Soaker hoses????

Apparently potatoes are finicky. They can't have too much water, but they need some. They like certain minerals in the soil, but not too much. In an attempt to satisfy their water needs we put in soaker hoses, what a brilliant invention! Lets hope the potatoes agree.

Potatoes!

Our potatoes have pushed their way into the world! How exciting. Only the fingerlings have come up but the reds and yukon golds must be close. We also planted a salad mix and had to thin the squash, which was pretty traumatizing for me. I felt so vested in each start and then I had to chop them! I realize its the way everyone does it but next year it might have to be Ian's job.

Islands are so cool!

A raven skull

We had class with Gene this week. We learned about island biogeography, which is fascinating and so relevant in our time, as well as biodiversity. To bring it all home and relate it back to the learning center we headed out to the islands to "discover" which species were out there and "count" them. There was no exact science behind any of it but it was so fun!
Aneka and I made up the "animal sign" team. We found a raven skull (above); a small bird skull and some bones; three geese nests with down, egg shells and goose poop; a full set of wings, which were still connected, that we thought were from a gull and a live alligator lizard!

This nest had the most feathers, although it was the smallest, perhaps 2'x2'.

On the island we also saw these beautiful douglas fir cones. Neither Aneka or I had ever seen fir cones like this. Now we are on the look out for pink cones on campus! We also found the first tway blade, a small orchid, of the season.

The bears are coming out.......

...I saw my first black bear of the season this weekend. Just minutes from my back door. I was with a group of Earth Corp volunteers, a few of whom had never seen a bear in the wild before. It was pretty exciting and now we know that bears around campus are officially out of hibernation!