A clarification and working on a surgery date

In last night’s post I talked about how I thought 32 hours/week for a solo volunteer at our National Wildlife Refuges was a bit too much.  I still feel that way, but I want to clarify something about the volunteer lifestyle.  It really is not a matter of economics of what my volunteer hours are worth.  I volunteer because I want to, and I want to give something back in my own way while helping to insure that these wild places remain in our country.  I believe my strengths lie in educating the visiting public to the worth of these refuges, and the plight of the wildlife that they support.

As I expected, Sharon of The Odd Essay blog brought me to task for my opinion.  Sharon and her husband are dedicated volunteers that put in many hours with the Fish and Wildlife Service.  I respect her opinions, but we have agreed to disagree on this issue.  I responded to her comment with a personal email. I prefer to avoid a big public bear pit.  While I disagree with the policy of requiring more hours from solos, I do continue to volunteer at various refuges by choice.

               I think Emma wants to visit China.  She’s working on getting there by digging a deep hole.

Since I had today off, there were several things on my ‘to do’ list.  Among them was trying to nail down a date for my hip replacement surgery.  I eluded to several challenges in this area in a previous post.  The doctor I am comfortable with is being transferred from Jacksonville, FL, on December first to the Mayo hospital in Waycross, GA.  His surgery schedule was fully booked for November in Jacksonville, so I’ve been trying to get a date in Waycross (which is closer to me) in December. 

                             Emma is always on guard in our front yard for any marauding squirrels.

It’s been a little frustrating since promised return calls have not occurred.  I finally got a number for the facility in Waycross today, only to be told a calendar of Dr. Brodersen’s surgeries has not yet been created.  I was told it would be created by the end of this week or early next week.  I stressed that I didn’t care about the holiday season approaching, and that I just wanted to get in as soon as possible.  We’ll see what happens.  You can be sure I’ll be calling them again on Friday.

I’ve got a little tree frog visitor hiding under the knob to my gas grill tonight.  I guess it’s looking for a slightly protected area from the predicted lower temperatures tonight. 

I took a drive to Kingsland, GA, this afternoon to stock up on groceries and such.  It’s a 75 mile round trip journey.  It was the first time I’ve been in a Publix store.  It was a very nice grocery, and you can guess what happened since I broke the rule of grocery shopping when I was hungry.

It was mostly cloudy all day today, but the skies cleared just before sunset.  Emma and I jumped in the car and headed for alligator pond hoping for a spectacular sunset.  That didn’t happen, but it was a pleasant experience anyway.

Thanks for stopping by… talk to you later,  Judy

Travel Tuesdays-Thailand

I've decided that I would add a new section to the blog. Each week I will be featuring a photo from a place that we will be visiting on our next trip along with a quote about traveling. Our next trip is planned for Thailand so get ready for lots of pictures of markets, temples and my favorite, elephants. Just a little something to cure mine and your wanderlust for the week.

Bangkok Floating Market

Travel is fatal to prejudice, bigotry, and narrow-mindedness. - Mark Twain

Finally got the Chesser Island Homestead orientation

I was up and at ‘em in time this morning for my fourth day in a row of working on the refuge this week.  Have I mentioned before that I think requiring a solo volunteer to work four days a week is too much?  Probably, but I’m going to mention it again.

A few more photos tonight from yesterday’s west entrance swamp tour.  A juvenile little blue heron picking it’s way along the lily pads and a peat ‘blow out’.

The operative word for me is ‘requires’.  I may choose to work extra hours, and often have, but requiring four days a week is just about like having a job to me.  I get worn out.

                                  A first year white ibis.  Don’t you just love that down turned beak?

I’ve debated this issue with many Fish and Wildlife staff as well as fellow volunteers that are couples.  I know all of their arguments, but I stand firm in my belief.  It is something that I guess we have agreed to disagree about.

           Another view of the swamp from the boat.  As I said yesterday, it was a glorious weather day.

I worked the visitors center this morning, and then was assigned to roam for the afternoon.  I stopped at the rig to let Emma out and eat my lunch.  I’ve always been a slow eater, so only having 30 minutes for lunch is a real challenge for me.  Many days I fix my lunch the night before so I have a little more leeway.  Some people can inhale their meals in five minutes, but I’ve never been one of those people.  I guess I inherited that from my mother, as she was even slower than I am.

This is what happens with many of my attempts to get bird photos.  The darn things have wings, and blast off into flight at my approach. 

We had 50 members of a nature lovers group scheduled for a boat tour and a tour of the Chesser Island Homestead today, so I finally got my orientation about being a docent at the Homestead.  Fellow RV volunteer Barry gave the presentation, and I learned a great deal just listening to him.  It was obvious that he is very passionate about sharing his research and knowledge about the pioneer Chesser family. 

