Learning to Enjoy Rugby (for Americans)

I first started learning about rugby my freshman year at university when I decided to join the schools women’s rugby team. Now I realize not everyone may want to learn about this strange sport by spending six hours a week getting it literally ground into you, so here are my suggestions:

1. Find a way to actually watch rugby
Rugby is not the most popular sport in the US so it can be difficult to find a way to see it, whether live or on television. Unbeknownst to many, there are rugby teams at a considerable number of universities across the country. They don’t get as much press and are often more student run but they are there working every week just as hard as any other sports team. Some high schools even have rugby teams and many medium to large cities have recreational rugby teams that compete against neighboring cities. I can almost guarantee you that there is a rugby team somewhere near you if you look for it.

If you searched and still have no good way of watching rugby live then try the television. In the past American networks have been loathe to air rugby due the difficulty in having commercial breaks. Luckily with the growing popularity of the sport, that  is beginning to change. In September and October 2011 Universal Sports and NBC Sports aired the Rugby World Cup live; this was the first time the world cup had been aired for an American network TV audience.

2. Find a knowledgeable buddy
I know this sounds difficult when you are just entering the rugby world but somewhere in your life is a rugby fan, I swear. Or, show up to the rugby pitch and find a kind soul to explain what’s going on. Rugby rules can be confusing – the rules change about kicks depending on what side of the 22-meter line (yes, 22) the team is on, if there is a foul or a smaller rule is broken instead of stopping the play one team is given an advantage; strange small rules such as this abound and having someone to explain them can be incredibly helpful.

3. Drink beer
Beer is the lifeblood of rugby. The team I played for was sponsored during its inception in the 70′s by a local bar, the Flames Bar and they are still called the Flames today. Other teams have similar stories. Most rugby teams and rugby events around the world have major beer sponsors and traditions surrounding beer. Bring a brew to the game to get the full experience and share it with your new found rugby friends!

MatadorU

I started taking a travel writing class online. It is a twelve week program that can be completed on your own time during the twelve weeks or longer if you need it (the materials stay available to the purchaser forever). Part of the class is that we are given weekly writing and small research assignments to complete. I figure that I will post the writing assignments both at the MatadorU blog (lindsey.matadoru.com) and here. My first assignment will be posted shortly.

Apple Picking!

Two and a half weeks ago now my housemates and I decided to go apple picking at Apple Creek Orchard in Ferndale. It is a nice little orchard of Jonagold apples. The apples cost $0.50 per pound or $10 per five-gallon bucket. Upon arrival my friends and I each grabbed a bucket and headed out into the orchard.

We were greeted by these lovely fowl

Yay apples!

There are the bucket we were working on.

These were dwarf trees so I was able to reach the top in most cases.

One of the cool things about this orchard was that we were able to eat as many apples as we wanted while we were picking. I believe we all had at least three. And if kids come, any apples they can fit in their pockets are free.

By the time we were done we had three heaping buckets. When we got home we weighed them at approximately 80 pounds! At $30 total that is 38 cents a pound!

We made many a quart of apple sauce, apple chips, pie, and cake. After giving five and a half quarts of applesauce away, we still have 8 quart jars on the counter and several tupperware containers in the freezer (not to mention the immense amounts we ate straight off the stove). Two and a half weeks later there are four apples left...

Windy in B'ham!

Yesterday and especially this morning it was particularly windy in Bellingham. My housemates and I woke up this morning to this site on our front sidewalk:

 

The branch had fallen from the middle of the tree!

New Classes!

So this quarter I am very excited that I am now only in classes that have to do with my major! I still have one or two more general credit requirements but I can do those any time. Two of my classes began today and two yesterday. Yesterday I had Introduction to Global Change and Environmental Education. Today was Oceanography and Environmental Interpretation.

Oceanography is being taught by the professor whose lab I worked in all last year and he is in judo. I am very motivated to do well in that class because if I do badly I can't hide in relative anonymity, I would have to see him at judo later. I would much rather go to judo knowing I did well and excited to see him than did bad and want to avoid eye contact.

Environmental Interpretation is being taught by a woman with a lot of experience working for the Park Service and the Forest Service. She is a graduate of Fairhaven College with a much more liberal view of teaching. She tried to convince Huxley College of the Environment to have all her classes be pass/fail but the college said no. Now much of her class is participation, we grade ourselves for part of it and instead of having a final in December we will be going to North Cascades National Park next weekend.

All of my classes look like they will be a lot of reading and projects but it will all be interesting things. None of them have busy work or even homework every day. I just have to make sure to stay on top of deadlines and what not.

Project Survival - Cat Haven

On Monday one of the other interns and I went to a local cat sanctuary. This place was amazing! they had leopards, jaguars, tigers, a cheetah, some bobcats and a few other less well known species. These animals are used as ambassadors, some just at the sanctuary and some travel to shows. the cheetah they have is the only trained cheetah in the state of California (I think that is what they said) and anytime you see a commercial with a cheetah, 90% of the time it is theirs.

Brew Bakers Brewing Company

On Monday one of the ladies that I work with and I went to a nice brewery and restaurant in Visalia. They brew their own beer and rootbeer. Rootbeer floats sounded really good. The waitress asked "half size or full size?" We knew full size was a liter but somehow that didn't seem too bad.

