Chickadeedeedee

It snowed on Monday. It was gorgeous. I was teaching Orienteering so I hung out at the start while the kids navigated courses with compasses through the woods. The snow actually hung out for a couple days...but it's been warm again this weekend.

Snow means it's winter time,and winter time means the chickadees are flocking, and that means we get to do chickadee landing now! So there are benches set up year round that have cutouts of people and are dressed up so birds get used to them. In the winter chickadees don't migrate but they form flocks which kind of work like wolf-packs - there is an alpha chickadee and the flocks will defend territories (usually around feeders). Anywho we get to bring kids here, they sit really still, and we put seed on their head and on their hand and chickadees land on them. Obviously you can tell from my expressions it's a really cool experience.

 Here's what we really do when we're waiting for kids to come to class after setting up. There are two buildings here with classrooms but classes don't have designated rooms so each time we teach we have to set up and tear down the classroom. And then we just run around from room to room talking to each other till someone sees kids out the windows and we yell 'The kids are COMING!'

Yesterday we had a geology field trip/seminar. All about the geology of the north shore. Lots of stuff about lava flows because pretty much all our rocks are igneous because of the mid-continental rift that formed Lake Superior. This picture shows two different lava flows....and yah that's about how far in depth I'll go haha.

Just Another Day on the Ridge

So weather has been a bit dreary lately. We are all just wishing and hoping for some good snow that'll stick around versus the freezing rain. Classes go on though. I got some new rain pants were are nice to have. I had a rough day last week where I struggled to get my fire going at Voyageur because it was raining  and then in the afternoon I had two seventh grade boys become two year olds. And what I mean by that is they threw tantrums where they screamed at me, threw things, stomped their feet, and one cried. It was a little crazy but the kids were just at their breaking point. But I did find this cool branch with these pretty little mushrooms on it before the tantrums happened!

Here's some pictures of Thistle to lighten the mood haha

He's being trained to come to the stick and climb on command. 

I have my first FEB day this week - which means we go down to our forest ecology building and stay in the valley all day. In the morning I'll teach Forest Ecology and in the afternoon Beavers.  So today I took an adventure down there to figure out the trails with another nat who also has their first FEB day.   We discovered the beavers are going crazy down by our fishing  bridge. All kinds of new canals and chews. 

The whole area by the bridge is just really flooded as well from new dams and lots of rain recently. This is an old dam that isn't working anymore.

The Forest Ecology building is pretty sweet. It's got all kinds of fun plants, aspen paneling, composting toilets, etc. There are two classrooms and a lobby (picture) where we'll eat lunch.

Forest Eco is fun because it's a lot of trails that don't get quite as much use. Trails go through different types of forests and a deer ex closure. 

November Already?

 Okay I know, it's been ages.
I've found two new Superior overlooks I like a lot. The first two pictures to the right are from an adventure last weekend. We went off Wolf Ridge property to hike a bit on the Superior Hiking Trail - goes from Duluth to Canada along the shore. We accidentally missed our turn to Raven Lake campsites but stumbled upon this view, so really not all that bad.
The weather is pretty crisp nowadays. More layers but still not too bad. We've had quite a few days with flurries, it accumulated last night a  bit, but melted today. Has me shopping for some serious boots...
It's been good weather except for Lake Study last week. It was cold, in the shade, and the there was a thin sheet of ice over the test sites. I felt so bad for the kids because they had to get water samples. But they survived and I got back to the classroom as soon as I can. That was the last week on Lake Study. We are now transitioning into winter classes. Frozen lake study will happen as soon as it can...maybe late Dec but probably Jan...I'm not sure. They were setting up for Winter Survival class last week as well.

 But anyways we did find our way to Raven Lake and watched the beavers and muskrats for quite awhile. I think they're stockpiling for winter. It was crazy to see a beaver drag a stick across the lake because he had to break ice almost the whole way.

 Random sunrise...

I had another adventure up Mystical Mountain - the one where you have to use a rope to get up a cliff face. This is a shot of the ridge - campus.

Now that all the leaves are gone you can see everything and its crazy. You can see Lake Superior from almost everyone on top of the ridge.

But this is the second view I was talking about - from the far side of Mystical Mountain.

I love being able to see the wind on the water.

This was around sunset and the colors were great.


We went on this hike to get rid of some energy after sitting in a 4 hour grad class on Friday afternoon. The classes are the hardest thing about being here. It's really difficult for me to be teaching active student led classes to then sit in a traditional classroom for 4 hours. But I guess it has to be that way for now.