6:30am. Our first duties were to clean their enclosures and scatter their food about. The enclosures are made so that they are as close to being real habitats as possible--that is why we scatter the food around in places such as on top of climbing areas, in tunnels, or even underground so that the bears have to dig for their food.
On my third and fourth day (today) I was assigned to work with some of the primates. At 6:30 am, my group and I were assigned to do food preparations. This included cutting up the fruits for all of the primates and distributing them as needed. In Thailand, this can be one of the more hectic chores, only because it is so hot here and there are millions of flies around, and the food house, where the food is prepared, is their favorite spot to hang around. After that, the primate areas are separated into three sections, for yesterday and today, my group was assigned to the biggest area. Feeding the primates is a very difficult task, especially with gibbons, because when they see you coming with the food, they just want to reach out and grab it, and from personal experience, I can tell you that there arms are a lot longer than they appear! After they eat we collect the bowls, wash them, and then do it all over again in the afternoon. There are other duties that need to be done around the center, such as scrubbing the feeding stations, collecting garbage, and composting. The center has great composting system!
So far the experience has really given me a great insight to what my career path will lead me into. It's hard work, but it's very rewarding. We were shown a video when we first arrived about the rescue of one of the bears. Some of these animals had never seen trees or grass before. a lot of the gibbons spent years of their lives in cages that were just too small for them. All of the work I have done so far has been exactly what I expected it to be. Everything from collecting garbage, to observations, to food prep is going to help me get a head start in the captive wildlife care and education field.
Internet access is very limited around the area I am in, so blog updates will be minimal with no photos, but be sure to look forward to more updates from Thailand!
-Amanda Smith
Tuesday, June 9, 2009
Mountaintop Removal Week 3
Week three
31 May
Day 1 (15)
I went to a Holiness church today because they started the Pentecostal movement and today is Pentecost! The preacher didn’t really have a message and didn’t talk about the Pentecost, so that was disappointing. I was making baked beans for a potluck tonight, but they didn’t finish in time. That’s the last time I use a Crockpot to cook baked beans: bad idea. The potluck was fun: it was with the Mountain Justice group. We work with them a lot as it is the same cause (to end mountaintop removal/ strip mining). They are getting ready for a court hearing tomorrow because most of them got arrested at an action last week. Some chained themselves to the mining equipment (trespassing and other things), some paddled out the sludge pond and put a sign out there (they got arrested for littering in a sludge pond and trespassing), and others got arrested (the worst arrest: a couple days in jail with 2000 cash bail each while the others pretty much walked away) for simply trespassing. We raised a bunch of money to get them all out of jail.
1 June
Day 2 (16)
I did a lot of gardening today: tilled and dug a bunch of holes. I created an information collection card today for people to write their information on for us.
2 June
Day 3 (17)
I went to Charleston today to help pick-up a volunteer (Sarah). Sarah had a friend at the local Presbyterian Church (Bill Rainey’s church). We informed him about how MTR connects with the faith, the reality of what is going on, and what the opposition has been up to. It was a nice connection to make. Sage and I went to a meeting for the Plateau Action Network (PAN) and made connections for water testing in the following weeks. PAN recently hired a VISTA worker to do water testing in streams running off from local mine sites. We also needed to do testing, but don’t have equipment, so we are making it a group effort to show how MTR is destroying the local watershed. I also made a brochure today for Christians for the Mountains that we hope to hand out with the information collection card I made yesterday at the Icthus Christian Music festival coming up next week in Kentucky. On a more entertaining note: the tent we were drying out blew away in the storm (it was found and is fine). I guess I forgot to put the stakes back in when I drained the water from the last storms :D .
3 June
Day 4 (18)
Put a few screens up today and helped build a bookshelf. A woman I met at camp called today. The DEP approved a permit for 100ft near rt11. This is right near her house, where she grew up, and where her parents live. We’re going to write letters to the DEP for the 30 day comment period. We’re going to get others who have or are experiencing the effects and after effects of mountaintop removal to talk with the locals near rt11. They don’t really understand exactly what this means; they don’t understand that their health, children, property, loved ones, neighbors, air, water, and lives are in danger. Hopefully they will be motivated enough to write letters of their own to the DEP. So far, 6 cemeteries have been located along the new mining area: this is typically helpful.
4 June
Day 5 (19)
Put up more screens today. They’re hard to do because we don’t have a staple gun, but we just got one tonight. I helped build a bed, put the books on the shelf in the library, sorted the recycling: basic stuff. All of this tedious stuff is to get ready for a whole slew of guests and so that it’s all done before water testing, site visits, festivals, and such start happening.
5 June
Day 6 (20)
More people came today! They were lots of fun. They volunteer at this food center in Virginia that makes three meals a day for whoever wants it: rich or poor. Super cool.
