Sunday: Woke up, got out of bed, ran a comb across my head, looked at the clock, noticed it was only 10:00, and slept for another hour. Sunday is my day for recovering from the previous week and getting ready for the week ahead. So, I got up late and then went for a run along the canal trail as it was a gorgeous day outside. Afterwards, I took some time to walk by myself and reflect because it can be a tad tricky to find alone time in a house of fourteen people. On coming home, I fixed some lunch with housemates and glued myself to the couch for a couple of hours of quality time with a Dallas Cowboys football game. As my laziness instincts wore down, I cleaned my room a bit (making Mom proud…), did laundry (the maid was off this week), and checked agendas for the upcoming service week. After dinner, I headed to DD (Dunkin’ Donuts) to waste some time chatting with housemates and catching up with those who had been gone for the weekend.
Monday: Monday is always a painfully early morning due to group house cleaning. This week I had recycling (a sweet job), so I sorted the recyclables and then drove them to the Bourne town dump. Afterwards, we packed gear and waders for a day on the Mashpee River with Rick York, one of our favorite service partners. After loading oyster trays into the back of Rick’s pickup, we proceed to the harbor, load up the work boat, and take off onto Popponessett Bay. We spend the rest of the day propagating oysters, a process that involves removing seed oysters from their protective bags, placing them in trays that help water circulate around them, and dragging those trays to the appropriate place on the river bed. While lifting a tray out of the bay at the end of the day, I got a pipe-full of water dumped down my waders which provided a chilly, but laugh-inducing, end to the day. Returning home, I entered the usual race-to-get-a-shower-before-the-hot-water-runs-out and succeeded brilliantly. After dinner, we headed to the Parrot (a local bar) for our traditional Monday night social hour.
Tuesday: I spend my Tuesdays doing my individual placement at the Cape Cod Stranding Network which works with stranded marine mammals (dolphins, whales, and seals). This Tuesday, I was shaken out of my groggy early morning routine by a phone call from Sarah, the stranding coordinator, asking if I could come in early to respond to a stranding. I drove one of the stranding truck/trailer rigs out to Wellfleet where we found a common dolphin on the mud flats. Unfortunately, the animal was in such bad shape that it had to be euthanized. With the help of community volunteers, we rolled the dolphin into a stretcher, loaded it into the back of our truck, and headed down to a lab in Woods Hole where we performed a necropsy on the animal. A necropsy is like an animal autopsy and involves cutting into the animal, taking samples of different tissues for research purposes, documenting the process through photographs and text, and attempting to determine a cause of death/stranding for the animal. Tired after a long day in the field, I headed home to scrub the dolphin off of me and get to bed early.
Wednesday: A more low key day at the stranding network. I spent the first half of the morning archiving digital photos from the previous week and the necropsy the day before. Afterwards, I worked on designing an updated website for the stranding network which involved researching marine mammals and creating distribution maps for different species in Photoshop. At lunch, we had a discussion about seal diseases based on scientific papers we had read in advance but were interrupted by a call about a dead seal in Fall River. Katie and I drove out in a truck to meet one of our local volunteers who led us to the site. After examining the seal, we collected some basic data and bagged it up to take back to the stranding network for a necropsy the next day. At home, we had house dinner; tonight it was an assortment of different pizzas and salad, which was awesome. After dinner, we reviewed, discussed, bantered, and planned in house meeting, and, much to my happiness and surprise, actually finished in time for me to catch Lost.
Thursday: My COD (community outreach and development) Day. Cod Day for me involves a lot of education based activities, so today I drove to a local elementary school along with two other Corps members to work with 3rd grade science classes. We brought our office worm farm to teach them about vermicomposting. In each class, we gave a short presentation about what composting is and what you can compost. After the formal learning, we played a classwide quiz game about what items you can and cannot compost and passed worms around to the students for them to investigate. This is one of my favorite lessons to teach because the kids get so excited and grossed out at the same time. Afterwards, we got a call to respond to a stranding in Wellfleet, so I drove up with several other members and helped to transport a few dolphins off of the mud flats. I made it home with just enough time to scrub the mud off of me and my waders and be downstairs to grab a seat on the couch for our house ritual of watching “The Office” together.
Friday: Ah, another group service project. Today, I went with about half of the house to a local elementary school to put on an educational puppet show about recycling and protecting the environment. The puppet show is a lot of fun because it is professionally recorded and has real, Muppet-style puppets. The kids love it and often come up to say hello to the puppets and interact with them afterwards. After striking set, we returned home, cooked dinner together, and went out to a movie before crashing for the night.
Saturday: Once a month or so we have a Saturday service project. Today we drove up to Wellfleet to work with the other house on a controlled burn. For the better part of the day we used hand saws, loppers, and chainsaws to remove and burn any and all brush along the banks of the Herring River in order to fulfill our corpswide mandate to destroy. Afterwards, we headed back to the Wellfleet house for some relaxation.
