The last few days have been eventful.

Halfway through another week! Here's a recap:

Monday
After my morning shift, I went to Pelican Lake and rented a kayak. I spent two and a half hours just paddling around, relaxing, sitting and enjoying the silence and solitude. It's probably the biggest chunk of alone time I've had since I got out here. It was fantastic. $2 an hour for a kayak rental? SWEET DEAL. I made a video to send my dad while I was out there, but the file is too large to attach to an e-mail :( I'll just have to show it to him when I get home. I then spent the rest of the day hanging out at the beach with a couple co-workers and some buddies from the resort we were at. I got to see my first sunset in two months (since we can't see the sunset for the trees here at the sanctuary).

Tuesday
The prelude to the story of tuesday is thus: We've been getting a lot of new volunteers in this last week or so, INCLUDING! this awesome and absurdly adorable couple from Sydney, Australia (WOO AUSTRALIA!). Troy and Tereen (or, as Abby dubbed them to avoid the name conundrum, T Squared) were so sweet, and helped out as much as they could, though poor Tereen was having morning sickness half the time. They seemed to have been getting along well with everyone, and whenever they weren't around we all talked about how great they were. Troy and I quickly slid into the habit of picking on each other nonstop. Tereen was free with her hugs, which is always a delight.
So the afternoon shift on Tuesday went out pruning. The first half of shift was uneventful, aside from Troy and I trading sarcastic comments, as you do. Second half, Tereen stayed behind at the cook shack while the rest of us returned to work. I was weedwhacking and happened to look up just in time to see Troy wheel backwards, hands clutching his face, blood pouring through his fingers. He'd been standing on a small tree to cut it, and it snapped out from under his foot, hit him in the face and broke his nose, cutting through to the sinus. The Bois Forte ambulance came out, then left, and Abby took Troy to the hospital. The poor bloke was making jokes while he sat on the ground, bleeding into a t-shirt. What a trooper.

Wednesday
Unsurprisingly, between the morning sickness and the broken nose, the Aussies left early. We were all really sad to see them go; they were such great company. Though I managed to restrain myself from hollering "Aussie aussie aussie, oi oi OI!" at them the whole time, I tossed a few panda jokes at Troy when he returned with his poor, beaten, bruised face. Tereen did her part by inadvertently wearing a panda t-shirt, which was just the icing on the teasing cake.

I mean, seriously. He came to a black bear sanctuary and got beaten up by a TREE. Who does that?! (Don't worry, he teases back just as heartily.)

About an hour into us being upen to the public Wednesday night, a storm rolled in complete with thunder and lightning. Lighting is one of the few things we'll close down for, so we packed up shop, and then rushed all the food out into the field so Rhonda could take us out for ice cream.



So, all in all, it's been a crazy couple of days. I've got just over a month to go....let's see what else stands between me and home.