Wrapping up the year

My last post left you in June at Tamarac NWR in Minnesota.  As it turned out, I still had more than three months left in my tour of duty there.

Tamarac is another jewel of a refuge, and I enjoyed all the blooming ladyslippers along with all the birds I was surveying.  On my days off, I did the tourist thing in the area and in Fargo, ND.  I found a candy store that made chocolate covered sponge candy and chocolate covered potato chips.  That in itself was memorable.

Then there was the malt shop and the Breadsmith store.  I make my own malts now, but I can’t wait to get back for some of those hearth baked breads.  I was able to visit kids and grandkids in Rochester twice during the summer, and perhaps they’ll be able to make a trip up to visit me next summer.

I had the pleasure of having four other bloggers visit, and how could I forget Mr. Smith the fresh vegetable grower?  Since the temps up there were 27* below zero yesterday, I wonder if he has put a shirt on yet.    My plans were to leave toward the end of September, but fate stepped in to decide otherwise.  The nice part about that was I got to enjoy the beautiful fall colors while worrying a bit about snow coming.

All was not fun and games though at Tamarac.  The challenges began with the wood and deer ticks soon after my arrival.  Next was the mosquitoes.  Same say they are Minnesota’s state bird.    Early on the bears played havoc with my bird feeders, a horrible storm made toast of my outdoor screen tent, and I ended up aggravating my shoulder as the result of painting 200 sign posts.  Then the refrigerator broke, there was the government shutdown, and I was stuck by myself on 40,000 acres.  The leaves turned, and the invasion of the Asian beetles began.  I’m still finding those buggers crawling out from who knows where on warm days even after three months.  These little things keep life interesting though.

I need to apologize to Bob and Linda for including them in the collage of challenges.  I some how missed including them in the last collage.  I certainly didn’t feel they were in that category…really, I didn’t.

It was about the middle of October before I could finally head south to my next assignment at Bayou Cocodrie NWR in Louisiana.  I had to make that trip as quickly as I could because of my late departure, so not much time was spent visiting areas.  I did find two good campgrounds that I’ll visit on my way back north next spring, and I took a little time out at the Tom Sawyer Campground to enjoy the tug boat traffic along the Mighty Mississippi. 

As you may remember, Bayou Cocodrie was a great disappointment to me, and I had to turn down that assignment.  Luckily, Stephanie had room for me here once again at Anahuac NWR along the Gulf Coast of Texas.  I’m now back in the land of birds and alligators and cattle drives for my sixth time.  I’ve already had a number of visitors, so life is good to finish out the year.

That’s a wrap for me for this year as 2014 is a little over five hours away.  Fireworks are a big thing here in Texas so I’ve wrapped Emma in her thunder shirt to help her get through ‘til midnight.  Happy New Year everyone!!

Thanks for stopping by… talk to you later,  Judy

It’s about that time…

… to once again look back and reflect on Emma’s and my experiences this past year.  I find the best way for me to recall most of what happened is to look at all of my photos that I took.  So, as in years past, I hope you enjoy my walk down memory lane.

As 2013 began, I was volunteering at Okefenokee NWR in Georgia, but in less than a week of the new year I had to move off of the refuge to Okefenokee Pastimes Campground.  My brother Kurt (aka Nurse Ratchet) arrived from Arizona to help me recuperate from a total hip replacement surgery at Mayo Clinic in Waycross, GA.  I don’t know what I would have done if he hadn’t been there to help me.

After a month, I returned to the refuge and went back to work.  I enjoyed all of the wildlife that is abundant in the great swamplands and long leaf pine forests of the refuge. ‘Oke’ is surely a special place and a wonder.

At the top of the list, of course, were all the enjoyable times spent with family, friends, and fellow volunteers and bloggers.  The grandgirls each came for a sleepover in the rig, I and friend Jack held a wild baby alligator in our hands, and my sister Pam helped me with taking ‘flat Joey’ on some adventures.  In this time, I was finally able to retire my cane and begin walking naturally again.  Yahoo!

