milleniumgypsy: (Red umbrella)
This afternoon I had a run or walk at work event, and Scottie dropped by with our ferrets. A lot of people were taking their dogs out for the event but we were the only people with ferrets! lol People are always curious about them so we got a lot of questions. They're like fuzzy ambassadors for their kind. lol

I was excited that the weather was actually nice this afternoon! It was probably 60 degrees and not raining or windy. Since cold, rainy, and windy has been the normal weather as of late I was thinking that I wouldn't participate like I'd been planning on. I wasn't too thrilled with the idea of going out in the rain, I've done that too much working at Pilot lol. xP This event was set up like a month ago and normally we have better fall weather in Anchorage. There was perfect timing really, since it was raining again a couple hours after the event was finished.

It was nice to get out of the office for a bit today and take a walk. :3

Home!

Jul. 24th, 2012 11:15 am
milleniumgypsy: (Bolt sleep circles)
I am home! I got back home on the 19th, but I've been just enjoying being home and didn't update here right away.

Luckily, the only bad thing that happened during my flight was that somehow the handle of my suitcase was broken in half. They didn't forget me somewhere, and my luggage didn't spend a few weeks hanging out somewhere random like it so often does. I have horrible travel luck so a slightly broken piece of luggage is a very good outcome.

I start work at my office job tomorrow! I'm a bit nervous, and I wish that I could have spent a bit more time at home resting. But I do want to get working again as soon as possible so that I can start making money again. Also, it's supposed to get really busy mid-August so getting me started now before that is a good idea.

It's been wonderful to see Scottie again! I missed him so much. I also was excited to see my ferrets again! They're so cute.

I've been trying to rest up so I haven't done much art yet, though yesterday I decided I wanted to start a barbie face repaint. I had already stripped the paint off of a barbie head this winter and I was going to use that, but I could not find the head anywhere. I found the body... but that's not terribly useful. So I went to strip a different head, but of course I ended up having some issues and the paint ended up smearing on one side of her head. I'm glad that it was just one of my cheap thrift store barbies and not a monster high head! Of course, I'm not going to start on Monster high heads until I've had more experience painting cheap and easily available thrift store barbies. lol

I did some garage sailing this past weekend. I picked up an AWESOME easel for $15. It was from an older guys house, and that easel was worth soooo much more than $15. But he said he didn't need a bunch of them anymore, and so he had 3 of them out for sale. They are excellent quality, and I doubt that they are made like this anymore. I could get a new one of a similar type for like $250 from Micheals. I was so excited, I've been wanting an easel like this for years. We were tempted to grab a second one so that Scottie could have one too, but we only got the one.

Scottie made me a beautiful beaded wire necklace and earrings yesterday! I'll put up pictures of that soon.
milleniumgypsy: (beluga blowing bubbles)
Sorry for the lack of sculpting updates lately. I don't know what I came down with, but apparently it's still hanging around. My thumb is finally feeling better though, which is a good thing. Now perhaps I can get some sculpting done!

Yesterday was interesting though! I decided to participate in an ice fishing event for work. I got an email looking for people to help with it, and I decided to go for it. It's actually been warm the last week too, which makes it so much more pleasant to think about doing. Warm being around 30 degrees F of course, but considering most of January was spent at -10 degrees F... It's practically tropical. lol :P

Anyway, I was supposed to go out to Jewel Lake at 8 am to help drill holes in the ice (350 holes), then have everything set up for groups of kids to come and start fishing at 10 am. The first group of kids were in 2nd grade, and I think there were about 150 of them. We also had a large group of 6th graders who where there to help the little ones. I went around and helped the kids and watched to make sure everything was going smoothly. The 2nd graders left after an hour and were replaced by some 3rd or 4th graders, who were "watched" by the same group of 6th graders. Unfortunately the 6th graders had lost interest in watching the younger kids by then and were spending most of their time goofing around. Not that it was terrible, and everyone was having a good time anyway so I don't think it was that bad. After an hour that group of younger kids left and then the 6th graders were able to fish themselves. Then they had lunch and went back to school.

After that, another group of kids ranging from 1st to 5th grade showed up, and there were about 150 of them.

With all those kids fishing all day, and even with the lake being stocked with fish, only 6 fish were actually caught. lol I can't say I'm surprised though, the fish that were caught were all along the edge of the lake near the shore, I'm sure all that noise and activity was keeping the fish away from the fishing area. lol

It was fun and I'm glad that I went. It was cold as I was outside all day from 8 am to 6:30 pm, but I wore enough layers and had some hand warmers and toe warmers inside of my boots (THOSE THINGS ARE THE MOST AMAZING THING EVER I WISH I KNEW OF THEM WHEN I WAS OBSERVING OMG). I was pretty cold by noon, but then I had some hot cocoa and soup with lunch and that helped warm me up. I also was able to spend a little bit of time in the trailer (unheated and open the the elements), but it was just enough to get me through.

I was so cold when I got home though, lol.
milleniumgypsy: (walking kitty)
Monday
Meeting, some training with new interns.
Plover training with new interns. Saw chicks at Wells Beach, did short survey. Went to Crescent Surf, saw tern egg.
Watered greenhouse.
Went with Liz to Crescent Surf to check if nest hatched and it had. Checked other exclosures, saw 8 adult plovers total. Found tern nest with 2 eggs. Did sunset chick watch with Shonee. (8am-9pm day, had lunch and dinner break)

Tuesday
Cut rebar with Ben and Mary.
Netted loosestrife, then inoculated with beetles.
Helped load wood into trailer for Day of Caring.

