life in phone photos

Sometimes life happens and my camera isn't always there to catch it.

FOR INSTANCE








Today, Jess and I went on an adventure where we tried to find different art studios that were participating in Autumn Winds. When she first mentioned it, I thought she said, "Autumn wins!" so I asked, "I win what?" I was disappointed to learn that I win nothing. Anyways, we set off on the tour and, after some navigational confusion, we ended up at the first studio on the tour. It was an adorable, renovated barn with fairy lights wrapped around the main roof support beam. The artist was mostly a painter who also dabbled in photography and mosaics. I really liked some of her paintings, especially the colors she used (lots of aquas and pinks, which I think go really well together), and her cityscapes and random building paintings were almost nostalgic for me, they reminded me of children's book illustrations. Her barn studio space was what I REALLY liked though, it was awesome.

The next artist we visited was a stained glass creator. I'm not really sure what such a person would be called...a stained glassman? A glasser? Glassinator? Anyways, his studio was this tiny wooden shack with tons of windows, all of which had beautiful stained glass animals hidden among the glass. This didn't matter so much, because his garden was his real studio. The garden was HUGE and amazing. I've never seen such a magical garden, though Clarissa's rivals it (some of us went over to her house to pick crabapples for the cider press and she sent us home with three boxes full of vegetables from her garden). The instagram pictures from above are from the garden. They were growing pumpkins, squash, and tons of tomatoes, roma and the little tiny orange and red guys. I love the rainbow gradient of green to red in the red ones. The oranges are definitely my favorite, though. I told us that we were welcome to take as many as we wanted from the vine, so we indulged. We walked through the garden with apple cider in hand, marveling at how fall-like everything felt. The leaves are starting to change and today was REALLY NICE, but in the brisk sort of way that fall brings. It would have been really beautiful if not for the fact that I had just burnt off three layers of skin on my tongue from my cider. The garden was still an amazing natural showroom for the artist's works, he had them hanging in wooden archways on the lattices, inlaid in stone around fountains filled with neon orange koi, and as gazebo ceilings stationed near the water-lily pond. Jess taught me about the plants and trees she knew about (red ash, burr cucumber, and maidenhair ferns) while we simply admired the bright pops of colors from the other flowers and plants. We looped around the garden twice since I wanted to identify some sparrows I saw sulking around and then we chatted with the artist for awhile before leaving. It was a calming, fresh experience. I think fresh describes it the best because we were in a beautiful setting with nothing but pleasant sounds around us: the tinkling of glass wind chimes, chirping sparrows, bubbling fountains, and the rustle of leaves. No traffic, no lawn mowers, no people. Or at least less people. We also saw a huge frog on a rock and tried to catch it, but failed. Oh well, next time.



The next two artists were both less exciting, in my opinion. One did driftwood sculptures that I was REALLY excited about, but it turns out that she did more painting than actual sculpture. While the paintings were still brightly colored and textured, my favorite things in paintings, I wanted driftwood, damn it! She had made a couple of really cool moose with the driftwood, though. The last artist we had time for was a potter who had a tiny but extremely cozy cabin in his backyard that operated as his studio space. He looked like Santa Claus. He showed two little girls how to throw clay on the wheel, but I wasn't super into his work. I'm not so much into pottery as I am other forms of art, I feel.

After this we got something to eat at a local diner since we'd had nothing but sugar all day (specifically oatmeal cookies) and hit up one last artist (where Jess found something she liked!) before heading home for a "playhouse warming party". Yes indeed, for one of my supervisor's four-year-old daughter. Her playhouse is BOMB, it has old frosted windows with depictions of our birds on each of them, since they are the old windows from the barn. She even has a tiny patio out front of her tiny playhouse. Needless to say, the day was excellent.

This past weekend has also been filled with visits from Troy's parents, Mama and Papa Douglas (don't worry, I definitely called them that). They brought us pizza, cookies, and mom hugs, and later that night we played a vicious game of spoons. Vicious. I sliced some fingers with my long-ass nails (need to cut them) and got bruises on my stomach from constantly body slamming the table in an effort to procure a spoon. It was hilarious. I was introduced to The Goonies and Jeremiah Johnson, both amazing movies, which have taught me so much about pirates, mutants, and mountain men.

We released the foxes on Saturday, which was a bittersweet experience. They were far too habituated to us, going as far as to grab their food before the door to their pen was even closed, so they needed to be released sooner rather than later; it's still sad to see them go. We gathered on the trail near their pen during lunch, waiting with both anticipation and anxiety as Anna unlocked and opened their door. We hoped that they would burst from their pen, wild and free, without a second glance backwards, assuring us that they were prepared to survive. Instead, the boldest of the two kits cautiously edged his way out of the pen, poking his head out the door and sauntering into the clearing. His brother stayed inside, warily watching from his hiding place beneath a carefully placed log. After a few minutes of snuffling around in the leaves outside the pen, the bold fox started to yip. It was the cutest sound because of the connotation that came with it, "Come on, what are you waiting for?" He cried some more, calling to his brother just on the other side of the mesh screen, until the shy fox slunk from the pen and also surveyed the surroundings with his brother. We watched as they explored their new habitat for the first time uninhibited, the sun illuminating the orange in their dappled grey fur. It was an unreal experience to be able to see it. When the shy fox kit started to throw up due to nerves (I'm assuming), we knew it was time to leave them. We've been back to make sure that there is food and water for them outside the pen in case they choose to return or are having trouble adapting to catching wild prey, and it looks like they haven't touched any of this food. Hopefully this means that they've already started catching little bunnies and squirrels and are efficient, well-camoflauged members of the forest. I'll miss their cute little faces.

