Last night was crazy! Here I was, just sitting in my bed relaxing, when I suddenly hear all these wooshing noises. I look out my window, and i see that it is incredibly windy out! I checked the weather website, and at it's strongest, the winds were up to 30mph! Mostly they were around 20-25mph...
Poor trees were getting ripped apart, and things didn't look very pretty outside! The website said we were supposed to have a severe thunderstorm watch, but all we got was a sprinkling of rain.
Also: I didn't realize this was a problem, but I've changed the settings so that you can make comments even if you're not a user of the website. Talk to me, people! (:
Also also: I tacked on a few pictures to the album, just illustrating how insanely hot it was this week.
Sunday, June 28, 2009
Saturday, June 27, 2009
Duck Duck Goose
Sans ducks.
Wednesday I was up an hour early again, this time to go band some Canada Geese. It was kind of weird, because I was the only girl (a "city girl" at that) amongst 14 guys, who were all definitely hunters/farmers/general outdoorsmen, so it was kind of strange at times, since I generally didn't know what was going on, being my first goose banding and all.
It was still pretty cool, though - basically what happened was that a few of us would drive to one side of the lake, and set up this giant net trap thing, to corral the geese. Then we'd have to hide somewhere, and the rest of the team would either run on shore or drive up on boats, to literally herd the geese into our trap. It was interesting, they somehow managed to do this without scaring the geese, they were pretty relaxed about it, and not many would try to fly away!
Then came the actual banding. The guys would have to catch the geese, then flip it over (to determine the gender), then clip the band on; my job was to do the recording. The baby goslings (or 'gozzies,' as the guys liked to call them) were really fuzzy and cute!
Thursday was the same deal. We had gotten about half of our quota (172/375) on Wednesday, so we thought it would be a quick, easy day. Well, not so much. We were down to about 60 left by noontime - one more site, hooray! Except the geese apparently had caught on to our game, so we'd end up trying to wait them out as they sat on the shoreline, and then would have to pack up and try a different site. That equates to sitting in hot, empty fields for a good hour. Did I mention it was at least 90 for most of the week?
But finally we got to a good site about 5pm, and got our last few geese there. Whew! It was a good hour or so of the actual work, then we had to drive another hour back to the meeting location, and then another half hour back to my normal work; I didn't get back to my apartment till 9:30!
After such a long day, I had hoped that yesterday would be an easy day for me, but no such luck. My boss had assumed I would be out banding for another day, so she didn't have anything lined up for me to do. That meant I got to go out with the YCC kids (high school volunteers) to pull up rusty old fencing, which included a lot of barbed wiring! At least I got to stick to my normal 8 hour day, instead of going over.
Man, by the time that was over, I was glad for the weekend. Today and tomorrow are going to involve lots of sitting around, catching up on some good old R&R.
Wednesday I was up an hour early again, this time to go band some Canada Geese. It was kind of weird, because I was the only girl (a "city girl" at that) amongst 14 guys, who were all definitely hunters/farmers/general outdoorsmen, so it was kind of strange at times, since I generally didn't know what was going on, being my first goose banding and all.
It was still pretty cool, though - basically what happened was that a few of us would drive to one side of the lake, and set up this giant net trap thing, to corral the geese. Then we'd have to hide somewhere, and the rest of the team would either run on shore or drive up on boats, to literally herd the geese into our trap. It was interesting, they somehow managed to do this without scaring the geese, they were pretty relaxed about it, and not many would try to fly away!
Then came the actual banding. The guys would have to catch the geese, then flip it over (to determine the gender), then clip the band on; my job was to do the recording. The baby goslings (or 'gozzies,' as the guys liked to call them) were really fuzzy and cute!
Thursday was the same deal. We had gotten about half of our quota (172/375) on Wednesday, so we thought it would be a quick, easy day. Well, not so much. We were down to about 60 left by noontime - one more site, hooray! Except the geese apparently had caught on to our game, so we'd end up trying to wait them out as they sat on the shoreline, and then would have to pack up and try a different site. That equates to sitting in hot, empty fields for a good hour. Did I mention it was at least 90 for most of the week?