In the middle of April, I left Okefenokee to make my way to Scott, LA, for annual maintenance work on the rig.  While at Thibodaux's RV, I also had some new MCD shades installed and got new ‘shoes’ for the motorhome.  A costly stop, but necessary.  Then I was on my way to journey to northern Minnesota.  Along the way I got stopped in Arkansas a couple of times due to the weather, but that allowed me to meet up with another blogger, Carolyn, and the sister of Janna.  I did some sight seeing along the way, and battled wind storms as I got into the Dakotas.  They were strong enough to unravel my awning as I drove along.  It was a challenging journey.

After several trials and tribulations, I eventually made it to Tamarac NWR in the middle of May.  The snow was barely gone when I arrived, and a week later my friend Jack arrived for a visit.  We spent a couple of days finding all the ‘big things’ we could in the surrounding area that are listed in Roadside America.  That was fun to have some company for these outings.  Thankfully, Jack is up to these kind of crazy outings.  We even went to another snazzy place to eat!  No Waffle Houses in this neck of the woods. 

May and June were spent doing bird surveys and battling ticks.  Each night I was lulled to sleep by the trumpeting of the swans.  I had to take the bird feeders in each night because of the bears, but it was worth it to spend time in another of our most wild and beautiful places.

That only gets us half way through the year, so I guess I’ll continue tomorrow on the eve of a new year…

Thanks for stopping by… talk to you later,  Judy

A mystery solved

Yesterday and today, I worked the hunter check station on the refuge.  The staff member, Kay, that runs the station has to get there before four in the morning to check the hunters in.  That’s way too early for me, and I also prefer not to drive in the dark, so I leave the rig around 8:00 to drive the 15 miles over there.  My main job is to help with the identification of the birds and to assist with the gizzard removal documentation for mottled ducks.  That means I’m most needed when the hunters are done, and coming off the refuge.

I was a little late getting there this morning.   Sunday seems to be a popular day for cattle drives along FM 1985, so the best thing to do is just pull over and wait for it to pass.  At least they were coming toward me this time.  I seem to usually get stuck behind these drives which means I can only chug along about 3 mph, and get to experience the joy (?) of fresh cow pies gushing under the tires.

It wasn’t long before I was engulfed by the moaning and groaning and plopping herd.  This was the view out the front windshield.  Fortunately it was a smaller herd so I was soon on my way once again.

It was a simply gorgeous day weather wise today, with bright blue skies, no wind, and surprisingly no mosquitoes.  However, that usually means a slow hunting day, and that’s how it turned out.  With the bright sun, I did get to take some different kind of photos today.  I centered on taking pics of the beautiful feathers of some of the birds taken.  The hunters are generally proud of their accomplishments and are more than willing to give me time for photos and show off their birds.

On the home front, yesterday the refuge’s assistant manager/game warden followed me back to the rig after the hunting was over for the day to see if he could help solve the problem of the low water pressure our rigs were experiencing.  After detaching the hose and pressure regulator, we were able to determine that there was plenty of water blasting out of the underground connection.

So, I decided to replace the pressure regulator with a new one.  After checking the faucets inside the rig, it didn’t make any difference…it was still just a trickle out of the faucets.  We tried the same thing with Bob and Terry’s rig with the same results.  If Bob took the pressure regulator off of his hose, the water flow was good, but not so in my rig.

The staff member left, and Bob and I just had to scratch our heads.  We both decided it was safer to leave the pressure regulators on, because no one wants to blow out the plastic water pipes in the rig should full pressure somehow resume.  With a shrug of his shoulders, Bob returned to his rig, but this mystery just plagued my mind.

After dark, as I was playing a computer game, and staring at the kitchen faucet, a light bulb finally lit in my brain.  I grabbed a pair of pliers and unscrewed the sprayer.  Sure enough, it was clogged with sand-like granules.  I then did the same thing with the bathroom faucet, and it was even worse.  I then tried each faucet, and it was like Niagara Falls! 