We gave little bowls full of live minnows to our crow and raven as enrichment just yesterday. Watching Mob, the crow, spear the minnows was really entertaining, but the best part was watching him cache live fish all over enclosure. He dug holes in his gravel and then covered them up, stuck a fish beneath the astroturf on top of his hutch, shoved one down between two rocks near his pond and made sure that some moss was covering it, and then very deliberately chose one specific leaf on the floor of his enclosure, put the fish under it, and carefully made sure the leaf was covering it with his beak. I shrieked with glee the entire time, it was so FUNNY. Just the deliberate care of making sure his little caches were well hidden, especially when he grabbed something with his beak to cover it.

On other bird related news, training with Cica is going really well and she even ate in front of me yesterday! On her third session, I found that she was eating the second third of her food that I'd given her twenty minutes ago. Instead of conducting a formal training session after she'd eaten, I decided to see if she would eat with me in there, to test our trust levels. After a brief second of territorial trilling and eying me suspiciously, she went back to her meal. It was so cool to see her eat, and to feel like she had enough trust in me to eat with me standing just three feet away. She's such a tiny owl, but she uses her needle-like talons to slice and dice right through her mouse, eyes closed with effort. At one point she grabbed an entire leg bone and started swallowing it whole, her eyes bugging out of her skull. When she was done, I fed her the rest of her food and she took it in her tiny talons and flew to the top of her hutch. She's beautiful.



Today we went to HAWK RIDGE, which was SO. AWESOME.



We saw so many different types of raptors, though mostly accipiters and falcons. The official count was two broad-winged hawks (one in the hand, one in the air), two northern goshawks (both in hand), TONS of sharp-shinned hawks, a peregrine falcon, and a merlin. It was so cool, I'd never seen most of them before. We got to see their raptor banding station (which is how they catch the birds for us to see in the hand, they use special types of nets for raptors called dho gazas with live lures in tiny little vests tied to leashes, like pigeons and starlings), where we watched a sharpie go after a pigeon and get caught in a tumbling net. Then we smelled it (it smells good, like the forest). It was SO COOL!!! I freaked out majorly, plus I have a ton of pictures from it so SOMEDAY I will put those on this blog.

Now that I've caught up on recent news (the biggest pieces, anyways), I'm going to regale you with tales of the past with Iphone photos (like the title of this post insinuates). They may be small moments or big ones, but my phone captures them the way my big camera sometimes can't.

Remember when I said that Minnesota has some amazing sunsets? Here are a couple of them.







(the end of the rainbow leads to the barn)







(plus us canoeing)

When I first drove here with my dad, I was incredibly anxious about the possibilities of rejection, loneliness, depression, bear attacks, etc., so when we saw this sign my dad said, "You should take a picture and say 250 FEET FROM DESTINY!" I did take the picture, and now I have it as a reminder that I actually love it here, love the people, and love my job, so the anxiety (while non-preventable, due to who I am) was definitely silly.



We made stone soup in a giant cauldron on a fire outside on one of her first nights making dinner for ourselves. The kitchen feeds us on weeks where there are school groups, but weekends with no groups means that we're on our own. The stone soup was delicious, with contributions from all of us including venison, green onions, rice, potatoes, onions, and green peppers.





Our boss, Jeff, doing a raptor program with Cleo, our great horned owl. Both of them look sort of over it in this picture, which is funny considering both of their personalities.



The first rehab animal I got to see released. We were down at the lake hanging out on the pontoon when we heard the news that the loon we got in that afternoon was being released onto the lake. We watched it swim uncertainly out of the crate, then immediately dive under the water and it was gone.



Anna and Jmack, who were obsessed with Lost for a little while, were engaged in a battle over these numbers. Jmack and Noel stuck them EVERYWHERE (and when I say everywhere, I mean EVERYWHERE). The battle is ongoing in that Anna is still trying to find them all and take them down.



The pontoon on my second day here. I stretched out across the seats with my book, listened to the gentle lapping of water on the dock and shore, enjoyed the quiet rocking of the boat, and felt the sun beat down on my back and immediately fell head over heels in love with the pontoon.



A fungus called the Chicken of the Woods. We carefully separated it from the tree so we could try it in stir fry that night. I did end up eating some (just to say I did), and was not impressed. Still, I ate something from the woods!



The beloved pontoon during a cloudy sunset, which cast some amazing light and shadow effects.



Anna has been working on a mural of corvids in their different habitats all summer, and this day we sat outside with her while she finished it. She's just about to sign her name in this picture.



The night before I had to teach climbing wall for the first time, I asked if we could go climbing as practice. We did climb (contrary to what this picture depicts), but then we decided we needed to play Fish Out of Water (a bouldering game), which eventually led to us burying Megan in the crushed rubber. This is why we can't have nice things.



This is what I wake up to every morning and walk through to get to work. I live here, and I love it. As much as I miss the city and being able to go out sometimes, I also love the serene quiet of the woods (or not, depending on the types of wildlife you're around at the time) and just how gorgeous it is on a daily basis. There is no shortage of inspiration here.



I still have pictures from Duluth, rock climbing, and now Hawk Ridge to upload and blog about so hopefully that happens soon! In the meantime, I'll be teaching my first raptor program tomorrow night! WOOHOO!