But finally we got to a good site about 5pm, and got our last few geese there. Whew! It was a good hour or so of the actual work, then we had to drive another hour back to the meeting location, and then another half hour back to my normal work; I didn't get back to my apartment till 9:30!
After such a long day, I had hoped that yesterday would be an easy day for me, but no such luck. My boss had assumed I would be out banding for another day, so she didn't have anything lined up for me to do. That meant I got to go out with the YCC kids (high school volunteers) to pull up rusty old fencing, which included a lot of barbed wiring! At least I got to stick to my normal 8 hour day, instead of going over.
Man, by the time that was over, I was glad for the weekend. Today and tomorrow are going to involve lots of sitting around, catching up on some good old R&R.
Tuesday, June 23, 2009
Grass!
The weekend went fairly uneventfully, I mostly did my last bit of homework for my physics class, and studied for my final. Did some laundry, and other chore-y like things. Tried to go to the grocery store Sunday evening, but they close at 5!
Yesterday, I did my ATV "road" training. It was a little intimidating at first, but pretty fun after a while! I felt like a little kid, though, I was afraid of letting it go too much, so I kept easing off the little gas lever, so my ride was kind of jerky. I smoothed out as I got more confident, though, so hopefully next time I go out it won't be so bad.
Today was fairly interesting, I hung out with the biologist again, this time learning about "vegetation surveys." We - along with another intern/biologist duo from a close by refuge - drove about an hour away for what basically amounted to a workshop on grass identification. Some of the people there were way too enthusiastic about, y'know, grass, which was kind of funny. Part of it was weird because there are a couple different surveys/methods going on, so there was the "South Dakota" group, and the "Minnesota" group, aka, the 4 of us that rode together. Apparently, being just a mile from the border results in the fact that we have extremely different prairie types, too, so not only did the methods not apply to us, but we didn't have to worry/learn about the same types of plants. As a result, my biologist would often pull me aside (or we'd kind of meander away), and he'd point out more interesting/relevant things. I learned more from just chillin' with him than I did from the workshop!
Of course, as soon as we got to work in the morning, at the top of a big hill, it started to thunderstorm out! We got fairly soaked, needless to say, as we made our way back to the field classroom. I just felt bad for the kid who had to carry 4ft long iron stakes...! We saw some amazing lightning, though, absolutely huge!
Learned a few interesting things, though...like that a type of milkweed we were looking at is toxic to everything but butterflies! And that the spikes on a rose (we were looking at prairie roses) are soft until the plant is fully grown, and are either "thorns" or "prickles," depending on which part of the plant they grow on!
Well that's all for now, but I'm sure the next entry will be much more eventful - I'll be working on trying to band Canada Geese for the next few days!
Yesterday, I did my ATV "road" training. It was a little intimidating at first, but pretty fun after a while! I felt like a little kid, though, I was afraid of letting it go too much, so I kept easing off the little gas lever, so my ride was kind of jerky. I smoothed out as I got more confident, though, so hopefully next time I go out it won't be so bad.
Today was fairly interesting, I hung out with the biologist again, this time learning about "vegetation surveys." We - along with another intern/biologist duo from a close by refuge - drove about an hour away for what basically amounted to a workshop on grass identification. Some of the people there were way too enthusiastic about, y'know, grass, which was kind of funny. Part of it was weird because there are a couple different surveys/methods going on, so there was the "South Dakota" group, and the "Minnesota" group, aka, the 4 of us that rode together. Apparently, being just a mile from the border results in the fact that we have extremely different prairie types, too, so not only did the methods not apply to us, but we didn't have to worry/learn about the same types of plants. As a result, my biologist would often pull me aside (or we'd kind of meander away), and he'd point out more interesting/relevant things. I learned more from just chillin' with him than I did from the workshop!
