Journal of a Sabbatical

June 23, 1999

noise and dust

June 23, 1999
Plum Island

snowy egret
great egret
killdeer
Wilson's phalarope
brown thrasher
yellow warbler
redwinged blackbird
double-crested cormorant
cedar waxwing
gray catbird
eastern kingbird
gadwall
green-winged teal
mallard
Canada goose
purple martin
herring gull
American crow
American robin
common grackle

Today's Starting Pitcher: Brett Saberhagen

Reading: none

The construction on the skylights in the rabies room has finally started. This seems to involve periodic loud banging noises as well as sounds of power tools. Kinda puts a damper on conversation.

Midgee hates the loud noises. Every time there's a loud bang she puts her ears back and bares her teeth. Her tail sticks straight out and she looks in all directions to locate the danger. She's not too keen on other cats either, so she tried to escape every time the front door opened. Finally Kendra put her in the office so she could enjoy her exercise time free of the noise and the other cats.

Kendra nails up a blanket over the rabies room door to muffle the construction noise. It actually helps. Either that or I'm getting used to the racket.

Jaguar is on top of the whole situation. He methodically sniffs every cage and every object in the room just to make sure he doesn't miss anything. Then he does the same for the laundry room - carefully sniffing both the clean and the dirty laundry before he jumps up to the counter for a drink from the community water bowl.

A new volunteer turns the radio to a dance music station. She's talking about how Cher remixes are big on the dance scene and I'm scrubbing cat shit to the beat. The dishes and litter boxes seem to wash themselves.

I notice on the adoptions board that Cosmo and Kappy, the adorable orange feral brothers, have gone to their new adoptive home. Make that adoptive warehouse. The boys have an actual job chasing mice at a warehouse in Haverhill. They both love to pounce on anything that moves, and don't much like to be cuddled by people. It's the perfect gig for them.

I forgot to mention last week that Zeke & Ollie got adopted. I hope their new people like having their hair licked.

I'm hot, hungry, tired, and soaking wet. It's those big community litter boxes - I can't wash them without splashing myself. I dream of bigger sinks. My shirt is so wet that I buy a new T-shirt at Fowle's coffee shop. I wanted one anyway. I've been on T-shirt purchasing binge 'cause I'm tired of my clothes. So, in my dry shirt with my large dark roast coffee and a humus sandwich from Teaberries I try to find a quiet place to eat lunch with maybe some birds around.

It hasn't rained in a month and it looks that way. Even the marshes look brown. The trees on the refuge look dusty. The redwinged blackbirds even look dry and dusty. I drive down the refuge road with car windows open on both sides to let in some air and aid bird detection. The interior and exterior of the car gain a fine coating of gray dust. My binoculars are covered with dust. My sandwich tastes like dust. My skin feels dry and gritty and when I wipe my forehead my hand comes away covered in dust. So much for having had the car washed yesterday.

High summer is kind of the birding doldrums around here. The birds that breed here are busy raising their young and the ones who breed north of here are doing likewise and won't be back here 'til August. Not that I've seen every bird known to be on the refuge. Not even every well documented rarity.

On Monday as I was heading to the gatehouse to turn in my report, I noticed a crowd of people with scopes heading toward the marsh across from parking lot 1. It registered subliminally that this many people with scopes on a hot Monday afternoon probably means a rarity, but that thought didn't really make it up to my conscious mind, which was focused on getting something to eat and drink. So this afternoon I see on the white board that there was a clapper rail in the marsh across from parking lot 1 on Monday. Guess I should've checked it out.

La Madre forwarded e-mail from BiB who is on his way from Hungary to Macedonia where he will be living while he works in Kosovo. Just yesterday Tom was asking what's up with my brother in Bosnia. I told him that basically if you hear the word logistics on the news that means he's too busy to send e-mail. So do we have to call him BiM or BiK now? Or does his having lived in Bosnia for 4 years (or is it 5?) mean we get to call him BiB forever? And do we get KFOR coffee mugs this Christmas? :-)

Gee, do you think I exhibit the "humor and sarcasm as defense mechanism" response? It's not like I don't listen to the news. It's not like a peacekeeping mission is all that much safer than a war. But nobody shoots at civilians right? Besides that, he's in charge of safety so he better know how to be safe.

There was a brief thunderstorm early this evening that did nothing to cool things off or provide much real rain. A nice mist rose up from the warm ground afterwards though. Real pretty to see.

There's still thunderstorms in the area and they make interesting static on the radio as I listen to the ball game, whichever ball game. There was so much static on the Red Sox flagship station, WEEI, that I tuned to the Lowell Spinners game. They were losing too. My new radio antenna does help with the Spinners' station and it helps a lot with the weak FM stations but it does absolutely nothing to improve WEEI. Back to the drawing board on that one, I guess.

I have made no progress on debugging the new TV antenna. The green light just never comes on. I am beginning to think they sold me a defective power antenna. I may just take it back to Home Depot tomorrow and get my money back then head over to Radio Shack or someplace for a set of old-fashioned rabbit ears. That ought to fix it. The lesson here is she who relies on broadcast TV should never break the original equipment antenna. It might be less hassle to replace the TV!