I’m back at work after stuff happened in my family. I’m looking forward to the all team gathering next week. this is going to be great, I’m so looking forward to this. Its like my vacation from everything that has happened this past week. For a while I didn’t know what day it was. Work here is helping to get me back on track. My poster will be finished by tomorrow, right now its all about worms……….yikes. Immerse myself in everything worm and wild ginger, of course….

we finally got to do the worm hunting in the forest. that was fascinating as the worms came up from the ground, two group members were on point catching them. they immediately put them into a plastic container with rubbing alcohol, for identification later this week. there were a lot of small ones a few big ones. when the solution of water and mustard seed was poured into the square, there was an almost immediate reaction. within 20 seconds the worms were coming to the surface. I wasn’t expecting the solution to work that fast. hhhmmm, the worms were not that far from the surface of the soil and I still haven’t gotten a chance to see “Ghostbusters”.  I’ve got to make time for that movie………

It is Friday…..looking forward to the weekend because I’m going to watch “Ghostbusters” the reboot.  My son said it was alright, but I should go and see the matinee. And he is trying to talk me into playing Pokémon Go. All I hear is “come on mom, it’ll be fun, and get our exercise to”. Maybe this weekend I’ll check it out. Still working on our posters it is so frustrating at times. But we’ll get it. Well…….everybody have a safe and happy weekend.

WooHoo….. we don’t have to go into the heat and humidity. Where in the ponds the  microclimate is like being smack dab on the equator. I was not looking forward to being in the field today. I would have went, but I wouldn’t have been happy about the whole thing. I would have been growly the rest of the day. So now we are sitting in the air conditioned classroom. Nice…….

Still working on my poster and it is a slow process…… But our intrepid leader, says that “we are doing well, and we are were supposed to be”. This can be very frustrating, at times, but it feels great to occasionally nail a paragraph, a paragraph that needs no restructuring, a paragraph that you wrote and it sounds like you know what you are talking about. Like you know the material like the back of your hand………..  So I was going to try the Pokémon thing that is all the rage right, just to see what it is. But I don’t know yet, hmmm.  People that play say it is very addicting……hmmm

We as a research pod went to the Cedar Creek Research Station. The symposium that we attended was so interesting, between us and the current students. the different viewpoints on what is called science. The symposium started as soon as we arrived, we did exercises that were designed to explain the weaving of two very different viewpoints of modern science and legends. The next morning we went walking through a cedar bog, wow…. the cedar trees were awesome. If you ever get a chance to go to the Cedar Creek Research Station, I highly recommend that you do.

this makes me growl, and makes me want to chew on the side of my computer…. but eventually I will get it (deep breathe). I hope.  This just is so frustrating at times but I keep telling myself I can do this…..I can do this.  I can make a map that has my personality in it. On the bright side, we had lunch at Howie’s today…. thank you very much Sheila. That was a good bonding experience for all of us. And we are going to St. Paul, can you say mini road trip. Woohoo, this should be fun, looking forward to doing something I haven’t done EVER………..laters……..

We are learning about the earthworm in the state of Minnesota, every worm in the state is an invasive species. I didn’t know that, wow. These little guys change the ecology of a forest. The worm on the average only procreates 2x in its lifetime. It was very interesting. Next time we are going out in the field to pull up the earthworm and identify the worm…………

But……….we stayed in to start our training on GIS, that is touchy program, to many clicks and it will freeze. But it is so kool!!!  There is so much information that a person can work with. It is FUN!!!!  Well not much more to report on today. So have a good day my fellow people……….

Did everybody have a great weekend? My weekend was ok.  Well, we are going to learn how to make our own map through the GIS program, from the waypoints that we have been taking for the last week. This should be interesting, since I have never heard of GIS before this internship. But I am finding out that this program can do all sorts of stuff. We got an overview today, we start tomorrow.  Map making, I don’t know if this will fly. Maybe I’ll crash and burn this map making thing. Have a great day….

Today we couldn’t do the anything with the herbarium stuff (I have never worked with that before). But our leader said that the special paper has not gotten here yet. That just stinks. I was looking forward to the preservation of the plants—hikes.  Oh, well we are going to save that for another day. Today we are working on our ecology papers for the Namepin, now I have to put on my scientific hat and write like a scientist. Kinda hard to do, since I haven’t done a science based paper in awhile. It’s a bit of a struggle right now, but I’m sure I’ll get into the swing of things again. All things considered, this is FUN!!! Have a great day peoples. Talk to you all on Monday. Stay safe this weekend……..