Layout Of That Place I Work Now

Okay, so I want to give a quick lay of land of my new workplace. So after the gift shop you would see this area. That horseshoe is 17 gorgeous enclosures that house 26 exhibit birds. You'll notice in the middle lots of benches - that's called Hawk Fly, and it's where I will be doing raptor programs there when the weather is nice. 

This is the pavilion, which is all shut up now, but programs can happen there to if it is raining or something. 

The back of the pavilion also houses program birds. They aren't on display to the public, but in the summer there are 3 programs a day. 

Next is the administration building, which is also home to a classroom, and the education offices including mine :)

This is the songbird aviary, which has a variety of songbirds (duh) that have gone through the rehab center and are non-releasable for a variety of reasons. There is a pigeon, a cardinal, a lincoln sparrow, cedar waxwings, mourning doves, and an evening grosbeak. They are all cool. 

 This is the wildlife services building which includes enclosures for some program birds, as well as houses all the rehab facilities. The wooden structure in the right of the picture is part of the flight cage, where birds hoping to be released can build up muscles and prove they can fly. 

And finally on the virtual tour, is my house! This is where I live with the two other interns and Americorps member who are working at VINS as well. It's right across the highway so it's nice to be able to walk to work everyday.

Hiatus is Over!

Dear Readers, 

I am oh so sorry that I have not been posting. I got caught very caught up in adjusting to a new home and busy training at work. I also was attempting to get some good photos stockpiled to share. Then next thing I knew I was sick, and on a plane home to be with my family and say goodbye to my Grandma Jo. After more sickness and travels, I am finally back at work and in control of my health again. And I promise a handful of blogs as fast as my fingers can type and as fast as my computer will upload the pictures. 

I just wanted to share this photo of me and Grandma from New Years Day this year. She was an awesome lady, and she was a birder which makes her that much cooler. I am so blessed to have grown up close by and to have so many memories. But I'm most thankful for the time I got to spend her last fall. Our favorite pastime was definitely sitting and watching the chickadees, dark-eyed juncos, white breasted nuthatches, goldfinches, red-bellied woodpeckers, downy woodpeckers and tufted titmice that frolicked at her feeders. I always appreciated her listening to my stories and supporting me in all my adventures. 

Blizzards Can't Stop Me!

I'm going to try to fill you in on the journey my mom and I took out east last weekend. So of you might have noticed the winter storms that took place at home in the Midwest and out east. It didn't slow us down, except for that one flight delay...but I'm getting ahead of myself.  

So first things first, I was told when I got this job that my subaru wouldn't make it out here. And that was hard, because just like all those actors in the commercials, I love my subaru. But I could face the facts and see she wouldn't have been able to make such a journey. I then set out on the journey of buying a car, and I hated it. It's so much money, such a commitment, and too much of a betting game in the used car realm. In the end we got lucky, and found a nice used CRV that I got to bond with on the trip out. It's pretty. And I packed it full of my things. And everything went smoothly on the trip out. (You might notice in this picture that the cat had already gotten its dirty paws all over the car...) 

So we set off on the morning of the 2nd. It was snowy/blustery/foreboding out, but we were not rushed and took our time. Weather got a little more winter stormy as we entered Indiana, but roads were still clear.  

The same was true as we entered Ohio....but then things got worse. All that darn lake effect started making trouble and then the sun went down and we were driving in some ucky things. We pushed all the way Cleveland, traveling the whole time right behind the winter storm. We saw many cars in the ditch, but we drove carefully and made it just fine.  

As we got into town, and checked into our hotel we started to notice the city was shut down. The roads weren't cleared. The airport was shutdown. We decided to walk across the street vs drive to a restaurant for dinner. (See mom trekking through the blizzard below.) Then we saw that the restaurant was closing early because the storm. So we walked back through the snow, got in the car, and went on a search for food. We found a KFC, and they informed us they only had 6 wings left....we took them all. Then we holed up in our hotel and let the weather pass through over night. 

And the morning brought sun, clear roads, and Pennsylvania!  

We got a few views of that darn Lake Eerie which was causing all the lake effect snow from the previous night.  

And we also got to see lots of cars in the ditch from the previous day/night. I will say I'm not surprised to see these semis in the ditch. In the bad weather they were consistently passing all the cars on the left lane going much faster than the rest of us.  

Sadly New York did not have a welcome sign (How rude!), but we entered the state regardless and made our way north for a stop at Niagara Falls. There were no crowds....but it was cold! Instead of that mist that covers you from the falls in the summer months, we were getting hit with ice pellets! But it was pretty amazing.  

Here is a rainbow over the Rainbow Bridge to Canada :) 

It was pretty hard to see the falls because of all the water turning to ice and the sun shining through. 

The rest of New York brought us some traffic in Buffalo, and lots of tolls. We stayed in Syracuse for the night, then the next morning we broke from the interstates to take the scenic highways through northern New York and Vermont. We passed through Saratoga Springs, which we had stayed in a couple summers ago with friends and that was neat. 

