Birding Life List (or Why I should Blog before 11:00)

Today I started my Life List.  Seasoned birders (thats people who like to go outside and look at birds, not people who enjoy rosemary on their chicken) will be familiar with the term, but for the normal part of humanity, it's exactly what it sounds like.  It's a list of all the birds you've ever seen ever.  I've chosen to start from today and if I get sick of not having some cool stuff on there I'll add things I know I've seen (Green Heron, Cerulean Warbler, Monkey-Crested Disco Hawk, etc.)

When I googled "monkey crested disco hawk" it provided me with this helpful picture of a cat about to disobey the warning label on the side of his prescription catnip.

I come by birding honestly.  My parents like birding more than most people (in that they like birding more than most other people like birding, and that they like birding more than they like most people).  For further clarification please see the "Things My Parents are Religious About" chart below.

THINGS MY PARENTS ARE RELIGIOUS ABOUT

1. Fishing/Dances that Were the Height of Fashion and Society While the Pyramids Were Under Construction, Respectively
2. Aaron Sorkin's "The West Wing"
3. Birds
4. The Outer Banks
5. Unitarian Universalism

So but seriously, I come by birding honestly.  In fact, on my mom's side of the family not knowing the difference between a Pintail and a Bufflehead is grounds for immediate expulsion (Sorry, Lina).  One of my cousins named for a delicious root spice (I'll leave you guys to guess which one!) frequently scares her very-calm-and-level-headed boyfriend nearly to death by attempting to identify the birds soaring through the air above the car she is in the process of operating.  If that all weren't enough, birding plays a major role (maaaajor role!) at the summer camp for which my first child will be named (not for a long time, see post 1).  Hurricane Burgundy Center for Wildlife Studies Rodriguez will probably disown me, but before he she it they do, they will have a copy of Sibley's and a pair of 8X24 binos thrust into their new born fingers. 

What we need to take away from this, sports fans, is that I really like birding for reasonable reasons, and for those reasons I decided to start writing down all the birds I see.

I made the first part of this post really long because the part where I list all the birds on my life list is gonna be pretty short.

1. Dark Eyed Junco (saw and heard)
2. Yellow Rumped Warbler (saw and heard and came to hate, more on that later)
3. Common Raven (saw and head)
4. Hermit Thrush (saw and heard)
5. Violet Green Swallow (saw and heard)
6. Grey Jay (saw and heard)
7. Peregrine Falcon (saw and heard)
8. Varied Thrush (heard)
9. Red Squirrel (saw and heard, is on list on purpose, is not a bird.  I learned this, to my dismay, after chasing an exciting noise though the trees for some time)

Today we went to Angel Rocks which are some big rocks and are probably called that for a reason but I don't know what it is. I'm going to google it I'll be right back.  Okay google wasn't that fourth coming, by which I mean none of the pages said "Angel Rocks is a rock formation in Chena River State Recreation Area which was named for the totally sweet snow angels some park rangers made there this one time" or anything else like that in their little description, so I'm going to assume the answer is lost in the mists of time, or maybe the trunk of my Corola.  Anyhow it's a really REALLY REALLY cool place, and is beautiful, and has eight birds and  a squirrel in it.  It also has one thousand dogs in it, and their six owners, who work together as an effective bird-terrifying team.  But I digress (you only JUST noticed, D-Rod?)

I'm going to level with you guys, I'm super tired, but had "FREAKING BLOG ALREADY" on my to-do list for today.  I don't want to bother annie for her camera for all the pictures I took, so I'm going to do round two with Angel Rocks Post tomorrow.  Maybe.

Multiple Use for Scoops of Yogurt

MUSY! A nerdy public lands reference, did you catch that?

But really, I was reflecting this evening on how many ways we use 32 oz yogurt containers around the farm.

1. To eat yogurt from
2. Leftover food storage
3. To pour water in the sauna
4. Calculate how many pounds of soil amendments to add
5. Store moose poop in (or maybe that is just me..)

YOGURT!

Greening Up

Spring is really here, and we're seeing lots of changes on the farm. 

Lots of late-afternoon transplanting parties, direct seeding into the ground, a new outhouse, excessive amounts of dandelions, I can wear shorts...