I called Bob and told him what I found, but his faucet thingies were clean.  I think the fact that both of us had problems on the same day just threw my thinking off.  At any rate, all is well now and it’s another lesson learned.

Thanks for stopping by… talk to you later,  Judy

An expensive afternoon

Along about 5:00 this morning, Emma started pacing around and woke me up.  In the six years she’s been with me, she’s only done this a couple of times so I knew I’d better stagger out of bed to take her out.  I just slipped on my Crocs and grabbed a sweatshirt, but I was too late.  She had an accident on the carpet.  I took her out anyway, and she needed it.  I sure wish dogs could have their accidents on the tile rather than the carpet.

Anyway, it turned out to be a dreary chilly overcast day, so I decided not to work.  I had a list of two things to accomplish at home today.  One was the dreaded vacuuming, and the other was to check my pressure regulator on my water hose.  The last day or so, the water pressure at the rig inside faucets has been dwindling.

Since I’m  close to being a professional procrastinator, I didn’t immediately jump to these two tasks.  After all, I had to read blogs and comments and such first.  I appreciate the concern that many of you have expressed about my shoulder.  I want you to know that I have been doing PT exercises all along and am only babying my shoulder as far as reaching overhead until a week from next Monday.  I certainly don’t want my shoulder to freeze up.

Early this afternoon, fellow volunteers Bob and Terry returned from their holiday visit with relatives, and Bob soon was knocking on my door.  It seems their water pressure is next to nothing also.  I tried calling a refuge staff member about our problems, but of course very few staff are working until the new year begins.  They have to use up their vacation days by the end of the year or lose them.  It’s a rather common occurrence at many refuges at this time of year.  So, who knows when this will get looked into.

As far as the vacuuming is concerned, I did my best to clean up the area on the rug with a spray I have for pet stains and odors.  Of course, that means a wet carpet, so I’ve decided it would be foolish to vacuum until the carpet is dry.  Perhaps tomorrow?  I told you I was a good procrastinator.

That brought me to late this afternoon, and I got thinking about Janna’s comment about the Zoomba robot vacuum cleaner.  It’s hard for me to get my mind around a robot vacuuming my rig, but I finally decided that you can’t take your money with you, so I bit the bullet and ordered one.  It had been lurking in the back of my mind especially since my shoulder problem, and the decision reminded me of one made over 40 years ago. 

My younger brother Kurt (Nurse Ratchet) was back from serving in Vietnam and selling Rainbow-Air Vacuum Cleaners.  Though it was very expensive for a new couple starting out, we purchased one from him and I really never regretted it.  I hope it gave him a little commission, and it served me well for many years.  I hope the Zoomba will do the same.

I don’t often get in a shopping mood, but today seemed to be the day.  After ordering the Zoomba, I looked online for some socks.  In June of 2011, I went to a Navy Commissary with my daughter Robyn and purchased some Thorlo walking socks.  They have been the best socks I’ve ever worn, but the tops are getting rather fagged out and falling down to my ankles.  They’re not cheap either, and between the two purchases, I may have to start thinking about getting a job! 

Several readers asked about a recipe for the raisin gravy I made for Christmas.  So, here it is.  I score the ham and put whole cloves into the cross sections of the scoring.  I then pat several handfuls of brown sugar on the outside of the ham.  Put the ham on a rack in the pan, put a cup or two of water under the rack, cover it all with tin foil and bake at 325*.  About an hour before the ham is done, toss in two good handfuls of raisins into the drippings.  After removing the ham, stir in some cornstarch to make the gravy and there you go.  Easy-Peasy! 

I’m off for two days of working the hunter check station this weekend.  I guess I’ve kind of rambled on tonight.  Oh well, that’s the way it is for me…

Thanks for stopping by… talk to you later,  Judy