Saying Goodbyes

I'm leaving another project behind bright and early tomorrow at 7am. It's always a bittersweet feeling when we transition to the next project. I really enjoyed this project and got job experience that will be really helpful for my future. My job consisted of educational outreach to kids where I took them around the 2/3 of a mile beach loop trail to teach them about the habitat as well as doing the fund-raising and event planning for the Duck Derby that happened today. It was great to see the event come together! Also, the scenery here is quite amazing. Everyday I got to come to work and look out onto Buzzard's Bay with the sun reflecting off the ocean and a beautiful wildlife sanctuary with vibrant butterflies and flowers. Pictures never do beautiful scenes justice. However, I am so excited to be done with camping and be onto the next project. The last project.

I keep thinking about how I only have 2.5 months left! Time flew by! It's going to be really sad to say goodbye to all of the amazing people I met here. It's been great to be a part of this. People with common goals coming together to do good. It's a beautiful thing. I don't think I've ever felt like I belonged somewhere more than I have the past 6.5 months. (ok this is getting mushy... )

My goal for the next 2.5 months is too really enjoy my time. I want to get as much out of this experience as possible and see as much as possible. I'm so much more positive about AmeriCorps then when I first started!! Maybe Round 2 next year in Denver or Sac?! I might just be that crazy.

Events of the Week

Monday- Got stuck in a thunderstorm
Tuesday- Made delicious chicken kabobs for my team, got pecked at by a rooster, screamed, and he came at me again!
Wednesday- Burned myself on a poptart, got a nasty blister, and counted rubber ducks... again. Went running after work, it was nice to work up a sweat.
Thursday- Today! I am working "AHA! Night" today which is a huge educational children's festival that is partnered with the local Ocean Explorium. We made 2 liter bottles into an ocean art piece. We collected seashells, rocks and seaglass (something they have on the East Coast, it's quite amazing!) and put them inside with some water and blue food coloring. We are going to be standing at a booth and educating kids about the wonders of the ocean and giving them some coloring pages to draw on. They're expected to have 900 kids at this festival and about 200 should stop at our booth. It should be fun! I know preparing for it was. I got to spend a few hours at the beach collecting rocks and seashells, just another hard days work :)
Friday- Tomorrow. Our generous sponsor invited us over to her beach front house for a BBQ and relaxing time at the beach. It'll be nice to get away from the farm.
Saturday- ANOTHER BBQ at my teammates house in Rhode Island and a volunteer project at a Music Festival... AND 1 week until Duck Derby and my return to Perry Point, MD! I never thought I'd be so excited to go back there. This Round has been a great experience, but I'm ready to sleep in a real bed again! 

Creativity at its finest

It's 6 o'clock on a Monday evening and I'm in the house at Stone Barn farm because it's raining. It's the Worst Case Scenario for a person who lives in a tent. You may ask, what does a person do that has a lack of electricity, no internet, hardly anywhere to be alone and one vehicle for transportation?! I would answer, that's a great question and if you have any suggestions for entertainment, please let me know! You are currently reading what I do when I'm stuck inside. We definetly have to be creative when we're living in tents in an open field on a farm. Yesterday, I painted with 3 paints I found in storage. Luckily, they were red, yellow and blue so you could mix them to make the secondary colors. I made some abstract cardboard art. I'm sure it'll be put in a museum someday. After work today, I showered at a dirty camp site's shower with some fellow spiders, did some push up's and sit ups, made some vocabulary flash cards for the GRE, and now this. I've actually been taking a lot of pictures in my spare time and trying out different settings to see what they do. I wish I had some kind of instrument here with me so I could practice that/ learn how to play it or Rosetta Stone so I could learn a language while I camp. That's right... I'm an ambitious camper. I need to keep my brain going, because I'm pretty sure my IQ gets lower everyday I sit down to label, plug, or wash 1 of 6,000 rubber ducks. I think I'm going to leave my shower stuff at the field station from now and work on running there every morning. I wake up at 6am against my will anyway, so I might as well. Maybe if I wake up earlier, I'll go to bed earlier and I won't have to come up with so many creative ways to entertain myself!!