This has been a wonderful year for the birds of the Everglades. There seem to be new babies everywhere, especially the birds!
Aren't new babies facinating? And they grow up so quickly, especially when they happen to be birds....
This is one of those things which are not easily reported, but which probably should be since it does indicate the kind of thing which a volunteer sometimes must deal with. On Sunday, March 15, Pam & I took the park van and traveled out on to the tour road about four miles from the visitor center in order to set up a spotting scope for visitors to observe a new nest of baby great blue herons and for us to each do on site interpretation for the bicycling and hiking visitors to Shark Valley. The nest is a special site found by one of the other rangers because these are not birds that are often seen with chicks. The area is also particularly good for interpretation because it has a large pool with several alligators with families and as such it also attracts a wide range of birds.
We had been on site for just over an hour when a bicyclist arrived out of breath to, report a serious accident just to our north. Pam stayed where she was to keep the program operating while I first radioed in a report requesting medical assistance, then took the van to the scene. It was the worst accident that I have ever had to deal with, including many years of volunteer work in different capacities. The woman had crashed, wearing no helmet and had a major head injury with sever bleeding and semi consciousness. Fortunately for me, there had been a doctor riding with his family near enough to have seen the accident and to have been first to the woman's aid, as this was far beyond my capabilities. I did take action to get additional assistance in addition to the park personnel and then dealt with the crowd control and communication for the arriving ranger. The first park paramedic was on site in about 10 minutes and the rescue squad only minutes behind. Within no more than 20 minutes from my arrival there was also air-rescue on the ground, thanks to a visitor having called 911 by cell phone before I got to the scene. Things went as smoothly as possible, considering the situation. After the victim was air lifted it fell to me to transport the husband and their bikes back to his auto for him to go to the hospital where the lady was taken.
Sadly, in late afternoon we were informed by the Miami-Dade rescue crew that the victim died at the hospital. Not all duties are happy ones. I did learn one thing from this. The victim was not wearing a helmet and would have probably only suffered scrapes and bruses had she been wearing one. In the future I will wear my bike helmet, even though I really do not like them much.
Today we were given a tour into the back country of the park by one of the law enforcement rangers, by air-boat. They regularly patrol some parts of the park by air boat as there are areas that still allow some traffic by the public. There is a very large area that was added to the park in the early 90's by then president Bush, which was being used by private tours and a club and they are, with restrictions, still allowed to do so. At this time there is consideration being given to opening some sections to use by visitors via an air-boat as well. In addition, with the park being more than 1.5 million acres, there has to be some use of these boats to prevent improper use or incursion. We were given a chance to see that part of the park, with a ranger as guide.
It was really a great experience and we saw some really interesting back country. You really need to get out into the back country to fully understand the meaning of Everglades (river of grass). We spent several hours out exploring the area and while we had previously seen most of the wildlife that is out there, it is somehow more special to watch the animals when far from any contact with humans. I don't know quite how to express the feeling, but it is amazing!
Nothing like a morning stroll to get your day started right!
From time to time, even an alligator desides that it might be a good time to take a little walk. Most of the time they just use the culvert pipes that pass under the walkway when they wish to move from one side of the road to the other. But there are days when walking is preferred. I suppose that everyone has those times when it just seems to be better to walk! It does seem to get people's attention though.
Well, we are now back to work once again and the season is nearing an end. Pam has had her share of extra problems but even that seems to be moving in the right direction. Back in February, Pam had an alligator accident!
Actually, she was leaving the visitor center and as she did she was distracted by a visitor getting too close to an alligator and so stepped off of the curb and twisted her ankle. Thus her famous alligator injury. In any case, she has had some problems with that leg ever since the accident and then to top everything off she got a really bad cold last week. But today she seems to be finally winning on the cold, after a doctor's visit. With asthma she usually needs medical help to beat a bad cold and the park had real problems with paperwork for her "on the job" injury so while she has seen a doctor, they want her to see a specialist that required special forms and it has taken three weeks to get that! But all seems to be heading in the right direction as she is now going back to work, although with restricted walking and using a cane. She will finally get to see the foot specialist in another ten days (you know how long it takes to get to see a doctor) and weather is nice so things look pretty good here.
I had hesitated to post anything about the ankle, just because I was not sure exactly what to say or how that would end. Like so much of government, too many people trying to place blame for the wrong forms and too few who were willing to do what was needed to correct the problem!
So all seems well with the world once again. It does look as though we may be held up on getting away with the treatment of Pam's ankle, but who knows. We are retired so I guess that we can always let something slide for a while!
Monday, 3/2(heavenly days where did February go?) we were out exploring once again. We traveled to the north and west and visited a small farming community of Immokalee. It was interesting but the main reason for going there was to see the Pioneer Museum. While it was good, they still have a way to go in order to make it complete.
It was very interesting though and we even got a personal tour from the museum manager. Of course, this is a museum with only two employees, the manager and the maintence guy. But it was informative and we were the only visitors there. As such we probably also heard a lot more history of the area. I found it fascinating that Florida was the first major cattle producing state and was the #1 supply for the south in the Cival War. The Texas cattle industry was just begining at that time and has a very common history in that both states had large populations of cattle that decended from those left behind by the first Spanish explorers. While the Cracker Cattle and the Texas Longhorn have a lot in common in apprearance, they are also very different in size and some other colors. It did make for an interesting day off. It was a very cold day in Florida! The day was sunny but the high temperature was only 64 degrees.........
On Friday, February 27 the local PBS TV station from Miami came to the park to work on a special show about volunteers at Everglades National Park. The first stop was at Shark Valley where each of us were asked to do one of our programs for the public while the crew taped it, then after that the crew interviewed each of us, followed by a short interview with the both of us and then some shots of the two of us as we walked through the area. It was an interesting experience and really kind of enjoyable. It was also rather flattering to be chosen as one of the programs to be taped. The crew spent just over two hours with us, then went over to Chikekia Area to interview the three Escapees member couples who work there. The project was to be filming for four days in the park with different volunteers in different parts of the park and different volunteer jobs in the park. We were two of the six who do interpretation to be part of the progam, there were several from maintenance, others from security and several other areas. At this point it isn't certain exactly how much time the show will be taking as the origional plan was only an hour and when they left they were discussing the possibility of makeing it longer. They did promise to send each of us who participated a CD of the finished show. A really interesting day!
About three weeks ago, we purchased a small, digital camera for Pam to carry in her pocket while at work. Since we had quite a number of choices in the near $100 price range that seemed to be of similar capability, we chose to buy one that the believed would be American made and have an American company behind it. Thus we chose a Kodak, Easy Share camera. Pam took care to properly register the warranty with Kodak on-line following all directions, listing the store where purchased and the complete sales information.
After two weeks of use the camera failed to turn on. Replacement of the batteries was no help! With great confidence Pam went back to the email which she had saved, confirming the registration of the camera's warranty. Carefully following the instructions she prepared to attempt to get it replaced or repaired. But wait, the company site informed her that the warranty would only be good if the camera was returned to them in it's origional box and with the origional of the sales recipt. Since we live in an RV we don't have room to keep a large collection of boxes. After extensive contact with Kodak we gave in since they insist that the origional box must be a part of the package for return to be accepted!
Investigation of the Kodak camera line also lead to another interesting discovery. Every one of the cameras that we found on the store shelf with the Kodak name also carried a lable reading "Made in China!"
The story has a happy ending in that even though it took a visit with a member of the store management, the Wal-Mart store where we purchased the camera did accept it back and Pam is now the proud owner of a new camera that carries the name "Cannon." Not only does this camera work very well, it was not made in China.