Friday, May 21, 2010

TICKS.

TICKS.

MADDIE, WHY DIDN'T YOU WARN ME ABOUT THE TICKS!?

...though I suppose since that's the only thing I really have to complain about, I can't complain. But seriously, they're awful, and there's a ton of them. Here's hoping I won't end up with lyme disease...

Yesterday started at seven, as usual, with feeding the bears and then ourselves. There's tons and tons of ravens, crows, blue jays, red-winged blackbirds, and a piliated woodpecker who all enjoy the food we put out as well. The sanctuary gets lots of donations which get fed to the bears; typical fodder is granola bars, trail mix, banana chips, dates, dried fruit....it all depends on what has been donated. Abby, Zachariah and I spent an hour or so opening three-year-old pouches of ballpark sunflower seeds and pouring them into the 50-gallon buckets. Yesterday we spent the morning doing highway cleanup. The sanctuary has adopted a two-mile stretch of highway around the park's entry. It was a little daunting, as the heat of the day rose. Not to mention the EIGHT MILLION TICKS. But I digress.

Two nights ago the three of us met Zeke, one of the regular bears. He was massive, and very gentle-tempered. Turns out the bears love the black-oil sunflower seeds that typically get fed to birds. Here's a photo of him:


Today has been a little strange because there's a group of photographers here. They arrived early this morning, and will be here all day, all week. It adds another layer of awareness to the job. It also means we're busier, so I don't know how soon I'll be able to post here again. Leave me comments...

1 comment:

  1. Bwuahahahaha
    All part of my evil plan to help the ticks of Northern Minnesota take over the world, one VSWS intern at a time...

    ReplyDelete