As I thought, the second day at 0°F felt better. Maybe I could adjust to not breathing deeply, but the amount of driving necessary in this very spread out town would not be inviting.
I did forget to record my first sight of
Yesterday was windy and because of that quite cold, but the sun was out. Despite the temperatures, I saw one local walk without a coat from the Arctic research building to his car on the far side of the parking lot. Most of the other locals were well bundled, the footwear was often substantial. The overnight low was -11°F much colder than that with the wind added. Distances could be measure by whether or not my nostril hairs froze. Pulling the collar of my turtleneck over my mouth and nose improved conditions considerably. I’ve had my susceptible fingers turn yellow/white a couple of times, but that really isn’t any more often than at home. Of course it happened in about 15-20 minutes, which is a lot speedier than at home.
I checked the number of species found in the Great Backyard Bird count in
Chaperoning is so far relatively painless, except that I have to drive a tuna boat of a van around a town with which I’m not that familiar. There is very little snow, most of the main roads are clear, but the ones that aren’t are rather like skating rinks. I’ve slid the van around a few times and have managed to get turned around almost every time I drive anywhere. In fact, I don't remember ever getting so lost. Maybe it’s because its because I haven’t figured out any topographic markers, at least not on the strip mall roads. I am learning the store markers, if I go by
We spent the morning at the Science symposium listening to the student presentations. This is my first exposure to science competitions. At first I wondered about the whole competitive aspect of the symposium, but in the end it seemed alright. It seemed to motivate the students (cash prizes) and none of them panicked when things didn’t go as they wanted. I only had time to listen to three talks that weren’t by the students I was chaperoning. Nothing earth shattering, but I did learn about electronic calipers which could be useful for doing moss cover on cedars. Most of the Edgecumbe students did a good job with their talks and answered many of the judges’ questions reasonably. They had to wait until this evenings banquet to find out how they placed in their section and if they were moving on to the finals. The Archaea group took second and made the finals and the laccase group took a third.
The afternoon was spent at the University’s Reindeer farm, it corrected a few misconceptions that I had about the animals and about reindeer sausage. They are much stockier and have shorter legs than caribou, and the nose is a bit shorter. They are quite tame, and recognized the lichen bag from quite a distance. Hand feeding reindeer lichens was interesting enough that I overcame my urge to pocket the lichens to look at later. It looked like an interesting mixture of Cladonia and Cetreria. The keepers organize lichen collecting parties in the summer in order to collect enough lichen to full a small outbuilding. I really wanted a look in that building, but it didn’t happen. They also feed the reindeer
It was the antler shedding information that I had a bit off. The pregnant females do keep theirs through birth of the calf, but the males are more variable in time of shedding than I had heard. The timing seems to depend on age. If I remember right, the younger males keep theirs until March or so while the mature males lose theirs after the rut, but any time from December until February. The feet were wide; the tracks were almost round, with a lot of hair on the bottom. The dew claws were very low, they kind of looked like grappling hooks.
The herder made reindeer sausage sound so good that I was tempted to buy some next time I went shopping, but then he said that is sold at the grocery stores is only 2% reindeer. Didn’t quite seem as interesting.
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