Friday, June 3rd- I have little memory of this day as it was four days ago. I perused through my cell phone videos and pictures, as well as my videos and pictures I put onto my laptop, and I apparently took none on this day. This probably means it was a very rainy day, because I remember we had one recently. It was cold and rainy and not many people came to the center on this day. I do remember scrubbing the Great-horned owls' perches on this day. I should really write some of this stuff down when the day is over and not just plan on remembering everything. Oh well.
Saturday, June 4th-I also do not remember a lot from this day as it was three days ago. The only pictures and videos I have of this day are from my cell phone. I took a picture of the moose calf we are bottle feeding and I also took a video of me feeding our porcupine. Oh wait. Now I remember. I took videos with my video camera this day. It was another rainy day here in the Portage Valley. I was working at the brown bear enclosure in the afternoon, and took this video:
This was the day we moved the muskox calf to a holding pen near the rest of the muskox. We also moved the elk to the former moose enclosure, and we moved the moose to the former moose enclosure. It was a good time. It involved all of the interns and staff who were at the center at the time, and Mike, our boss. We did this move after the park was closed for the day. It was pretty chaotic, but fun to watch. Take a gander:
As you can see, it was an eventful evening. Sorry the video quality is so poor, it looks much better on my laptop. The quality diminished after it was uploaded. I don't know enough about computers to know how to fix it either.
Sunday, June 5th- Today was a sunny day. No church today as I was scheduled to work today. I'll try to take Sundays off when I can to make to it to church sometime. Not sure where they are or how to get there, but I'll figure it out.
I got my picture taken with Mukluk, our year old muskox calf. We moved her to a new pen yesterday, and myself and another intern got pictures with her before she gets moved into the enclosure with the rest of the muskoxen.
After the photo shoot, I was over at the bear enclosure talking with visitors when I got a call saying that my roommate had an accident while putting in an electric fence in the elk enclosure. I was told to leave the bears and come pick up where he left off. I felt bad for him when I heard about it and was a little worried. All I was told was that he was bleeding from the head and was taken to the hospital in Anchorage, about an hour away. I met up with the boss, Mike, and he filled me in on what happened, and what needed to be done. He pointed out the drops of blood on the ground and showed me where he got hurt. He was using the post pounder to drive fence posts into the ground. I'm not entirely sure what the real name of this tool is, but it is about a foot and a half long metal cylinder with a hole in one end, has handles on each side, and you slide it over top of the fence and slam it down to hammer posts into the ground. He got to a bent fence post and as he was pounding the fence post in, the pounder slipped off and the post smacked him on his hairline above his forehead. Luckily, he was wearing his hat, so the cut was not as sever as it could have been. He got ten stitches and had some compressed vertebrae in his neck, but other than that, he's fine.
Anyway, I went to work hammering the rest of the posts in and then we wired the posts together, before turning the electricity on, of course. After that, we put up a small fenced in area in the caribou enclosure for the moose calf to be moved into eventually. For the past week, he has been in a cattle trailer with straw for bedding. It will be fun to see him in his new outdoors enclosure. Here is the moose calf with my roommate, Scott, after he returned from the hospital later that day.
Well, that's about it for that day.
Monday, June 6th- Today was a field trip day for myself, my roommate Scott, Vanessa, and the newly arrived intern from last year, Sarah. We went on a day long Kenai Fjords cruise based out of Seward, AK. I had done the day long Kenai Fjords cruise with my family in 2000 when we vacationed in Alaska. In 2008, when I came to AK during college, we did the half day Resurrection Bay cruise. The one that I did yesterday was the best, as we saw seals, sea otters, puffins, killer whales (orcas), sea lions, and humpback whales. I got some really cool pictures and videos. It was a bright, sunny day and couldn't have asked for better whale watching weather. We stopped at Fox Island, which is a large island that had a fox farm on it a long time ago. They would breed foxes and kill them for their furs. Now, it is an island where people come to on cruises and eat really good food and buy souvenir shirts and such. There was an all you can eat buffet on the island for dinner, and an optional half pound of king crab legs for $10. Scott and I figured that we may never get the chance to eat fresh Alaskan king crab on an island in Alaska again, so we obliged. My dwindling supply of money continues to dwindle. Oh well. I'll get paid in three weeks and I can certainly survive until then. After all, we had a good-bye party for Amelia, one of our spring interns who left yesterday, and there is a bunch of pizza left over from that. There is always the free hot dogs, reindeer dogs, and burgers too, although I am starting to get sick of them. Oh yeah, and my $140 worth of groceries that I bought when I got here. I'm all set.
Anyway, the cruise was great. We got home around 9pm and just relaxed after that. It was a good day. I was pretty tired when I got home. I had fallen asleep in the car on the way to Seward at 7am. Sarah got a picture of Scott and I in the middle seat of they Yukon both asleep. I had my mouth open, which when I saw the picture, wasn't too attractive. I remembered I had fallen asleep, just for a few minutes at a time, at two separate times on the cruise. I believe both times I woke up, my mouth was open. I only sleep with my mouth open when I am exhausted, I swear.
Anyway, here are a few pictures and videos of the cruise:
Seward, AK
Orcas:
Aialik Glacier, Kenai Fjords National Park, AK
It was a good day indeed. I had a video that I was going to upload, but it wasn't working.
Today, Tuesday, June 7th- a lazy day off. I literally spent 4/5 of my day in bed, using the internet that is now working. I also watched a movie with Scott. Good times. Well, more to come later, internet permitting.
that photo with the orca's and the rainbow from their spray is ridiculous, both cuz it's awesome and also because of your finger! it's ok though, you can photoshop that right out! as usual, this sounds awesome, nice pics, i'm jealous, yadda yadda yadda...
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