March 18th

First ever backwoods bang trim, courtesy of me! not a total disaster...

A snowstorm rolls in just in time for my trip back to Portland.  Thanks Clarno Basin weather patterns. 

March 17th

Happy St. Patrick's Day!  Spring is coming!

Even though the hills still look all burned and bleak from far away...

Up close the plants are coming back!

There's even some teeny flowers!

Some of the plants I recognize (this one has roots that will numb your tongue)

lomatium!

And some are a mystery to me!

could this be a calochortus? fingers crossed!

March 16th

This is the setup for mouse gutting so we can feed the birds! Our usual bird person was out of town this weekend so I got to give it a try.  I discovered that my rodent gutting skills have waned over the last six years and it took me like, 15 minutes to get through two mice.  But I got sassy Mariah the great horned owl to eat from the red tongs, after lots of hissing and clacking, and K2 the red-tailed hawk ate his whole mouse in front of me (which is good). The birds are pretty sweet, I'm kinda into them. 

March 14th

Happy Pi day!  This week's kids are slightly more challenging than last week.  One of the kiddos picked up this rock on a hike, and immediately after I told him to put it down because it was bigger than his head the kid just behind him picked it up, lifted it above his head, carried it 4 steps, and upon being snarked at by me launched it backwards towards the kid behind him. 

March 13th

Sagebrush and a very rare water feature sighting on Pine Creek preserve

March 12th

New group of kids this week, but I have Monday and Tuesday off, muahaha.  I spent all day making notecards for the classes that the instructors are teaching this week so that I can teach them when my time comes.  The kids this week are doing Survival, Geology/Paleontology, and Ecology for their big studies, Rocks/Minerals, Climbing Wall, Fossil Study, Skulls/Skins/Bones, and Sustainable Energy for their short interest groups, and Astronomy, Reptiles/Amphibians, Birds of Prey, and Environmental Forum (which I will lead). whew! lots of stuff!


(intense notecard making photo to come)

March 11th

poking around the homestead on a weekend solo ramble, relics of life on the homestead

March 10th

 Happy Birthday Dan!  trying to make birthday balloon animals out of the balloons I bought at the Fossil Merc, which it turns out are NOT intended for balloon animals.

March 9th

Celebrating making it through the first week of teaching with delicious curry! yum!

March 6th - 8th

Woops,  this week was one giant whirlwind.  Everything went well, I think I love middle schoolers.  However, no time for pix.  So please enjoy this image of my little bunny neighbor.  These guys are everywhere, there's always at least 3 buns on the trail out of the staff cabins, they usually freeze and side-eye you until you're right up on them, when they skitter away under an a-frame. cute.

March 5th

 Ready to teach!  Our first group of the season arrives today!  I'm the only new instructor teaching this week so I'm a little terrified.  First day is tour, intro hike, and insects and spiders where we dissect giant grasshoppers.  Second day is mystery hike that it turns out is along a whole different trail from the one we originally thought, so I'm not sure what the curriculum will be, I've never hiked the whole trail, I'm taking two severe asthmatics on a 1,000 ft up over .5 miles hike with a rock climbing section and 500 ft cliff look-over, and it's supposed to snow.  Then assuming we all make it back from the hike we'll do team challenge activities in the afternoon.  Day three is geology/paleontology hike, aboriginal skills (hopefully I can find somebody else to demonstrate the atlatl throw) and night hike, and then my first time belaying on the rock wall on day four, and then we call it a week! yipes!

Here's my day one classroom, all set up for insects and spiders, 

Complete with grasshopper diagram so that I can make ABSOLUTELY POSITIVE no middle schoolers get ahead and like, flick chunks into their mouths or something. 

March 4th

Monday will be my first teaching day and, to add extra fun and intrigue, my first group ever has requested a hike that does not have accompanying curriculum and I won't know what they actually want until their first night here, the night before I teach.  I went with another instructor today to check out the area where they'd like to hike and try to cobble together a curriculum.  We hiked across the road to the Lee Homestead, an abandoned farm along a little creek. 

March 3rd

My little spider buddy.  He gets to live in the A-frame with me as long as I have visual confirmation that he's in his web before I go to sleep. 

March 2nd

Sunrise over camp on our mock morning hike up Shrike hill

March 1st

hike up to stegamonster hill...

The stegamonster! raarrrrr

Stegamonster's head.  The rocks are lahar outcrops that are chock full of fossils

Tons o' leaf fossils!

Banana leaf fossil (with foot for size reference!) there used to be an actual fossilized banana at Hancock but it's in a museum now. 

Feb 29th

Mini snowstorm froze the chia elephant before it had time to sprout.  In real life it looks less terrifying than it does in this picture...

Feb 28th

Birds of Prey practice presentation with Mariah, the super, super super sassy owl.  Someday it will be my job to hold/get hissed at by Mariah

Feb 27th

Aboriginal skills training day! 

Here we are learning to use the bow drill method to start fires

and here's Gwen launching an atlatl.  Notice that there are no pictures of me using atlatls, that's because I'm still currently totally awful at it.  

Feb 26th

Checking out the sites as we shadow Dan's pro-quality Geo Hike

Oooooo fossils!

Check that calcite! so large!

Feb 25th

hike to visit the famous Hancock Humanoid! 

 (actual pictograph is behind/above Daniel)

Feb 24th

Training week kicks off with a hike guided by our local park ranger John Laing.  He knows everything. and is always popping up on the trails unexpectedly. 

Feb 23rd

Welcome back!

Feb 22nd

A good omen in Hood River as I make my way back to camp to start the season

Feb 18th - 21st

hahaha, the only photo I have from my 4 day hiatus in civilization.

Feb 17th

Rocked out the WFR written and practical tests today and am now certified to treat injuries that occur in the backcountry! oh snap!

  We finished before noon and I took off for Portland, but not before assisting in the re-catching of Stu, one of the resident Great Horned Owls at Hancock, who had escaped from his home early in the morning.  Our cook found him 6 hours later heading for freedom in the stream bed along the driveway, and the combined efforts of 5 instructors and 3 large towels captured him back.  Here he is looking cranky in his mew after all the excitement.

Feb 16th

Today gave a classmate an injection, learned what various horrifying insect, snake, and large mammal bites look like and what I can do to treat them (which is pretty much nothing) and completed our 'night scenario' when we went out in the middle of the night in teams of 4 to hunt for a 'patient' who we had to treat.  Surprise, the patient was one of our own group who had been prepped before hand with a nice bloody open leg fracture.  and then surprise again, as soon as we finished treating our first patient, a second team member went down with a fake seizure.  whew.   

Feb 15th

First visit to the Fossil Mercantile, which sells groceries, tiny amounts of tools, household items, and office supply products, homemade quilts, and lots and lots of taxidermied heads.

February 14th

Happy Valentines from Hancock Field Station!  I learned a valuable teaching lesson today when our WFR instructor Renee let us make valentines pouches first thing in the morning and encouraged us to make valentines for each other.  I proceeded to make heart shape acrostic poems all day and learn nothing about anything useful.