WILDLIFE FUN!

Today, I went for a walk during work (ok maybe I took a couple walks into the woods). Anyways, I got to see lots of wildlife. Of course there are the usual suspects - the blue jays, squirrels and woodpeckers. But today was special. I also got to see a raccoon walking across the trail and then climbing up a tree to its hide-y-hole. Unfortunetly, I didnt have my camera on me. Shortly after that, I went to see the porcupine. It was the first time I had seen one in the wild.

On my way back to the office, there was a lot of noise from the crows and ravens. Eventually, a barred owl was spotted.  

Perhaps I can thank the super nice weather for all the activitey and fun sightings. Hopefully they continue!

YAY Chemistry!!

I can't believe that I just said YAY chemistry.

While in school, I sat through many chemistry lectures. I hated chem but it was the required minor for anyone in the Marine Biology program at Whitewater. I struggled through introducation chemistry, organic chemistry, water quality...ugh the list goes on. I often wondered during these lectures if I would EVER EVER use this knowledge in the "real world."

At the Audubon Center, we have 400 gallons of freshwater fish - trout, bluegills, bass, etc. Recently, we have been having problems with the trout dying. I run water quality a couple times a week but it keeps coming back clean. After a few emails to the Great Lakes Aquarium, they recommended that we treat with salt (5ppt) since we may have a parasite problem.

Heres me showing off my titration skills to figure out DO...I am a dork!

This is where the chem classes come in - I had to figure out how many pounds of salt to add to the 400 gallons of water to get 5 ppt. The salt concentration needs to be high enough to kill the parasites but low enough to not harm the fish. After more than a half hour of research and calculations, I came up with adding 18 pounds of salt!! That is ALOT of salt, so much so that I thought my calculations were wrong. I shot another email off to the aquarium. Turns out my calculations were right - add about 20 pounds of salt.

Glad to know that all of those classes paid off, even if its only a little bit. :)

Infamous Billboard

Here it is.

The infamous Bush billboard. Yes, it is real. It also just happens to be on the interstate I take to get to the cities and home.

UGH...Vomit

Energy Field Trip - Day 1

Today was the first day of field trips for my energy and sustainability class. The trip included some businesses in the cities that were environmentally friendly in one way or another.

First stop of the day was a tour of The Green Institute. This building was the result of a grassroots campaign against a garbage transfer station nearly 13 years ago. Its a environmentally friendlly building (it uses all sorts of renewable energy) and its filled with tennents who are as well. One of the things that I found interesting here was the placement of the stairs and elevators. Usually when you walk into a building, the first thing you notice is the elevators. Here, you walk in and see the stairs because the elevator has been moved further inside the building. The reason for the switch-er-roo is people most often take the first method they see. In this building that is the stairs which uses A LOT less energy than an elevator. (http://www.greeninstitute.org/)

One of the tennents of The Green Institute is Peace Coffee which was our next stop. This is a small coffee business that buys only fair-trade, organic and local beans from more  than 13 countries around the world. They then micro-roast the beans down the hall from their offices. We got the chance to see the process in action. This was my favorite part of the day - you walked into the space that smelled fantastic. I had never seen the process of going from unprocessed bean to the final product so that was interesting to watch. (The picture is me with all the giant bags of coffee beans! You can tell that I am just a little excited to be there!!)

Don't fret, this coffee addict got a free sample of the spring blend and one of the old coffee bags. I am thinking that I will put the bag into a poster frame and use it like a poster. The website for this place is http://www.peacecoffee.com/.

Next, was time for lunch. We went to Common Roots Cafe (http://www.commonrootscafe.com/) which is a local, organic cafe. I thought the cafe was cute and the food was good but it was just a tad expensive. The picture below is of some of us enjoying our food. While here, we got the chance to talk to the owner and here how this idea got started. Some of the stats from this place are rather amazing - for example, they saved enough energy to run 3 cars an entire year.

                              

The last stop of the day was Pollution Control Agency. We got a tour of the resource center and got to dig around in a bunch of stuff. It was interesting to hear what they are trying to do for education on topics like water, recycling and trash even with all the budget cuts.

All in all, it was a lot of information and stops. But hey, I got some free coffee :) Stay tuned for Energy Field Trip - Day 2 coming next week.

BLAH BLAH BLAH

Well, this weekend I went home for a much needed break from the center. For the most part, it was great. I got lots of great food, watched a bunch of tv, had Starbucks and got to do pretty much nothing!

On the downside I had to file my taxes. I know that pretty much everyone grumbles about tax season but this year was especially challenging. Not only did I have to file my federal taxes but I also had W-2's from 3 states. This is when things get interesting - which state am I a resident of? Did I make enough that I have to file? Which form or forms need filing? Ugh. Luckly between me and my dad (okay, mostly thanks to my father) it all got worked out. Now all I have to do wait for my return YAY!!

