chore day.

well....it is monday, which equals chore day @ the house! i had the pleasure of cleaning the front bathroom and happened to find that the toilet seat was....BEMIS! it was nice to have a reminder of home. i hadn't been missing it at all, but this weekend my dear friend laura got married and i wasn't able to attend because i had some service work that i was doing....but i definately felt a little down on saturday nite knowing that all my friends back home were hanging out together, helping laura celebrate her new life. BUT....i am still havimg a fantastic time on the cape & this past weekend definately kept me busy. on thursday we spent all day at the WBNERR (pronounced web-ner) which is located in Falmouth (which is quite the drive from wellfleet) and stands for: Waquiot Bay National Estruarine Research Reserve. we had the opportunity to learn different methods for obtaining data about water quality, which i enjoyed because that is something i am specifically interested in. apparently there are 20 of these research reserves all over the country, and i am definately interested in looking more into them for future employment some day! friday was spent at meetinghouse farms in west barnstable. it is public land that has a greenhouse for public education and also trails to walk through the area. we had crash courses in power tools and loppering/invasive species identification/removal. we were using the power tools to construct some benches to be placed throughout the trails, and i am proud to say that my group got the furthest in the construction! in the afteroon we worked in a small area of the land removing invasive species with the lopers...which was pretty hard work! friday night began with some beers on the beach and then we headed to a "townie" bar called "the bomb shelter" and ended the night with some night swimming (which has become a house tradition) at a kettle pond right down the road from our house. saturday was a little slow-going, but in the afternoon i headed to the city of BOURNE with my fellow housemates: brian, greg & amie (a fellow wisconsin-ite!) to volunteer at the bourne scallop festival. i spent the evening helping people bring their food to their table.....not very exciting, but i got a free meal & a free shirt! that night a band called "entrain" played in the food tent and they were GREAT! i had been bumming about not having a lot of good live music on the cape, but they made my evening! sunday morning began VERY early (5:30 am) at the beach with our service partner, ethan. we got to help ethan with his fin fish study that he is doing for his PhD. we dragged a 250 ft. net out into the ocean and pulled it up on shore and then seperated the different species of sea life and measured them. we mostly captured a variety of small fish, crabs and squid. while throwing a squid back into the ocean, it slipped in my hand and bit me! it was not very pleasant....but overall it was a really great eperience! sunday afternoon the majority of the house drove up to truro (the town just north of us) for a wine tasting and some jazz music. it was a great way to end the weekend! so....now it's back to the grind....hope you are all enjoying the first day of fall!
much love.
A.




from the top.......some of us @ the vineyard in truro, loppering @ meetinghouse farm & the contents of one of the nets we dragged in.