Zooooooom! (7/12/09)

What an incredibly cool day today! The morning was a little iffy because I left early to go have breakfast at a place I found in the phone book only to find it was no longer in operation. I grumbled but knew I had a meal replacement bar and an apple at work so I headed over there. I was an hour early so I decided to “pre-hike” (aka half official, half unofficial exploration) the emergency spillway area. It was a super foggy morning so walking through the mists, into the prairie, while listening to the birds sing and seeing the dew settled on spider webs and leaves was very surreal. I stopped to take many pictures.

The spillway area is so neat. At least to me since I’m a wetland plant nerd. There is little to no grass out there, just this type of rush that’s about 3-4 inches long for the most part. The ground was so soft to walk on. There were little areas where springs were coming up to form little puddles and running streams. The spillway itself is large from a distance but so much more huge up close. Add the misty fogginess and it was like I was in another world. It was actually quite peaceful. That part of the morning was topped off by the arrival of a Red-tailed Hawk that was not happy with me being there apparently. He started calling and it echoed around the concrete structure giving me chills. It was so cool. I tried to get a little closer so I could get a good picture but he flew away. If only I’d had my other camera…….sigh….

By the time I got in to work, I was much more relaxed and happy. I got down to business making TP tube binoculars. I finally have access to the computer there so I was looking forward to getting started on a few things. I was pleased to find that the one caterpillar I was “arguing” with yesterday finally decided that it was going to make it’s chrysalis on my dream catcher. There’s another one ready to roll so I have to keep an eye out on him. Then I was informed that I was going on boat patrol with my boss, which made me happy as it was a beautiful day and being out on the boat is kinda relaxing. It’s a nice break from the norm.

We got out there and zoomed about a bit and then….my boss “popped the question.” Did I want to drive? My initial reaction (though he doesn’t know) was along the lines of “OMG! I’m gonna crash and ruin the boat!” I answered him with a chuckle. “Do you trust me?” He gave me a brief rundown of what controls what and what the little lights and displays do and turned it over to me. Well, I must have done a good job because he didn’t really remind me of anything that I didn’t already know (aka the point where it gets shallow really quickly). I dare say I think he enjoyed the ride and enjoyed the break from his usual breakneck pace. I did however let him drive the boat into the dock. I don’t wanna be the one to scratch the new boat. LOL So, yay! I drove the boat! Soon, I’ll have to learn to take it in and out of dock and drive the trailer. Have faith in your abilities, Ames!

My next surprise of the day was the pile of business cards with my name on it. Wow! I have business cards! :D I feel even more official!

The next happy moment of the day, though not a surprise, was sitting down and doing a project, start to finish, that I’ve been wanting to do since week 1. I made a bird checklist for our site. We had a report from the Audubon Society on what birds have been seen here and how frequently but we didn’t really have a checklist that people could take with them to check off what birds they’ve seen through out the year. It’s very simple. It’s the top 130 most common birds with a few uncommon ones sprinkled in for good measure and check boxes for spring, summer, autumn and fall. (And I just remembered what I meant to put in there but forgot to….dang.) Yeah, there’re a lot of birds I left out but I see the majority of the people using this thing being casual birders. Not rabid birders like Ranger B. The ones I left out are the ones that are super rare. Yes, technically there have been brown and white pelicans at the lake but they were a treat, not a norm. (Seriously, there were pelicans here a few years ago.) Anyway, after 3 weeks, it’s DONE. Woo!

One of the groups that came for a picnic today was the Corvette club of Springfield. These guys have totally awesome classic Corvettes that they’ve rebuilt and made all shiny. I went out to snag some pictures of the cars and they not only let me have some of their food (yay dinner!) but one lady even took a picture of me in her convertible Corvette! Woo again! :D :D They were really nice people with really nice cars. LOL

So that’s the excitement today. That’s really about it. I did have one frustrating day not too long ago when I was the only person at the visitor center and that was when everyone wanted to know stuff that I didn’t know. Tres annoying. Things have been good otherwise.

Until next time…..