I've been trying to update this blog for about 3 days now, but the internet is so slow it keeps failing to save or post. So here we go again -- fingers crossed.
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| Looks almost like a painting! |
First, I wanted to get the pictures up from the snow we had about a week and a half ago. I mentioned in my last post, but in case you missed it, we had a light snow storm last Friday.
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| Snow falling on Newton Peak |
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| My coworkers milling around in the frost |
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| Summer tried to come... didn't quite make it. |
Just as quickly as the snow came, it melted away again with a few gloriously warm days of sun this past week. I had training off and on -- I was exempt from B3 aviation because apparently my certification I got last summer is good for 3 years, but I still got to do Operational Leadership (risk management), bear safety, and shotgun training.
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| Shotgun training |
Shotgun training was super fun. We practiced with the park's .12 gauge Remington 870s, using slugs and buckshot, the same ones we take into the field for bears. I haven't gone shooting in over a year, but I was pretty proud of my aim! Didn't even really get a bruise from the kick of the shotgun afterwards.
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| Ginormous mosquito -- summer's back! |
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| Mew gull |
Near the end of the week, we had an afternoon of birding with a biologist from AK Fish & Game. Needless to say, I was quite excited about this session. We birded around Nome for about 2 1/2 hours, and I saw a bunch of new species I probably wouldn't have identified on my own, including Cackling Geese (they look exactly like Canada Geese), parasitic jaegers, and a Pacific golden-plover.
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| Melanistic parasitic jaeger! |
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| Regular plumage parasitic jaeger |
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| Rock ptarmigan molting into summer plumage |
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| Whale! |
During the birding trip, one of my coworkers spotted a whale offshore. We screeched to a halt on the side of the road and watched for a long time as the whale periodically surfaced to spout and roll in the calm surf. We couldn't figure out what kind it is -- possibly a bowhead? Maybe a grey whale? Still haven't figured it out.
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| Still haven't identified it... |
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| Bonfire (in the 10pm sunlight!) |
That night, in celebration of finishing our two weeks of training, we returned to the beach to have a little bonfire, enjoy the last of our good weather, and the bright midnight sun.
On Tuesday I begin my summer of "real" work as an interpretive ranger. My schedule will be Tuesday-Saturday all summer, with Sunday and Monday as my weekend days. Next week I have a full schedule of assisting with a Tundra Tots program, giving a ranger talk at the visitor center, giving two Junior Ranger programs on Friday, and staffing our table at a craft fair on Saturday.
This week is also the beginning of Nome's Folk Fest, which celebrates the summer solstice, so there will be a lot going on outside of work, including the summer parade, lots of live music, and other events and festivities bringing the town together. Should be a fun week!
Edit: Forgot to mention my Recipe of the Week for week 2 here was dairy-free rice pudding. I had a bunch of rice to use up, so I made it into pudding with almond milk, sugar, and cinnamon. It tasted like rice pudding, but the texture was more like just sticky, creamy rice. Overall, not too bad and a good way to use up rice that's been in the fridge too long.
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