Fall is Here!

 Today is my first unplanned day off that I have had in about 4 months!  Boy oh Boy the possibilities of things I can do today! 

First things first....blog! 

This Wood Bison calf on the right was the last born calf of this summer.  He was only born about 3 weeks ago.  This makes him about 2 months younger than all the other calves. 

I was able to catch him nursing in this pic.  I bet all the other calves are jealous since they are basically done nursing from their mothers.  You can see another calf in the back ground.  The other calves are already dark brown like their mom's.  So it is really funny to see only one orange spot now in the herd.







Our 2 Sitka Black Tailed Deer are doing great!  They have even completely lost their spots.  Leia is on the right and Solo is on the left.  Solo now only gets one bottle a day.  All of our calves are almost completely weaned.  The two moose calves, Sully and Teddy, are still at 2 bottles but not for much longer.  

 You can tell that Solo was hand raised before he came to the center.  As soon as he sees anyone that is bringing him browse or food he runs right over.  Leia is getting better at not being as skittish as she once was. 

Well, I didn't have that many photos today to share.  However, I do plan on runny around the center today and getting some great snap shots while the sun is still out.  I haven't seen the sun here in over 3 weeks!  Seriously, It has been pouring buckets of rain here non-stop for the past 3 weeks. 

I think one of the things I should check off my list today is to move my chickens, Boca and Tofu, over to the center for the winter.  I also have to start moving out of the cabin I stayed in all summer. 

Maybe I may even take a coffee break today at the lodge in Portage where I worked this summer. 

Ok....so readers be ready for the next blog to be posted fairly soon!

Goodnight Lower 48,
ErIn

Summer is coming to an end.......

The past week has been some of our official last days of Summer.  We started the week with Rain, rain, and more rain!  But, living in Portage for the past year has prepared me to expect rainy days more than sunny days.  It also makes you appreciate the beautiful days more.  Here I was feeding Jewelie an apple that Kat, my roommate, donated to the animals.

The musk Ox calves are down to 2 bottles a day now.  Even now they don't really need the bottles anymore.

 Sarah was trying to let Hammond finish the rest of his bottle before Walter tried to squeeze in. 

Every year we feed the animals the veggies from the Palmer state fair.  Yesterday this was the tractor load that Mike Miller fed the brown bears. 

                                                             Look at the size of this zucchini!

Since I was the only person with my camera I was able to go in with Mike and get footage/pictures of the bears digging into the veggies.  It was my first time ever to go in with the bears....It was awesome!

 Joe Boxer looks even bigger when there is no fence separating me from him.....

 Patron briefly inspected the tractor before going back to the veggies.....

 Can you guess what this is?  A cucumber!!!! It was 6 feet 6 inches tall!!!!!  That means it was 2 inches taller than our tallest intern Kara!

Today we fed out the remaining veggies leftover.  We thought it would be a good idea to allow people to stand on our nearly completed Bear Boardwalk.  

 On one of the rainy days the interns walked Bert our reindeer around.  Nicole, on the far left, had her last day as an intern before returning to Maine. 

 Bert doesn't exactly pose very well for pictures.....

The snow is almost here!  The mountains even have a bit of fresh snow at the tops of them.  Next weekend we are going on a road trip to Denali National Park!!!!!  I can't wait for the awesome pictures and hopefully see some wildlife that I have never seen before.

Goodnight Lower 48,
ErIn

That Time of Year Again....

Well the summer is officially coming to a close...interns have already gone back to school, the calves are getting weaned from their bottles, and the weather has just a little chill on the end of it.

The fireweed has died which marks 6 weeks till winter!  It has been over a month since I last blogged!  Living across the street from any internet access has made me lazy with my blog.

Since my last blog I had a very special visit from my mom.  I have lived in Portage, AK for a year and a half now with no vehicle.  It really hasn't been that difficult and if anything I would probably do it all over again.  I was able to get comfortable with winter driving before I really had to worry about owning my own vehicle; or even pay car payments.  Well, my parents surprised me with a truck, and one day I hope I can return the favor.

It was perfect timing to since I didn't have to ride my bike home in the rain.....

Since then I have also gotten to expand my horizon by learning some bird handling techniques.

Last week a volunteer vet, and 2 other volunteers from Bird TLC  donated their time by visiting the center and doing health checks on all our birds.  They even showed us how to handle the birds if the occasion ever arose.  Good news-all of our birds are healthy and exactly where they should be.  We even signed up to take a bird handling course in a few weeks so that we can volunteer at the their center.  

This was me helping hold down "Hooty"- the male Great Horned Owl.

One of our last field trips of the year was going to Barber Cabin.  It was located in Cooper Landing.  We parked and then hiked 3.3 miles to the cabin, and we couldn't have had a better time.  Their was also a canoe located on the lake with the cabin.  We attempted to canoe the lake but it was just way to windy to go very far out.

 I went with an awesome group of people!  From left-Kat (my awesome cabin mate/very good friend, me, Sarah-another very good friend of mine, Scott and Pat which are brothers.  Scott is an intern from last year, and convinced his brother to come work at the center in the gift store for a few months. 

This is Sarah Howard; we will be working together this winter and I am very excited!

In the past few weeks or so we have done some filming for a few different projects.  A movie called "Wildlike" starring Bruce Greenswood went in with our bears to get some shots.  Bruce stared in the new Star Trek as Captain Pike I believe.  I was very jealous that I wasn't at the center while all of the filming was going on.  Kara, an intern, recognized him right away and got a picture with him. 

The past few days we have had so much rain that I haven't even attempted to take pictures.  We are do for some very serious wind storms for the next few days.  Keep your fingers crossed that we don't blow away out here in Portage!

Goodnight Lower 48,
ErIn