                                             Yep, another little blue heron “gets out of Dodge!”

It will take some study and work on my part to reach the standards set by Barry’s presentation of the history of these ‘swampers’.  I’m determined, though, and it amazes me how much more I’m interested in history than I was as a student in school. 

As we neared the end of our swamp boat tour yesterday, we witnessed this rather comical nature interaction.  A nice sized yellow-bellied slider turtle had decided to do its sunning atop the back of an alligator.  As our boat neared them, the alligator apparently became uncomfortable as it quickly began swimming away.  The turtle hung on for a wild ride for a while, but eventually blew off into the water.  Just couldn’t hang on for such a roller coaster ride on a moving log, I guess. 

Thanks for stopping by… talk to you later,  Judy

West versus East

There are over 400,000 acres included in the Okefenokee National Wildlife Refuge.  I am parked at a site on the east entrance to the refuge.  Today, my roving assignment took me and another new volunteer couple to the west entrance to the refuge.  It’s not easy to get to the west entrance from here and took us about 90 minutes of travel through Georgia and a part of Florida to get there.  The west entrance is through the Stephan C. Foster State Park.  The state park is considered a concessionaire to this entrance to the refuge.

As a part of our orientation activities, we would participate in a boat tour of this part of the refuge provided by Georgia State Park staff.  The western part of the refuge is a lot different from the eastern part. 

The east side has lots of open wet prairies, but the west side has the cypress areas that are more familiar to my thinking's of a swamp.  Logging companies took out most of the old growth cypress trees in the area during the 1930’s but the cypress  swamp has returned after they left.

We had perfect weather for a boat tour of the swamp, and encountered many birds along out tour.  There are many more trees draped with Spanish moss on this side of the swamp that provide perching spots for a multitude of juvenile little blue herons.

These young birds seemed to appear around every bend.  It must have been a great nesting year for these herons.  About three quarters of the refuge was effected by the fires in 2011,but things have really bounced back from then.

We were even lucky enough to get a sighting of the endangered wood stork on our journey into the swamp.

We saw tons of juvenile little blue herons, but only one adult bird today.  Most of my time on the tour was taken up with snapping pictures along the way.  What an enchanting place this Okefenokee swamp is!

We saw several white ibis as we made our way.  As volunteers, we didn’t have to pay for this tour, but the charge for this 90 minute float through the swamp only costs $15 should you visit here.  I think it is well worth the cost if you find yourself near Fargo, GA.

Just imagine yourself floating through this primordial cypress swamp.  What a great way to spend a Sunday morning!  I was happy to see many folks taking advantage of this interesting area in canoes and kayaks.   There’s a great picnic area where we had lunch, and camping for tenters and RVs as well within walking distance of the paddling trails.  On the way back home, we even had a great view of a barred owl flying across the road to the woods.  It was a very enjoyable day for me learning more about this area of Georgia.

Thanks for stopping by… talk to you later,  Judy

Footprints in the sand

It was back to work for me today, and I started out spending the morning working in the VC.  We had an elementary school visiting today with 88 exuberant young students invading the refuge.  They were divided into four groups that rotated between four different activity stations.  One of those stations was the VC where Edythe and I tried to harness their energy into a learning experience.  By 1:00, I was pretty well worn out, and barely able to walk. 

I made a quick stop back at the rig to let Emma out and inhale lunch before heading to the Chesser Homestead where I was to be oriented to being a docent.  There was a slight mix up in assignments, and no one arrived to show me the ropes.    So, after sitting on the cabin porch in a rocker for an hour, (I know, tough work but somebody has to do it!) I headed out to rove for the afternoon.  I took the electric cart down Phernetton Freeway to see what I could see.

It’s not your ordinary run of the mill Freeway.  It’s actually a lumpy sandy refuge back road that parallels the wildlife drive.  It ends up back on the Chesser Island paved road eventually, but I took it hoping to see some wildlife that avoids the main drag.  Not much was out and about at that time in the afternoon, but I discovered that this sandy road is actually a freeway of sorts for wildlife.

My biggest surprise was to find these fresh bear footprints!  See the dimples in the sand surrounding the prints?  They were caused by Wednesday’s rain, so these prints really are rather fresh.  The hair on my neck prickled a little as I got out of the open air cart to get these photos.

As I was taking those photos, I found the print of a fox nearby.  It’s hard to tell size in these pics, but this print was too small to be from a coyote, and the nail imprints eliminated the thought of a bobcat for me.

