SEALS !!!

hello all -- sorry that i have been slacking....living with 13 other people can be quite distracting!
i have been busy with group service, my IP and weekend service.
last tuesday i had my first CLOSE encounter with a harbor seal! i had been staring at my computer allll day at the stranding network & at 4:00 we got a call about a seal with some weird lesions. i was extremely happy to finally have some action! we picked up the seal from the P-town DNR and took it back to our warehouse. because i have absolutely no clue what i am doing, i was given the task of writing down info/taking notes while the other two girls restrained the seal and took it's temperature, cleaned it's wounds, etc. it was quite the experience and seals are FIESTY! this past tuesday i had the pleasure of picking up frozen samples of dead seal jaws. later that afternoon i got to PLAY with them. just kidding -- but, i did get to handle them and learned how to distinguish the different species by the shape of their teeth. VERY cool. i also learned how to log the samples in the freezer. TODAY was by far the best !? last night they picked up a wounded harbor seal and it needed to be transported to the university of new england in maine. myself & my housemate, crystal, had the pleasure of transferring the seal in MY car. the seal was in a dog kennel and hung out in my backseat. she definitely SMELLED.....bad, but it was a great experience. we also didn't have to drive all the way to maine -- we transferred the seal in new hampshire in a liquor store parking lot. totally random, an definitely makes for a great story! if you would have told me a year ago that i would be carting seals around in my car & taking them to rehab, i would have thought you were crazy! but....i would not trade what i have been doing for anything.
this past weekend i participated in my last fin fish study. we didn't catch much, but it was fun to be out in the water one last time. on sunday a bunch of us left the cape (gasp!) and traveled to new bedford, mass for a conference called "bioneers by the bay". it was an environmental conference that we thought we would learn a lot from, but it was mainly speakers talking about how the environment has impacted their lives & how they changed to help it. not exactly what we were looking for, but i am pretty sure we all enjoyed the lunch!
this weekend is halloween...and we have NO SERVICE!!! should be a rowdy time!
see ya on the flip side....
MUCH LOVE,
abbey

me & the seal in my car.......

















the seal in her cage.....















all ready to go in my car.....















a striped bass we caught while fin fishing (pardon my gross-ness).....

oyster celebrations.

definitely fall here in cape cod! this past weekend i was involved with the OYSTERFEST celebration here in my town of wellfleet. friday during the day i spent my service time in barnstable on the barnstable county farm hauling branches from the tree nursery area. i was really excited about this project because i have been recently toying with the idea of being a (christmas) tree farmer! we didn't get to do much concerning the actual tree farm on the property, but it was fun to be there working and learning about the different trees they plant. we will most likely being going back in the spring to help with seedling plantings, so i am looking forward to that!
friday nite was the offical start to oysterfest, which was celebrated with a DISCO DANCE at the lighthouse restaurant in "downtown" wellfleet. some americorps alum from last year came back to celebrate and i believe the whole town was out & dancing, because the dance floor was packed! saturday we got the chance to just walk around the fest and check out different booths and music and of course....oyster shucking! i did not actually eat any oysters, but i did have some amazing lobster bruschetta and tried a swordfish skewer (kinda weird, but good i guess). sunday morning some of us biked down to the harbor to cheer on some fellow housemates that were running the 5K "shuck & run" and later headed back to the fest to jam to some bluegrass! in the afternoon i returned to the festival to do some actual "service". i was part of the recycling initative and basically got to stand in the freezing cold by some garbage cans & recycle bins and told people where to put what. i was amazed at how many people just threw their plastic cups in the garbage....sad. we were also "recycling" the oyster and clam shells. the shells will be thrown back in the water to hopefully form a haven that will attract living oysters and clams to come and live in to help successfully produce more shellfish in the cape area, since (as you know from my previous post) most shellfish is now "grown" through aquaculture. even though it was freeeezing cold, we did get a lot of "thank-yous" and comments that people were happy that we were here helping to get people to recycle....so i guess it was worth it to freeze.
today was another chilly day...spent on the beach! it wasn't so glamorous though, as we were with 100 high school freshmen teaching them about dunes, water & land ecosystems and why we shouldn't litter the beaches. did i mention it was cold? the wind was howling & blowing sand everywhere...but apparently the kids had a good time, even if we were miserable. another good reason to freeze.
so the population of wellfleet has now offically lessened and i am sure we will be bored on the weekends soon enough....but i am still thoroughly enjoying myself & my time here!
take care & stay warm!
ABBEY













some trees @ the barnstable county farm....












chapin beach in dennis before the kids arrived....


















ethan (one of our service partners) at his oyster booth....






the recycling team in the cold.....

long weekend.