6 June
Day 7 (21)
Today we got a lot of the gardening done. We spread manure, planted the tomatoes in the first garden and started making rows and planted some herbs and seeds in the second garden. The comfrey was harvested, so we can say goodbye to bad woman’s health. We went up to Kayford Mountain, or once-was-Kayford Mountain, ran across some eco-justice folks from Chicago, and met up with our anarchist allies. Super tiring and energetic day.
Before mountaintop removal
After/during mountaintop removal. Sage (kind of my boss) said that four years ago you could walk out across from the height we were standing to the far edge. Before mtr started here, Kayford mountain was taller than all the mountains you see in the distance.
This is what they call reclamation: restoring the mountain to it's original form. The green you see is a spray on grass with glue and dyes that sticks to anything. You can see where the grass is already eroding because underneath is sand and rock. The contours are nothing like they used to be. Also, the Appalachian forests around West Virginia are "mixed mesophytic temperate rainforests" basically they are the most biodiverse lands in the western hemisphere outside of the tripical rainforest. Now, they are the least diverse.
31 May
Day 1 (15)
I went to a Holiness church today because they started the Pentecostal movement and today is Pentecost! The preacher didn’t really have a message and didn’t talk about the Pentecost, so that was disappointing. I was making baked beans for a potluck tonight, but they didn’t finish in time. That’s the last time I use a Crockpot to cook baked beans: bad idea. The potluck was fun: it was with the Mountain Justice group. We work with them a lot as it is the same cause (to end mountaintop removal/ strip mining). They are getting ready for a court hearing tomorrow because most of them got arrested at an action last week. Some chained themselves to the mining equipment (trespassing and other things), some paddled out the sludge pond and put a sign out there (they got arrested for littering in a sludge pond and trespassing), and others got arrested (the worst arrest: a couple days in jail with 2000 cash bail each while the others pretty much walked away) for simply trespassing. We raised a bunch of money to get them all out of jail.
1 June
Day 2 (16)
I did a lot of gardening today: tilled and dug a bunch of holes. I created an information collection card today for people to write their information on for us.
2 June
Day 3 (17)
I went to Charleston today to help pick-up a volunteer (Sarah). Sarah had a friend at the local Presbyterian Church (Bill Rainey’s church). We informed him about how MTR connects with the faith, the reality of what is going on, and what the opposition has been up to. It was a nice connection to make. Sage and I went to a meeting for the Plateau Action Network (PAN) and made connections for water testing in the following weeks. PAN recently hired a VISTA worker to do water testing in streams running off from local mine sites. We also needed to do testing, but don’t have equipment, so we are making it a group effort to show how MTR is destroying the local watershed. I also made a brochure today for Christians for the Mountains that we hope to hand out with the information collection card I made yesterday at the Icthus Christian Music festival coming up next week in Kentucky. On a more entertaining note: the tent we were drying out blew away in the storm (it was found and is fine). I guess I forgot to put the stakes back in when I drained the water from the last storms :D .
3 June
Day 4 (18)
Put a few screens up today and helped build a bookshelf. A woman I met at camp called today. The DEP approved a permit for 100ft near rt11. This is right near her house, where she grew up, and where her parents live. We’re going to write letters to the DEP for the 30 day comment period. We’re going to get others who have or are experiencing the effects and after effects of mountaintop removal to talk with the locals near rt11. They don’t really understand exactly what this means; they don’t understand that their health, children, property, loved ones, neighbors, air, water, and lives are in danger. Hopefully they will be motivated enough to write letters of their own to the DEP. So far, 6 cemeteries have been located along the new mining area: this is typically helpful.
4 June
Day 5 (19)
Put up more screens today. They’re hard to do because we don’t have a staple gun, but we just got one tonight. I helped build a bed, put the books on the shelf in the library, sorted the recycling: basic stuff. All of this tedious stuff is to get ready for a whole slew of guests and so that it’s all done before water testing, site visits, festivals, and such start happening.
5 June
Day 6 (20)
More people came today! They were lots of fun. They volunteer at this food center in Virginia that makes three meals a day for whoever wants it: rich or poor. Super cool.
6 June
Day 7 (21)
Today we got a lot of the gardening done. We spread manure, planted the tomatoes in the first garden and started making rows and planted some herbs and seeds in the second garden. The comfrey was harvested, so we can say goodbye to bad woman’s health. We went up to Kayford Mountain, or once-was-Kayford Mountain, ran across some eco-justice folks from Chicago, and met up with our anarchist allies. Super tiring and energetic day.
Before mountaintop removalAfter/during mountaintop removal. Sage (kind of my boss) said that four years ago you could walk out across from the height we were standing to the far edge. Before mtr started here, Kayford mountain was taller than all the mountains you see in the distance.
This is what they call reclamation: restoring the mountain to it's original form. The green you see is a spray on grass with glue and dyes that sticks to anything. You can see where the grass is already eroding because underneath is sand and rock. The contours are nothing like they used to be. Also, the Appalachian forests around West Virginia are "mixed mesophytic temperate rainforests" basically they are the most biodiverse lands in the western hemisphere outside of the tripical rainforest. Now, they are the least diverse.
