A day off

So it has been a while. The internet has been down for the past two days here, so I'll try to full you in on what has been going on lately.

After breakfast at my relatives house in Chugiak on the 25th, we headed down to Anchorage where I did the rest of my shopping. I bought the rest of my grocery essentials and we were on our way south to Portage. The hour and a half drive south was gorgeous- along the Seward Highway. It is a very scenic but very dangerous two lane highway. There are a lot of accidents on it as the road is very curvy and people are often looking left and right at the mountains and the waters of the Turnagain Arm. After many photo stops, we arrived at the Alaska Wildlife conservation Center in Portage. I was very excited to be here. I met the other interns who were all very friendly and then went for a walk around the center. I saw the wood bison, the muskoxen, the brown bears, the caribou, the elk, the owls and bald eagle, the sitka black-tailed deer. I knew I would love working here. I took the rest of the day to get acquainted with the place and meet new faces Later that evening, five of us went out to eat in Girdwood, the nearest town from Portage located ten miles north. I then went on a bike ride to Explorer Pond with another intern and got some cool sunset pictures. It was a great first day at the center.



Thursday, May 26th was my first actual day of work. I was out at the center by 9am and hung out by the brown bear enclosure. It is fun talking to people and answering questions and just being around the bears. I got some good videos and pictures during my four hours there.

During the day I got to do all sorts of cool stuff like feed the porcupine, change the owls' and eagles' water bucket for bathing in, and fed the year old muskox calf. There is always something new and exciting to do and it was a fun day. Later that night I went for a walk with the other interns to a pretty area called Moose Flats in the nearby Chugach National Forest. We saw an injured cow moose that was limping across the bike path. Perhaps she was hit by a car. It was sad to see her walk by, but her limp was not too bad and hopefully she will recover. I ended up playing frisbee and catch with a football until about 12:30am because it is so bright out still. It was a great day.

 Friday, May 27th was my second day on the job and a very eventful one. I started out feeding and giving water to Snickers the porcupine. I was even able to pet him- very carefully. He loves peanuts and will let you pet him while he eats peanuts. That was a first for me. I then helped clean out Mukluk the year old muskox calf's pen. After cleaning out her old straw and putting in new straw, I played soccer with her. She really likes to kick and headbutt the basketball that is in her enclosure with her. She really put on a show for the visitors. It is fun to watch her run around and chase it while she snorts away.

 
I then hung around the bear enclosure for a while until I was asked to go do some gardening tasks which was fine with me. Gardening is something I have learned to like. I think it has to do with my mom's love of gardening. I also took to college botany courses and I enjoyed them. Anyway, I planted a bunch of marigolds, eight cauliflowers, and two rows of carrots and two rows of radishes. I will plant two more rows of carrots and two more rows of radishes tomorrow. All of the plants we will grow here at the center will be fed to the animals. After work we had a barbecue for all the staff and then we got the rundown of the center during a walk through of the place. It was informative and helpful to know the full scoop of the place and the animals. The mosquitoes were especially brutal today and were relentless even into the night at 9pm. We had a birthday party for our three year old bull moose jack. We sang to him and he was given a fruit salad for his birthday. After that, a bunch of us interns watched a cartoon movie and I fell asleep. These long days are fun but very draining on the body.

And finally, today, Saturday, May 28th. Today was my day off. I slept in until eleven o'clock am. I checked to see if we had internet and sure enough, we did. I stayed on my laptop uploading pictures on Facebook and transferring pictures and videos from my camera to my laptop. It was nice to just lay in bed for a while and get caught up with the rest of the world. After lunch, a co-worker of mine, Michael, and I went for a four mile bike ride to the Beggich Boggs Visitor Center at Portage Lake and parked our bikes by the side of the road. It is a really pretty bike ride along a very well maintained bike path. The path passes through rainforest type areas and by hanging glaciers, mountains (of course) and lots of streams, rivers, and waterfalls. It was a great ride. We decided to bushwack our ways as high up the mountain next to the visitor center as we could. It started out fine until we got to the highest point we could go and realized that a storm was coming in. It took about an hour and a half to climb up and through the brush and trees and only about 40 minutes to descend. We had to be careful of the Devil's  club plant, which is especially thorny. I still have a thorn embedded deep in my left pinky that is very irritating, especially while typing this! On the way down, nearly at the bottom where we parked out bikes, I almost got a lot more punctures in my body- only from a porcupine! I nearly stumbled upon one that I luckily startled, which in turn startled me. He or she was cute, and waddled away slowly from us. We reached out bike and started peddling home. It was nice because the wind was at our backs this time. We decided to take the road home because it was the quickest as it was starting to lightly rain. Upon reaching our house, I was immediately told to get into a van by my roommate. My boss, Kelly was about to go hooligan fishing and a bunch of interns were headed out to watch her. I got in, cold and tired from my bike ride and went along for the bike ride. Luckily I had packed a pb&j sandwhich and a granola bar. I devoured them on the way to the river. We watched our boss and another intern, also an Alaskan resident, pull up net after net of hooligans- an eight to twelve inch skinny smelt-like fish that spawns around this time of the year. Only Alaskan residents are allowed to catch them. They are used as candles, dog food, people food, and various other uses. After catching a large plastic bin-ful of the sliver fish, they were brought back to the center where we ate some. They were better deep fried than over the fire. The taste is pretty bland. After that, at around midnight, my fellow intern Vanessa- the moose enthusiast, let me bottle feed our newly arrived (today) week and a half old moose calf! I can definitely say that it was the first time I have ever bottle fed a moose calf. He was so cute and I thoroughly enjoyed it! I can't wait to do it again. He drank the bottle quickly and with great pleasure.

Well, that's it for now. Work in the morning and I need sleep!