my long weekend is slowly coming to an end today. it was nice to have an extra day off after a big week this past week! as you know i started my IP with the cape cod stranding network on tuesday and a lot was already happening due to the wandering manatee that swam into cape cod bay. unfortunately, i did not get to help with the rescue, but from reading the cape cod times i learned that the manatee was captured late saturday morning and was going to be driven back to florida with the sea world folks. everything had gone smoothly and the manatee looked to be in pretty good shape. sadly, the manatee died yesterday en route to florida....just one hour away from the rehab facility it was going to. even though i wasn't a part of the rescue, i feel a little defeated, knowing how much work and effort went into saving the manatee. at the same time i am hopeful for my upcoming year, knowing that i am working with such dedicated people.
this past week we also got to work with the brewster DNR helping with their aquaculture program and clearing fire fuel. we had originally learned about aquaculture at the chatham conservation department a few weeks back, but was left rather confused after the man we were working with went off on rants about mexicans taking our jobs and the world bank going into debt. (yeah......) i feel more knowledgeable after our lesson on monday. basically, aquaculture is like agriculture....just in the water! lack of eel grass due to water pollution and overfishing has caused natural populations of shellfish on the cape to dwindle drastically, so towns now have to basically "grow" their shellfish in restricted areas in the surrounding waters. they actually buy "seed" (brewster buys theirs from maine) or veryveryVERY small oysters and grow them in cages in shallow water in the cape cod bay. once the oysters hit regulation size (3 inches long) they can be sold to be eaten. clams have to be 1 inch thick to be able to be eaten. we also learned how to "shuck" or open the oysters and clams. i got to shuck a clam....but did not taste the benefits of opening one. raw, slimy seafood really isn't up my alley. friday was spent in the punkhorn area in brewster clearing what they call "fire fuel", or dead sticks that are littering the ground. they hope that by clearing the area, any fires that happen will be able to be maintained more effectively by the fire department. it was definitely hard work and we are always a little leary of going in the woods here as there is poison ivy everywhere you turn (2 guys in my house -- greg & brian, already have it!) and a high incidence of lymes disease from ticks.
friday night was brian's 22nd birthday, so what other way to celebrate but with drag queen karaoke!? i am positive we will not be let in the next time we go there....we are such horrible singers! but we had a good time, so i guess that is all that matters. saturday, alex, tim, meg and myself decided to conquer the "RAIL TRAIL". it is a bike trail along hwy 6 that runs from wellfleet to the town of dennis....about 22 miles! from our house it takes about 5 miles to get to the head of the trail and then we biked 11.5 miles to nickerson state park in brewster and walked around for a bit. we were all feeling pretty good until we realized that we had to bike BACK. we racked up 33 miles that day! today tim, alex and i thought we would take another stab at biking (thinking our butts had recovered from saturday -- SO not the case!) and rode 19 miles just around the town of wellfleet....on the atlantic coast to the white cedar swamp, where we walked around on the boardwalk and then to leuitenant island on the bay side and skipped some rocks and checked out the view. needless to say....i am EXHAUSTED tonight after biking more than 50 miles this weekend! i will surely be sleeping well tonite, and am looking forward to the short week!
happy columbus day!

view of cape cod bay from lt. island....














the boardwalk at white cedar swamp....














myself & greg measuring oysters in cape cod bay...

a whale of a tale....

SO....big week this week! we have now started our individual placements, or "IPs". as stated earlier, mine is with the cape cod stranding network. i will be working (or "serving") with them on tuesdays and thursdays. the program is located within an organization called IFAW (www.ifaw.org), which stands for the International Fund for Animal Welfare, and they are pretty much a big deal! it's also pretty cool that their international headquarters are located here on the cape! the building that i work at is LEED certified gold (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/LEED_certification), which refers to the green building rating system. the building is made out of 40% recycled material and is AWESOME. it will definately be fun to be at work...even if the commute is 45 minutes one way! (yikes).
the big news during service today is that there is a MANATEE hanging out in cape cod bay
(http://capecodonline.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20081009/NEWS/810090318)
this is interesting because manatees usually stick to the waters of florida. this is also bad because manatees don't survive in cold water and the water here is definately starting to get chilly. so....as i sat at my computer for most of the day trying to come up with an outline of how to teach town officals how to help a stranded marine mammal before we get there, everyone in the stranding network were on conference calls with sea world in orlando to coordinate them coming up here this weekend to help capture the manatee and bring it back to florida for rehab, or trying to find someone with an airplane to fly the thing back down there. lots of excitement that i was sad i was not a part of.....BUT i did get to go to their warehouse this afternoon to help get their truck and trailer ready for the capture of the manatee that they are hopefully doing this weekend! i told them that i would be around, so if they need an extra set of hands, that i am more than happy to help!
SO....check out the links and enjoy the weekend....mine is a long one!
take care & much love,
ABBEY

the 8th continent.