Monday, June 8, 2009
Cape Cod Canal Week 2
The second week here at Cape Cod Canal has come and gone. On Tuesday I was sent with a coworker, Gabe, to paint numbers on the light posts on the Bourne Bridge. That was interesting because I had never done anything like that before. We were part of a construction crew that was doing other maintenance while we were there, so the police blocked off a whole lane so we could park our vehicles and do our work. The company truck Gabe and I were operating out of had a blue light bar on top, which was useful while we were parked in the middle of the road. However, when we left to go to lunch we couldn't figure out how to turn the light bar off, so we had people pulling over for us all the way back to the office! It was hilarious.
On Wednesday I was part of a crew that went out and constructed a nest exclosure for a family of piping plovers on Mashnee Island. The exclosure is made of fencing similar to chicken wire that is embedded about a foot in the ground and covered with netting. The exclosure is designed to let the plover family in and out while keeping anything bigger -- predators such as foxes, coyotes, and hawks -- out. While we were working, Mom and Dad Plover were running around having an absolute hissy fit, because of course, we couldn't explain to them what we were doing. One of the parents did a classic "broken wing" act in a vain attempt to draw us away from the nest. There were three eggs in the nest. Plover eggs are extremely hard to see because they look like small rocks, so we had to be very careful not to step on them. Hopefully, all three eggs will hatch soon.
One thing that is a regular part of working at the field office is giving tours to school groups. I did that with coworkers on Thursday and today. The kids are elementary school students; we've had third and fourth graders so far. Usually I do the PowerPoint presentation in the theater, which introduces the kids to the history of the Cape Cod Canal and what it would be like to be a marine traffic controller. The kids range in behavior from rambunctious to really good; Thursday we had a rambunctious group, and today we had a really good group. After the kids eat lunch, we play a game called "Tugs to the Rescue" with them, in which each tableful of kids has to answer questions about the canal correctly in order to get closer to a sinking boat so they can rescue its crew.
Saturday and Sunday I worked in the Visitor Center. As time goes on, I am becoming more familiar with operations there. Sunday we had technical difficulties with some of the technology in the exhibits, but my coworker, Jackie, who is in her fourth season at the canal, knew how to fix the problems. My boss, Sam, said she will begin teaching me technological troubleshooting in a few weeks.
At this point I have entered the planning phase for two interpretive programs. One will be a weekly walk up Sagamore Hill, which is near Scusset Beach. The other will be an evening program; for that one, I hope to interpret some aspect of the local pre-Columbian history. My current idea for the evening program would require some cooperation from one or more community partners, so if that turns out to be impractical, I will have to revise my plans.
So that's week 2 in review. I'll write more when I finish week 3!
On Wednesday I was part of a crew that went out and constructed a nest exclosure for a family of piping plovers on Mashnee Island. The exclosure is made of fencing similar to chicken wire that is embedded about a foot in the ground and covered with netting. The exclosure is designed to let the plover family in and out while keeping anything bigger -- predators such as foxes, coyotes, and hawks -- out. While we were working, Mom and Dad Plover were running around having an absolute hissy fit, because of course, we couldn't explain to them what we were doing. One of the parents did a classic "broken wing" act in a vain attempt to draw us away from the nest. There were three eggs in the nest. Plover eggs are extremely hard to see because they look like small rocks, so we had to be very careful not to step on them. Hopefully, all three eggs will hatch soon.
One thing that is a regular part of working at the field office is giving tours to school groups. I did that with coworkers on Thursday and today. The kids are elementary school students; we've had third and fourth graders so far. Usually I do the PowerPoint presentation in the theater, which introduces the kids to the history of the Cape Cod Canal and what it would be like to be a marine traffic controller. The kids range in behavior from rambunctious to really good; Thursday we had a rambunctious group, and today we had a really good group. After the kids eat lunch, we play a game called "Tugs to the Rescue" with them, in which each tableful of kids has to answer questions about the canal correctly in order to get closer to a sinking boat so they can rescue its crew.
Saturday and Sunday I worked in the Visitor Center. As time goes on, I am becoming more familiar with operations there. Sunday we had technical difficulties with some of the technology in the exhibits, but my coworker, Jackie, who is in her fourth season at the canal, knew how to fix the problems. My boss, Sam, said she will begin teaching me technological troubleshooting in a few weeks.
At this point I have entered the planning phase for two interpretive programs. One will be a weekly walk up Sagamore Hill, which is near Scusset Beach. The other will be an evening program; for that one, I hope to interpret some aspect of the local pre-Columbian history. My current idea for the evening program would require some cooperation from one or more community partners, so if that turns out to be impractical, I will have to revise my plans.
So that's week 2 in review. I'll write more when I finish week 3!
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