Of course, as soon as we got to work in the morning, at the top of a big hill, it started to thunderstorm out! We got fairly soaked, needless to say, as we made our way back to the field classroom. I just felt bad for the kid who had to carry 4ft long iron stakes...! We saw some amazing lightning, though, absolutely huge!
Learned a few interesting things, though...like that a type of milkweed we were looking at is toxic to everything but butterflies! And that the spikes on a rose (we were looking at prairie roses) are soft until the plant is fully grown, and are either "thorns" or "prickles," depending on which part of the plant they grow on!
Well that's all for now, but I'm sure the next entry will be much more eventful - I'll be working on trying to band Canada Geese for the next few days!
Friday, June 19, 2009
Buggy Bugs
Yesterday (Thursday 6/18) started off pretty crazy - we were listening to a lecture on first aid, when one of the YCC (high school volunteers) kids starts having a mini seizure! He was OK, though, fortunately; they think it was due to a combination of low blood sugar and being squeamish about the lecture. After that, though, things quickly became pretty boring. They didn't really have anything for me to do, so I basically filled in the shoes of the kid that had to leave early, and did hard labor with them. Ugh. We had to clean out an old fly and mouse-infested trailer, and other stuff. I don't envy them, having to do it all summer.
Today was more interesting, since the biologist was back. In the morning, we had to work with spurge beetles. They are itty bitty beetles, probably about the size of this letter "o," that ONLY eat a certain type of spurge plant. Problem is, they can wipe out an entire thicket of the plants, and apparently can't figure out how to move on to a better source of food, therefore killing the entire poplulation. To remedy this, another team went out a few days ago to collect about 30,000 of these critters; today, it was our duty to search around the refuge for other unclaimed patches of these plants and chuck the beetles on them. We drove around all morning (aka 8-12), and we found some pretty cool things, including some wild prarie rose, a mink, and a type of butterfly that even the BIOLOGIST didn't recognize! Crazy, huh? I hope he figures it out! It was small (the wingspan was probably about 2 inches), and was black with white blotches on it.
Then this afternoon we had to pin up gypsy moth traps - even though the refuge/area doesn't get them (fortunately!), i guess they're still required to do the sampling. The biologist had to leave early, after we finished this, so the last 2 hours of the day i just kind of hung around my friend, the office manager/administrative lady (not my boss, she's more of a secretary deal...but does a lot more than your normal secretary!).
Anyway, I'm glad for the weekend! A chance to catch up on sleep!
Today was more interesting, since the biologist was back. In the morning, we had to work with spurge beetles. They are itty bitty beetles, probably about the size of this letter "o," that ONLY eat a certain type of spurge plant. Problem is, they can wipe out an entire thicket of the plants, and apparently can't figure out how to move on to a better source of food, therefore killing the entire poplulation. To remedy this, another team went out a few days ago to collect about 30,000 of these critters; today, it was our duty to search around the refuge for other unclaimed patches of these plants and chuck the beetles on them. We drove around all morning (aka 8-12), and we found some pretty cool things, including some wild prarie rose, a mink, and a type of butterfly that even the BIOLOGIST didn't recognize! Crazy, huh? I hope he figures it out! It was small (the wingspan was probably about 2 inches), and was black with white blotches on it.
Then this afternoon we had to pin up gypsy moth traps - even though the refuge/area doesn't get them (fortunately!), i guess they're still required to do the sampling. The biologist had to leave early, after we finished this, so the last 2 hours of the day i just kind of hung around my friend, the office manager/administrative lady (not my boss, she's more of a secretary deal...but does a lot more than your normal secretary!).
Anyway, I'm glad for the weekend! A chance to catch up on sleep!
Wednesday, June 17, 2009
And so it begins...
(Don't forget - click here for some photos to illustrate this post!)
Well, I've already been up here for nearly two weeks, and so much has happened!
The drive here alone was crazy - my dad came with me, and it took us nearly 2 days of driving (in the pouring rain, might I add!) We spent the rest of the weekend together, checking out my apartment, the (very small) downtown area, and we drove around the refuge for a little to see where I would be working. Our time together was way too short, and I was soon on my own.