so, i know that i am writing about what i am doing in americorps...but i would like to share some information about environmental issues, too as i learn about them.
a while ago i learned about a floating mass of garbage in the pacific ocean that was rumored to be the size of texas. i believed that there was a an island of garbage, but i thought that the size had to be exaggerated. after reading a little blurb about it yesterday, i did some research online and was horrified to find that the large swirling mass of garbage is TWICE the size of texas...and there are TWO of them. they are known collectively as the western and eastern pacific garbage patch. a google search about either of the garbage patches yields not much info....& considerably less for the western patch, which forms between japan & hawaii. the massive landfills are formed by ocean gyres....which are clockwise ocean currents that continuously cycle trapping the garbage. the majority of the garbage is plastic....30 meters deep! the eastern mass is located north of hawaii on the way to california near some islands that house a marine mammal preserve. president bush passed a law last year for the islands to be left alone....but now that more people are finding out about the garbage mass, more people want to be able to investigate it. not much sea life lives around the floating land fill....but many passing fish and birds mistake the floating plastic for food. autopsies of these dead animals show stomachs full of plastic...& those that don't die face many health problems. it also poses problems for people like us that eat the fish that have ingested the plastic. researchers state that it will be almost impossible to clean up the mass messes, but we can cut down the size if we cut down on our use of plastic. i know that it is extremely hard....our society today relies so heavily on plastics...but if you just go out and buy some canvas bags to bring to the grocery store to reuse...you are making an effort! just wanted to make you all aware of this problem. knowledge is power!

picture links

for those people that don't have facebook.....here are links to my photo albums that i have put up, so that you can see ALL the fun i'm having :)

http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=2235840&l=d0bcc&id=26700157

http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=2238739&l=1bcf1&id=26700157

my 1st month!

it's hard to believe that i have been here for a month. this place has grown on me so much and the people have become so much like family to me....it is quite amazing. one of my best experiences so far was this past wednesdays. the whole corps was "sworn in" at the county courthouse in barnstable. we spent the morning getting to know the county commision and they could not contain their excitement for the 10th year of americorps. it was so humbling to hear these officals praise the program and past members. it made me really excited to FINALLY get to work instead of training. our first real project happened on friday. on thursday we were given a loose outline and told we were getting some alternative high school student volunteers. we essentially had to plan the project and make sure that we had all the tools we needed to do some invasive species removal. so friday morning we met the volunteers at taylor-bray farm in yarmouth. the land was first used as a farm over 300 years ago! there are only 23 acres left....but it is a really wonderful place that i plan on spending some more time at. the corps members were split into 3 groups and given some volunteers. our group was given the task of removing some PHRAGMITES....an invasive grass from australia that can grow up to 13 feet! so...we got out our lopers & clippers & got to work. for the most part the kids were excited to help and it was great to have some more hands-on work to do. after the volunteers left, don -- who runs the farm -- gave us all a tractor ride! fun stuff. that afternoon 7 of us (meg, brian, alex, jaclyn, jenny, amanda & myself) drove down to woods hole to catch the ferry to go to martha's vineyard for the night! our plan was to camp and to see a band entrain, that we had previously had seen. we thought the best way to travel was on bike....so it was quite "fun" trying to drive around on our bikes with huge packs on our backs containing sleeping bags and tents....in the dark! but nonetheless....we reached our campsite & set up camp. the band was very entertaining & we even got a shout out by the lead singer @ the last song. after a chilly night in our tents we headed into vineyard haven for a yummy b'fast/lunch & then set out on our bikes to explore. we decided to head to oaks bluff to check out a "gingerbread" neighborhood. it was a little neighborhood comprised of little cottages painted & decorated in all different colors. we then hit up the main drag and saw the oldest carousel in the country and lots of cute little shops. we all had a great time & will definately be going back when it is warm again. the best part of the whole trip was when we were coming back & had meredith and korinda pick us up at the ferry....it was sort of like a movie in that we all ran to each other to give everyone hugs. & then when we got back to our house, some people were just getting back from a conference in boston & everyone was running & hugging. we all realized that it was our 1st night apart and it was really cute how we all missed each other! i cannot say enough how much i enjoy the people i live with.
well....on tuesday i am finally starting my individual placement with the stranding network, so i am very much looking forward to that! hope you are all enjoying the fall....not too much color here yet, but i hope soon!
keep in touch!
much love,
ABBEY

sunset on the ferry to the vineyard....

boats in vineyard haven harbor....

our camping group on the ferry....

sunset in wellfleet harbor...check out the sliver moon!

americorps on the (taylor-bray) farm!