Winterfest and Bird X Bird

To yesterday was a very busy might be an understatement. Jeff and I had 3 raptor programs and ended up working 17 hours.

First up were 2 Silent Hunter programs at Sherburne National Wildlife Refuge. The refuge was having their Winterfest so there were lots of people milling around. At the start of our program Senator Amy Klobuchar showed up, along with a state senator and the regional director of the US Fish and Wildlife Service. Senator Klobuchar hung out to see the first owl (our barred owl) and assisted us by holding props. Between the 2 programs we spoke to about 700 people.

Next, it was on to the cities. After running a couple errands and a quick dinner, it was on to the night program - Bird X Bird (http://www.birdxbird.org/). Each year, local artists use data from our rehab and education birds to create artwork. It serves as a fundraser for the Audubon Center and the Eloise Bultler Wildflower Garden. To represent the birds, we had Cica, the Eastern Screech Owl. It was definately fun to see all the art and the diverse crowd of nearly 300 people.

When the day was over and the birds were put back in their mews, I was exhausted. It was one of the longest days I have worked but enjoyable. I got to chat with almost 1000 people about birds and the Audubon Center, meet a Senator and get to see some really good art. All in all, a very productive day!

I'm leaving on a jet plane...

I have the travel itch.

This is nothing new for me, every couple months I get the urge to go somewhere. Anywhere. The good news is I have booked a ticket to Salt Lake City, Utah to visit a couple friends. The bad news is I keep seeing all of these good prices on plane tickets that I can't buy.

For those of you that don't know, I have a list of places I want to go someday (literally it is a word document on my computer). If I ever win the lottery I am going to take off and see the world. Until that happens here are my top 10 places I would visit internationally.

1. Australia - Yes, I know I have already been here but the country is huge. Sydney is my favorite city in the world and I would love to go to Ayers Rock, Perth, Canberra...the list goes on. PLUS, I would get to see my mates again!
2. Seal Island, South Africa - This one is probably never going to happen but I can dream! This is one of the few places in the world where great white sharks actually come out of the water while they are hunting seals. I would love to do a cage dive - talk about an adrenaline rush!!
3. Galapagos Islands - Another one that is unlikely to happen. As a biology geek, I think it would be amazing to see.
4. London, England - amazing theatre, musuems and Buckingham Palace. This just seems like a fun city to walk around in for a couple days or week.
5. Paris, France - Eiffel Tower, the Louvre the list goes on.
6. Costa Rica - For years I have wanted to zip line through the rainforest.
7. African Safari (South Africa, Madagascar, pretty much any country would do)- Seeing the large carnivores and animals of the grasslands would probably take my breath away.
8. Belize - I have heard the SCUBA diving here is amazing!
9. Antartica - It would be pretty cool to see the massive ice sheets and perhaps some penguins or whales.
10. Vancouver, Canada -  Just seems like a nice city to go walk around and explore. Plus, its not too far of a flight!

So there is my list. I am now accepting donations....HAHA just kidding. If you have any suggestions of places I should add or things I could do in Salt Lake City feel free to let me know!

four fantastic days!

So, this weekend was fabulous. Not because anything spectacular happened but because nothing happened. It has been quite awhile since I have been able to lay around, read and enjoy 3 consecutive days off.  Of course, by mid-day Saturday I was going stir crazy. I went for an hour and half cross country ski around the wetlands at the Audubon. This was slightly longer than I had intended but it was pretty and quiet.

This is a picture from the observation tower on my ski

On the way back, I decided to stop along my transect.

This is a close up of an ice crystal hanging off a squirrel cache.

The sunrise on my walk to the barn Sunday morning

The other highlight from my three days of relaxation was going to a coffee shop. To those of you that live in towns and cities this may not seem like a big deal. For me, the closest coffee shop that has good coffee, food and free internet is almost 30 miles away. I spent a splendid 2 hours enjoying the atmosphere and working on homework. It was so great to just spend a few days recharging and not worrying about much. Every now and then you just need it!

Today, I had to work. The nice thing about today was it was only a kinda-sorta work day. I got to go to Raptor Center down in the cities because the 3 smallest birds were due for a beak trim and Nero had to get his leg looked at again. I got to go down to the clinic and watch how this was done. While we were there, the vet staff brought in several different birds that were going through rehab (which I found all very fascinating and distracting).  The good news is the kestrels and screech owl now have nice looking beaks. The bad news is I am probably going to have to deal with crankey birds in the morning. Oh well, I guess I will deal with it then!