Is it madness?

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

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.

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.

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