Then Vermont! 

It really is the Green Mountain State! I could not get pictures with my phone while driving to do it justice, but gorgeous views as we made our way through Vermont. 

Lots of downhill skiing, small touristy towns, and windy roads along the rivers.  

And covered bridges! 

This covered bridge is downtown Quechee (the town where I now live).  

Alright so activities around Quechee include hiking to see the Quechee Gorge. I don't have a good picture of the gorge (We didn't make it all the way down because it was cold and we were ill prepared for deep snow hiking), but here is a photo of the pristine winter woods and the bridge over the gorge which is the oldest steel bridge in the country...or maybe the longest standing...I can't remember. 

Quechee is one of those small touristy towns in the area, but there is a Dunkin Donuts which is sooooo exciting! 

I will get you many more pictures of my workplace and all that goes with it but here a couple of signs...

We went to a Vermont farm and tasted cheese and maple syrup. 

There is a super fancy glass gallery in town that has a vase for hundreds of dollars, but you can also watch them do the glassblowing int he basement which was cool. 

We saw more covered bridges... 

We stayed at an old fashioned Vermont Inn which was awesome in itself. Very quaint and lots of good food. 

And I'm about 15 minute drive from New Hampshire which has all the things you need from a city: box grocery stores, clothing stores, high end shopping, and panera.  

Mom was suppose to fly back on Monday, but the bad weather at home cancelled her flight. She automatically got rescheduled for Wednesday so she got a couple more days in New England. I took my second day of work off to take her down to Boston for the airport. It was a nice drive out of the Mountains and into the city. All I really got to see was the skyline and the harbor, but I'm definitely looking forward to exploring Boston in the future. 

It's my weekend now (Thursday-Friday). I've taken time to move into my new house which is just across the street from work. It is quaint as well :) and bigger than a silo. 

Honey!

 So honey is a thing we do here at my parents' house. And by that I mean we've had the boxes (supers- white boxes stacked in the fields) for as long as I can remember at this farm, and the bees have come and gone. We used to purchase a hives including a queen through the mail which was also exciting (as cool as when we used to get baby chicks in the mail!) and taking care of the bees and harvesting the honey was 4-H projects for us. A few (or 4 or 5) years ago the resident bees swarmed and left our boxes. Then a couple years ago, apparently my dad noticed a hive in a nearby tree....and he captured them and put them in the boxes....I have no ideas about the details or how that works, but I guess I believe him. Anyways this is the second year that we've been able to harvest honey from this hive. And I was present (Yay!) and I love the whole thing. It's hard work, but pretty darn rewarding. 

So here is the deal: The white boxes are filled with frames that have beeswax combs ready to be filled with honey. On their own the bees would make their own comb structure, but with the ready made ones they can focus all their energy on making honey. These ready made frames also make harvesting the honey five million times easier as you will see the equipment is designed for them.

You do not take all the boxes away when harvesting. There is a box at the bottom of the stack where the queen lives, and where there is enough honey for the bees to live off of. The boxes we take for harvesting our extra. 

So once the bees have deposited the honey in the little combs, they seal each comb with wax to hold it there.  

This wasn't super great year, so not every hole was filled. You can also see we had some different colors in there. The color of the honey would depend on what plants the bees were pollinating. Different times during the summer they would be pollinating different plants and later you can see there was a color gradient this year. Our boxesare sit in the field with our orchard (apple, pear, peach trees), which is also near some native prairie, and a wooded area. 

So the first step is to remove the wax caps that the bees sealed the honey in with. And there is a super fun hot knife to do that with! 

After you've removed the caps from both sides of the frame you place it in the 'spinner'(I don't know what it's actually called- extractor maybe). 

Looking down on the spinner...there is room for four so we had to get some more ready to balance it out. 

And I got to use the hot knife! So much fun!!!!

Once there are four frames inside the spinner...YOU SPIN! It's pretty fun.

 After you've spun, flipped all the frames around, and spun some more, you can see the honey splattering out against the walls. And when you remove the frames you can see that the combs are now empty. 

These empty frames will be placed back inside the boxes and put back outside for the bees. They will clean off any leftovers and they will be used again next year. 

After the honey splatters all over the walls of the spinner, it moves down (gravity is magic!) and you can open the little spout to let the honey out and into a very high tech bucket and strainer. The strainer is going to remove any wax chunks or in some cases bees that didn't leave the comb when they were suppose to (disclaimer: no bees were purposely harmed - they failed to vacate the premise when they were being smoke out). 

And then you keep removing the caps with the hot knife.....keep spinning.....We had two box fulls of frames which isn't a ton, but my back was hurting afterwards. Below is the full amount of honey we harvested.

Then you take a break. These guys started singing their hippie songs. I watched. 

Then you sterilize the bears, and pour the honey in them. 

Here is the finished the product. Around 70  bears. And you can see the color gradient of dark on the left to lighter on the right.