Outdoor Fun and Sun

No state fair or county zoo this time around, just some outdoor relaxing and fun. One of the other interns recently house-sat for a volunteer at the center so we borrowed the owner's canoe and took it out on the lake. I learned that I enjoy canoing better than kayaking and therefore enjoy canoing a lot more.

 Breanne, my friend from New Mexico!

Highway 94 bridge that we canoed under. 

This weekend I have been hanging out with the doggies, we took them hiking in a nearby state park yesterday. We hiked up to what is called the Tower at Lapham Peak State Park. The tower overlooks the surrounding area for miles to see, check it out below:

 Baxter checking something out, following his nose.

Linda on the trail.

 

 

I thought this would make a good picture.

 

 

A beautiful flower from the butterfly garden. 

This reminded me of a movie when they go running through the field. It was a patch in the state park.

 

 

One of the many lakes in Wisconsin viewed from the top of the Tower.

 

 

The view from the Tower, kind of a foggy day.

 

 

Baxter, me, and Hannah atop the Tower. Those were some tired doggies.

 

 

The forest. 

We also went to an outdoor play at the state park the night before. We saw one of Sherlock Holmes mysteries, The Hound of the Baskervilles. It was a nice night, we took a picnic and sat in our outdoor chairs while we watched the play.

Yummy dessert that Linda made for our picnic with basil, straweberries, and cream cheese.

 

I have a little story from work you might find interesting. One day I was cleaning out one of our songbirds in the ICU room. The bird is a known escape artist so it was no surprise that he escaped on me when I tried to put it back into his enclosure. This would be no big deal except for the fact that he flew into another animal's enclosure in the room, a red tailed hawk's enclosure to be precise. I thought this was the day that a 22 year old was going to have a heart attack! I called one of the staff into the room, luckily the hawk didn't realize the songbird (finch) was there so we grabbed the hawk and took him into the other room. I managed to grab the finch and put him back into his enclosure. Crisis averted. Now if this were in the wild a hawk eating a finch would have been a natural phenomenon, but seeing as we were trying to enhance the lives of both birds, this would have been counterproductive to say the least. Hold on, the story doesn't end there. About a week later a volunteer had the same experience except this time the finch wasn't so lucky. I will let you finish that thought.

Work is picking up in terms of the workload. The majority of interns have left or are leaving within the next week or two to go back to school. There will only be a handful of us left to man the fort. We will still have all the volunteers and staff of course, but the number of animals the interns have responsibility for has not gone down. We have a ton of squirrels and other small mammals right now not to mention all our raccoons still. Needless to say my days off are a welcome relief.

I am still working on catching those fireflies, I will have some before I leave, guaranteed. I have been jogging most days and find it very relaxing.

Florida update: For those of you who don't know already, I was offered the wildlife rehabilitation clinic internship in Florida!!!!!!! I accepted it and will be heading to Florida at the end of October about 2 weeks after I finish the one here in Wisconsin.