I started working the very next day, Monday, June 8th. The term "work" is applied fairly loosely in this instance; I spent my entire 8 hour day doing training exercises on a computer! Half the day was learning computer/internet security, and the other half was devoted to driving an ATV - the "road" portion will be coming up next week, I hear. Just my luck, I was in such a rush that morning so I wouldn't be late on my first day, that I forgot to pack a lunch! My new co-workers were very nice, though, and pitched in so I wouldn't starve.
Tuesday went in a similar fashion, but that day I learned all about defensive driving, woohoo. Just my luck, I accidentally locked my keys in the car! I called AAA to get help, and the nearest person was three hours away! Fortunately the maintenance guy was able to bust into my car and help me get them back.
Wednesday started off the same, learning, learning, and more learning. But later in the morning, another new guy and I got to go into "town" and buy steel-toed boots, oh my! They're still awkward to walk in...! Once we got back, the refuge manager took the rest of the afternoon to drive us around the refuge, show us what we're working for and such. We saw so many amazing creatures, like cormorants, a river otter, huge flocks of pelicans, deer, pheasants, and more. Unfortunately I didn't have my camera with me, so no pictures of these critters.
Thursday was the first real day of actual work, and work it was! I worked with three guys to help gather up a riverbank full of logs, which had been deposited there from the flood they had this spring. It was pretty exhausting, I'm not gonna lie, but it was pretty fun, too!
Friday passed much the same, we finished up cleaning the flood debris. The maintenance guy used a giant excavator (construction machine with a scoop, that had a "thumb" to pinch things) to pick up our log piles, and flung them in a dump truck. That machine picked up mountains of wood like they were toothpicks!
This weekend, I mostly hung around my apartment, as I didn't have much elsewhere to go. I drove around for two hours trying to find a store to buy jeans, but there was nothing but farms! I am definitely in the boonies, but it's so gorgeous so I can't complain.
This past monday, I finally got cable for my apartment, which was a huge relief - the only wifi source was the library, which wasn't open much beyond my own working hours. I got to come in late (after the hookup), which was pretty cool. I spent most of the day listening to a CD of bird calls, to prepare me for a bird survey I was going to help with. It got pretty repetitive after a while, so needless to say I was pretty excited when the biologist I was working with (we share an office!) agreed that it was time to get outside. We drove around the refuge as he inspected a few sites, and it was cool hearing all the different things that were going on at the refuge. At one point we went to the area where I was cleaning up logs, and we stopped at a bridge/dam to check out the carp. These fishes, if you've never seen one, are pretty huge, about the size of my arm! The poor lady fishes were trying to get upstream (aka jump the dam) so they could lay their eggs, but many of them couldn't make it up and kept flopping back into the lower part of the system! I helped the biologist remove these huge steel beams, which resulted in a shorter waterfall and some happy fish.
Yesterday, not very much happened - it was rainy out, so we were stuck inside doing busywork.
Today, I had to get up at 4am to do the bird survey! The biologist, a professional birder, and myself met up at 5, and we drove around for five hours counting and observing the birds. It was a pain to have to get up that early, but seeing all the birds was amazing. There were so many cool ones to check out, like egrets, owls, even a bald eagle! Mostly they were either waterfowl, like ducks and geese, or tiny little sparrows. So cute! Starting so early, I obviously got to leave early, too. Time to veg out!
See you all next time!
Well, I've already been up here for nearly two weeks, and so much has happened!
The drive here alone was crazy - my dad came with me, and it took us nearly 2 days of driving (in the pouring rain, might I add!) We spent the rest of the weekend together, checking out my apartment, the (very small) downtown area, and we drove around the refuge for a little to see where I would be working. Our time together was way too short, and I was soon on my own.