The most noticeable change by far though is the GREEN that is creeping up the hillsides. It's a process called 'greening up'. We've been hearing about it for the past two weeks, but in the last few days we've actually been seeing it. Looking to the south was spectacular before due to the view of the Alaska Range. Nowadays we get the scenic range with a brilliant burst of green below it. 

This also means... two weeks til salad!! Green stuff! Oh how we have missed it.

Wood Frog!

This is a wood frog! The only herp (that is, an amphibian or a reptile) in interior Alaska. 

So I was super dee duper excited when Nellie found this guy in the field. We brought her to the ponds so she can lay some eggies in the near future. A month ago I was looking at amphibian egg masses in Maine, and now Alaska is catching up. I found another one in the field yesterday while broad-forking. 

Facts about these guys: 

They freeze in the winter! Like they just crawl into the ground and then freeze! Holy moley!

Their scientific name is Rana sylvatica, as in silviculture. Wood frog... forestry... cool huh?

You can tell that it's a wood frog by the bandit-like mask on its eyes.

They breed in vernal pools!

A Day In The Life

Yesterday D-rod helped lead a field trip of 4th/5th graders through the boreal forest in the back of the farm. He made the mistake of telling a group of boys that his name was David Rodriguez but if they say 'David' then no one will know what they're talking about. He was thus followed around by 10 year olds chanting "David David David David David!"

Next D-rod ate a delicious lunch in preparation for the preparation of the seed field. Here is the seed field in all its bed prep glory!

(Actually D-rod isn't in this picture because he was pooping)

While prepping beds, D-rod got a faceful of poop. Because I kicked it at him. Spoops?

Later in the day D-rod decided it would be a good idea to TP the fields. There he is all the way on the left. Everyone was watching..

A typical day on the farm!

My Super Awesome Big Sister

Everything really important I learned from my sister

I’ve been following my sister around since before I can remember.  I always wanted to do the things she did, though sometimes she just wanted to ship me to Budapest.  Everything from managing our parents to getting through high school, in my eyes she boldly lead the way, and I got to follow the path she blazed.  She showed me that college isn’t always a straightforward process, and that the world is full of other opportunities to learn how to be who you want to be.  She encouraged me to take time off from school, to figure out what I wanted, and she's been a force of help and encouragement in all the steps since. She’s a much more logical person than I am, and I don’t know where I would be without her calming influence and ability to make the complex clear.  She showed me that being strong sometimes means asking for help.  For years she’s been trying to teach me to think for myself, and I’m finally getting a hang of it. She’s one of the smartest, bravest people I know, and I am who and where I am today because of her.  She taught me to chase my passions, that life is a grand adventure, and she taught me that now is always the right time to sing. 

My sister also taught me my favorite joke:

“Why did the plane crash?” “Because the pilot was a loaf of bread”

Today my big sister turned a million years old.  Actually she just turned twenty six (though I know she's really still eight) but she's the kind of grown-up I think I can stomach turning into.  I'm grateful for her every day.

HAPPY BIRTHDAY LINA!

We have the best adventures!

Actual Farmy things (Starring DIRT)

Author's note: It's late and I'm tired and I'm not going to edit this.  If there are any glaring formatting or grammatical errors, please email me and I'll fix them.

These are undoubtedly involved in the selection process.

So Annie already covered yesterday evening, but I will add that it was the coolest party I’ve ever been too (sorry AEPi).  I’m coming home in October because I have important places to be, but I might be flying right back up here and never leaving again.  I’m enchanted with Alaska!

Today I got to play with dirt.   It’s still too cold to plant most stuff outside here so we get the seeds started in the creatively named seed house.  The process of choosing which plants to plant, how many to plant, and when to start them revolve around an ancient ceremony shrouded in mystery, by which I mean it’s clear to me that it’s complicated, and I’m still learning about it.

This is the end Result

I love the fact that everything that we grow is contained in one little box.  This is strictly speaking not the case; it’s several boxes, but it’s still like magic to me.  Planting seeds feels more like trying to bring plants back to life from the dead, seeds are dry and insubstantial and they turn into FOOD!  But before we coax them back into existence, we need something to put them in.  Enter dirt blocking.

Several boxes.

Instead of using plastic trays to start the seeds, we use potting soil blocks.  We have dozens and dozens of empty wooden trays, and big bales of dry potting soil.  First the soil needs to be dampened (read as: needs to have a lot of freaking water poured on it).  It starts in a consistency not dissimilar to that of NesQuick powder, and has some of the same habits.  It likes to form clods and not soak up water, at least at first, and is a light brown color, not too much like the rich black stuff your pansies come in.  After much water dumpage and copious raking, shoveling, and mixing with hands, it starts to look more like a thing you want to put your plants in.