As I carefully looked around, I found many deer tracks as well.  Some were a pretty good size, and some were rather small.

Last but not least, I found the print of a wild turkey.  All of these animals had been on this back road in the last 24-48 hours.  I guess freeway is a pretty good name for this road, at least as far as wildlife is concerned.

On my return trip down the wildlife loop, I spotted this young alligator posing as a small log in one of the roadside pools.  I was glad I stopped and backed up to verify that this wasn’t a big stick in the water.   Some German visitors saw me taking pictures and stopped behind me.  I was able to help them spot this youngster.  That’s one of the fun parts of roving; helping the visiting public to ‘see’ what they are driving past.

Of course, in the back of my mind while I’m roving, I’m always looking for places to take visitors on the bird tour I’m developing.  The more I’m out and about, the more familiar I get with where to find the birds.  After this afternoon, I’ve added one more place to try to find the endangered red-cockaded woodpecker to the tour.  This bird had two green over one yellow bands on its right leg.  I really need to talk to the biologist about my sightings of these birds.  Knowing the history of specific birds can add a nifty touch to the tours.

Thanks for stopping by… talk to you later,  Judy

Letters/29

Dear soup night, you're pretty much the best idea ever. So thankful for good soup and even better friends to share it with. Dear hubs, I found out this week that we do indeed have geek love. Telling me that you have to go write some HTML code is so incredibly attractive (maybe it's because I suck at this area, I had my teacher in school do most of it for me...slacker) Dear packages from home, you and your little bits of home make it so much easier to be away. You rock. Dear hubs, we're off to our favorite city this weekend...Seoul! I'm so glad that the country's largest city is just a short four hour bus ride away (to be fair, from top to bottom of the country is about 7 hours). This trip is actually kind of bittersweet as it will be the last trip we take with our first friends in Korea, since they're leaving us soon.  Maybe shopping and good food will help us cope.

Happy weekend! Anyone have any exciting plans?!

Yesterday’s news

It was a long day for me yesterday as ‘Jack-in-the-Box’ took me on the scenic route to the Mayo Clinic in Jacksonville, FL.  It was a pleasant drive, but did little to calm my nerves about this appointment.  As usual, I was there with plenty of time to spare. 

                                                         A splash of fall colors on the refuge.

After an hour’s worth of paper work, I was still an hour early for my x-ray appointment.  I twiddled my thumbs for a while before getting into excruciating positions for the x-ray tech. 

                                                     An Eastern phoebe with its dragonfly dinner.

Then it was another two hour wait to meet with Dr. Mark Brodersen, orthopedic surgeon, to find out the verdict.  This is pretty normal, in my experience, at a Mayo Clinic location.  The Mayo campus here in Jacksonville is reminiscent of Mayo’s home in Rochester, MN.  There aren’t any tunnels underground or above ground walkways here to my knowledge, but the art work and pleasant waiting areas are very similar.  Instead of someone playing a grand piano in one of the waiting areas, a young woman was singing soothing music.  Mayo aims to keep their patients calm and comfortable.  I just wasn’t in any mood to take pictures on this visit.

                                                   A very late pitcher plant bloom on the refuge.

To make a long story a little shorter, when I met with Dr. Brodersen I found him to be very personable, and I was quite comfortable with him.  He has been an orthopedic surgeon for 30 years, and I know Mayo doesn’t employ quacks.  He answered all my questions, showed me my x-rays, and explained his prognosis in great detail including all pros and cons.  As I understand it, the good old disease of arthritis has attacked my right hip and eliminated the cartilage between my hip bone and leg bone.  That means I have bone grinding on bone every time I move that leg and hip.

                          A red-shouldered hawk collage.  This bird had just caught a snake for dinner.

It’s not life threatening, and he suggested that when I couldn’t stand the pain and changes to my lifestyle, that I should consider a full hip replacement surgery.  Can you guess my response?  I’m ready now!  Enough of this pain and hobbling around without being able to walk more than a short distance.  Dang, sign me up!

                                            Another pileated woodpecker in the long leafed pines.

Of course, there are several complications involved that I endeavored to deal with today.  One of them may be the fact that I might have to leave the refuge since I won’t be working during my recovery.  I have to admit that I thought that maybe with close to 5000 volunteer hours with the Fish and Wildlife Service in the last six years that I might be able to remain here during my recuperation, and continue to serve once I was able.  That’s up in the air.  It may depend on how fast I think I can recuperate. 

As it stands right now, the earliest that I could have the surgery will be some time in December.  So I’ll be here for at least the rest of the month…hobbling along. 

Thanks for stopping by… talk to you later,  Judy