I started working the very next day, Monday, June 8th. The term "work" is applied fairly loosely in this instance; I spent my entire 8 hour day doing training exercises on a computer! Half the day was learning computer/internet security, and the other half was devoted to driving an ATV - the "road" portion will be coming up next week, I hear. Just my luck, I was in such a rush that morning so I wouldn't be late on my first day, that I forgot to pack a lunch! My new co-workers were very nice, though, and pitched in so I wouldn't starve.
Tuesday went in a similar fashion, but that day I learned all about defensive driving, woohoo. Just my luck, I accidentally locked my keys in the car! I called AAA to get help, and the nearest person was three hours away! Fortunately the maintenance guy was able to bust into my car and help me get them back.
Wednesday started off the same, learning, learning, and more learning. But later in the morning, another new guy and I got to go into "town" and buy steel-toed boots, oh my! They're still awkward to walk in...! Once we got back, the refuge manager took the rest of the afternoon to drive us around the refuge, show us what we're working for and such. We saw so many amazing creatures, like cormorants, a river otter, huge flocks of pelicans, deer, pheasants, and more. Unfortunately I didn't have my camera with me, so no pictures of these critters.
Thursday was the first real day of actual work, and work it was! I worked with three guys to help gather up a riverbank full of logs, which had been deposited there from the flood they had this spring. It was pretty exhausting, I'm not gonna lie, but it was pretty fun, too!
Friday passed much the same, we finished up cleaning the flood debris. The maintenance guy used a giant excavator (construction machine with a scoop, that had a "thumb" to pinch things) to pick up our log piles, and flung them in a dump truck. That machine picked up mountains of wood like they were toothpicks!
This weekend, I mostly hung around my apartment, as I didn't have much elsewhere to go. I drove around for two hours trying to find a store to buy jeans, but there was nothing but farms! I am definitely in the boonies, but it's so gorgeous so I can't complain.
This past monday, I finally got cable for my apartment, which was a huge relief - the only wifi source was the library, which wasn't open much beyond my own working hours. I got to come in late (after the hookup), which was pretty cool. I spent most of the day listening to a CD of bird calls, to prepare me for a bird survey I was going to help with. It got pretty repetitive after a while, so needless to say I was pretty excited when the biologist I was working with (we share an office!) agreed that it was time to get outside. We drove around the refuge as he inspected a few sites, and it was cool hearing all the different things that were going on at the refuge. At one point we went to the area where I was cleaning up logs, and we stopped at a bridge/dam to check out the carp. These fishes, if you've never seen one, are pretty huge, about the size of my arm! The poor lady fishes were trying to get upstream (aka jump the dam) so they could lay their eggs, but many of them couldn't make it up and kept flopping back into the lower part of the system! I helped the biologist remove these huge steel beams, which resulted in a shorter waterfall and some happy fish.
Yesterday, not very much happened - it was rainy out, so we were stuck inside doing busywork.
Today, I had to get up at 4am to do the bird survey! The biologist, a professional birder, and myself met up at 5, and we drove around for five hours counting and observing the birds. It was a pain to have to get up that early, but seeing all the birds was amazing. There were so many cool ones to check out, like egrets, owls, even a bald eagle! Mostly they were either waterfowl, like ducks and geese, or tiny little sparrows. So cute! Starting so early, I obviously got to leave early, too. Time to veg out!
See you all next time!
Introduction
Hi gang! I thought I'd set up this little blog to let everybody know all the crazy happenings that will happen while I'm doing my summer internship. In case you want to cheer me up with some snail-mail while I'm gone, you can reach me at:
321 Lincoln Ave, Apartment #2
Ortonville, MN, 56278
Also, I've been trying to take some pictures to show you what's going on. They'll be posted here, and I'll try to write a reminder in my posts on here whenever new pictures go up.
Anyway, I wish you all happy reading!
321 Lincoln Ave, Apartment #2
Ortonville, MN, 56278
Also, I've been trying to take some pictures to show you what's going on. They'll be posted here, and I'll try to write a reminder in my posts on here whenever new pictures go up.
Anyway, I wish you all happy reading!
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