This is how a pile of dirt looks with a shovel in it.

We use the dirt blocker (I made that name up, I don’t know what they’re called) to make…(wait for it)…. blocks of dirt.   The soil has to be wet enough that you can grab a handful and squeeze water out of it easily (if it’s too dry the blocks fall apart, if it’s too wet they sort of melt).  The dirt blocker itself is not very complicated, you mush it down into the box of potting soil, make sure your soil is really well packed in, then move it over to a tray, squeeze the handle on top, and out pop six (or twenty with the little one) perfect soil blocks.  Each tray can hold four loads from the dirt blocker, so you can have either twenty-four or eighty seeds per tray.  The type of plant determines whether you need to use the large blocks or the small ones.  Smaller seeds like kohlrabi  or cauliflower can go into the smaller blocks, big stuff like squash require big ones.  Seeding the trays is simple, but time consuming.  You put seeds in each block, depending on the germination rate of the plants you're seeding you might put just one seed per block, or you might put several.  It’s better to get a plant in every block, so redundancy might seem like the obvious choice, but when more than one seed in a block germinates you end up having to cut one back.

Happy plants that just got fed!

This bad girl blocks the dirt!

I got to spend several hours making perfect soil block trays, and seeding many of them.  We’re going to be seeding a lot over the next month (including 40 trays of bunch onions EVERY WEEK) which is good because I like it.  It’s very Zen, and I can do it while I listen to my books on tape, or to the hermit thrushes. 

After blocking and seeding for a while I got to fulfill a life dream and walk around with a backpack full of water that smelled like poop and spray it on stuff.  I’m not kidding, we feed our plants a mixture of soil amendments (bone meal, blood meal, some other stuff) called OMEGA 666 which sounds like a great name for a metal band, it’s delivered via a mister (like for mist, not Mr. Maloney) you carry on your back, and Susan my boss says it "smells like poopie".  It isn't that bad really, after a minute you don't notice.  I did spend a minute pretending to be a Ghost-Buster, that thing is freaking sweet.

DON'T CROSS THE STREAMS

Feedin' dem plants

You start corn in a toilet paper tube so it has space to put down a big ol taproot!

The Theme

I am quickly figuring out that the theme of going to Alaska is: Go To Alaska And Never Leave. I think I have talked to someone new every day who says something along the lines of: "I just came for a summer and never left!" Conversely, last night Tom told me a common saying that living in Fairbanks makes one unsuitable to live anywhere else.
Probably true, as I am also figuring out that anything goes in Alaska. For example, last night we went to a large family potluck/ music shindig. I was expecting a normal house with some food on a table and a small band... a calm night away from the farm. What happened instead was SO much better.
-Huge table packed with every kind of food.
-A keg
-Friendly folks
-Beyond-lively old-timey bluegrass band who played incredibly danceable music for hours, most memorably the song: "Because I Got High" to a crowd of all ages.

The highlight of the night that was more ridiculous than the band was The Coat. Chris had been oggling at the huge fur coat of the man standing by the fire for about an hour. 

We decided that the next best idea would be to sneak up and pet The Coat and see how long it would take the guy to notice. 

Surprisingly, it took more than 5 seconds until our creepiness was spotted. Turns out that Coat Man aka Scott aka owner of an outstanding beard found The Coat in a dumpster a couple of years ago. And the kicker? He didn't even want it anymore! Apparently petting strangers fur coats pays off, because Chris walked away from the party with his dream coat on his back.

Point is, I'm loving Alaska more and more. Speaking for myself and not D-rod, I don't see myself never leaving, but I am very glad I'm here for a good chunk of time!

What was happening for us at 7 am today!

I'm just gonna put it out there and say it was way cooler than your 7 am. 

But we can fight about it I suppose. 

All of us apprentices were woken up at the early hour of 7 to the tune of: "Holly is lambing!!" We hurried to the barn and stood there watching for about half an hour and then out popped... a GODZILLA lamb! Seriously huge. Seriously cute. There are still another two pregnant sheep so there will not be a shortage of cute baby animals for a long long time. Hallelujah!

Proud parents.