Wednesday
Off

Thursday
Office work.
Surveyed Seapoint Beach, Crescent Beach, and Short Sands Beach with Bob for statewide plover survey.

Friday
Off

Saturday
Sunrise plover chick monitoring.
Helped Elizabeth inoculate loosestrife with beetles.
(worked 4:30 am to 4:15 pm)

Sunday
Office work. Completed more computer training. Walked the trail a few times.
Sunset chick monitoring.

Customers

Jun. 8th, 2008 01:49 pm
milleniumgypsy: (Arwen in woods)
So, I don't get customers. I do get visitors on weekends though. Usually all week long I'm out in the field, so I don't really see any visitors. All the techs and biologists have the weekends off, and the interns are here alone to have the visitor "center" open. Our visitor center is a small room, maybe the size of a walk in closet or large bathroom. There are a couple of informational things set up, a few free posters and bookmarks to take, and we have a mile long loop trail. That's really it. It's not really a visitor center, it's just a spot for visitors to get some information. There are 2 port-a-potties outside for visitors, and a couple of picnic tables. We have an interpretive guide outside at the kiosk that people can take on the trail. On weekends the interns present a program that we write ourselves.

Sillyness to me is the questions that I get on weekends. Questions like "Will we see a lot of animals?" or "Are there animals in cages?" or if we are a petting zoo. We are a wildlife refuge. The point of the refuge is that wildlife comes first. Yes, before the visitors. We are here to protect wildlife, and in our spare time (or the interns "spare time") we educate the public as best we can. Also, since we are not a petting zoo I have no idea if you'll see anything besides a chipmunk. Seriously. I walk that trail a lot, and I generally don't see a whole lot of animals besides squirrels and chipmunks. I've seen beavers in the river but they don't have a dam here. There are geese around that you can generally see, and wild turkeys occasionally make an appearance. Kate saw a deer fawn one morning, but I haven't seen a single deer since I got here. There are also some small birds flitting around. I don't know what people are expecting when they ask. I think they are expecting to walk our 1 mile loop trail and see herds of roaming elk or something. Perhaps the scene from The Lion King when all the animals congregate to look at baby Simba. My lackluster list of animals here doesn't really seem to thrill people.

A lady came in today and asked how many animals she would see. After I told her what she might see, she asked what all we had here for visitors. The trail and the area you are standing in? Then she asks if there is stuff for kids to do. I already told you what we offered, I'm not hiding the amusement park I save for the people that I like. The kids can walk the trail and look at our information, and if they get taken at 10 am on weekends, they can take part in a walk.

It's really a minor annoyance, and not even all that annoying. But I get asked that question rather often, and -that's- the annoying part.
milleniumgypsy: (Galadriel-Lorien)
Monday
Memorial Day-off

Tuesday
"Monday meeting"
At salt marshes with Eric re-flagging points. Became familiar with salt marshes, learned GPS.
Tied transmitters for sparrows
Watered greenhouse
Office/Least Tern information gathering

Wednesday
Went with Angie, Eric, and Carlos for training session on sharp tailed salt marsh sparrows. Gained insight into what salt marsh sparrow technician does. Also more re-flagging.
Helped Liz and Elizabeth make loosestrife nets.

Thursday
Continued making loosestrife nets.
Went with Liz and Shonee for mock plover monitering.
Went to greenhouse. Watered plants. Moved all potted loosestrife out of pools to clean pools. Cleaned pools and after pool rearrangement began to sort them by plant size back into the pools.
Stayed late to finish planting the bare root stock.

Friday and Saturday
Off

Sunday
Prepared to give Rachel Carson talk but no one showed.
Helped visitors, answered phones, walked trail.
Went to Crescent Surf to check if chicks hatched (they didn't). Went to Parsons Beach and checked exclosure there.

Today

May. 27th, 2008 09:10 pm
milleniumgypsy: (Galadriel-Lorien)
So today I spent the first half of the day on the salt marsh. That was pretty exciting. Nothing too exciting today, we were just out finding and remarking the points. Salt marshes are pretty crazy though! We walked about 4 miles to get four flags in because of wandering around to get across in places. We did more than four flags of course. But we had to come back to the refuge today at 2 because it started to rain, and it isn't safe to be on the marsh if lightning starts. Too hard to get to cover. After that I started working out a rough schedule for the week, since I'm in high demand this week. Good and bad to that. Then I did some information gathering on Least Terns among other things.

Well, I'm tired so it's off to bed for me. I'm trying to do a daily journal of stuff that I do. At least the parts that I find interesting. hehe :P
milleniumgypsy: (baby duck)
Well, I have to do a write up (brief) each week talking about what I did during the week to send to the refuge manager. I haven't been writing what I've been doing in detail, but I -can- give the brief rundown if I just copy them here. lol

Accomplishments for week ending 5/25/2008 )

Accomplishments for week ending 5/18/2008 )


Accomplishments for week ending 5/11/2008 )

Accomplishments for week ending 5/4/2008 )

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