They came out with this. It served on a plate because it overflows.

And we did it!


We didn't eat the lunches we ordered. We finished our floats and had some garlic fries that we ordered as an appetizer. We didn't even eat dinner. But I had my sandwich for lunch the next day and it was so good!

CIG Training

On July 14^th, 15^th, 21^st, and 22^nd I was taking the training to become a Certified Interpretive Guide (CIG) through the National Association of Interpretation (NAI). I was taking the training with eight other people from the Forest Service, the bird lady, the two other interpretive interns, one of the wilderness rangers, two people from recreation and two people from off highway vehicles (OHV). I was the only one getting certified though, the others wanted to take the training to learn how to better communicate with visitors and improve their public speaking skills.

On the last day (this past Friday) we each gave a ten minute presentation as a final. This presentation could be about anything we wanted. Myself and one other intern took the easier road of doing our normal talks, bats and stream health, there was also talks on beer, cake decorating, keeping fish, owls, animal rehabilitation, and orange picking.

They were all really interesting and a lot of fun because it was something people were passionate about. The talk about orange picking was quite eye opening. The woman who did the talk is Mexican American and works for the FS over the six month summer season. During the winter she works in the fields picking oranges and lemons. The pickers have to supply their own gloves, clippers, and bag capable of holding 80 pounds worth of oranges. They carry this bag with all the oranges in it over their shoulder until it is filled and then they dump it into a bin. Each worker has their own bin and they are paid $20 per bin they fill. Sometimes they can only fill one bin a day. The woman said her father supervises the pickers, her mother works in the field, as do many of her friends. Her husband picks peaches and nectarines and other types of non citrus fruit. She also taught us some of the tricks the pickers use to pick faster and pull one over on the fruit company’s so they can earn some more money. Very interesting. And the tricks weren’t anything bad; they just fudge the exact parameters of the rules of the company.

Pictures

Yucca Plants

Kings and East Kings Rivers in the Kings Canyon. The Kings Canyon is deeper than the Grand Canyon is wide.

Me at the Chicago stump. this tree was cut down in sections and reassembled in Chicago for the world's fair. Before that these trees were called the California hoax. One had been cut down and taken to Philadelphia earlier but no one believed it.

Rusty old logging equipment (I think) in Stump Meadow

Stump Meadow

Smoke coming from the prescribed fire in Redwood Canyon.

Me in Redwood Canyon (day before the prescribed fire)

Sequoia Cones

Firsts

I can't believe how fast time goes by here! It's already been a month! Some firsts during my first month:

First baby bear

On my way back to the barracks on Friday I saw a bear in the road. Momma bear was in the road and baby was off at the edge. Mom ran a few steps down the road when she saw me but baby just froze. Mom looked back, ran a few more steps, looked again, and finally baby turned around and ran into the wooded area off the side of the road and mom followed. When I first saw mom bear my thought process was “Giant dog! No. Bear! Eek!” I never really expected to see one so close to where I live, it was just up the road. It makes sense though; it’s still part of the National Forest.

First raptor in hand

So far I’ve held a western screech owl named Frodo, a burrowing owl named Thor, and a great horned owl Maxine (Max for short). I will try to get a better picture later but for now I have this:

Me and Frodo, the western screech owl

First flat tire in a car I was responsible for

The Forest Service vehicle I drive got a flat tire last weekend. It was a little flat when I went to sleep on Saturday, but when I woke up on Sunday it was completely flat. I slowly drove the limping car to the work center where I was hoping to find an air compressor or somebody to help me change the tire. There was no one there so I was going to do it on my own but I couldn’t find the spare! I looked everywhere and it was nowhere to be found! I had to call the main office to ask someone to bring me a car. About 45 minutes later one of the recreation guys arrived saying that there are no extra vehicles today so he will be my chauffeur/I’ll be his helper. He drove me to Princess Campground with just enough time for me to give my program. I next helped him give campers warnings for leaving campfires unattended. Then we drove around for a while and I helped him clean some of the bathrooms and take out the trash in various Forest Service areas. Eventually he dropped me off with another of the interns at Buck Rock fire lookout so she could drive me around for a while.

A few days later the car still hadn’t been fixed so my supervisor and I drove up to check it out. It turns out she had had to deal with this before and knew exactly where it was. She chastised all of us because no one thought to check the owners manual. At least seven people (including myself, a few firefighters, and various other personnel) looked for the spare before M—came up and did it. It turns out it was stored under the front of the vehicle with a plastic cover over it so you couldn’t see it if you looked under the car.

First time being called ma’am

A visitor said that to get my attention. I’d had “miss” “ranger” “hey” and “Lindsey” but one gentleman felt the need to call me “ma’am”. So that happened…

First wild tarantula sighting

It was crossing the road as I drove by. I parked the car to go take a look but once I got close it turned around and started walking towards me shaking it's abdomen. When I backed off a few feet it turned right around and went back to the previous path. Not a terribly friendly tarantula. I did briefly consider catching it to take back to the barracks because one of the boys here who likes to be really tough is super afraid of spiders. One day he got a package and a spider had stowed away inside. Instead of just killing the spider or having one of us deal with it he took the whole package and locked it in the tool box in the back of his truck.

First Day in the Field

Saturday I had a split shift, I was giving a talk about bats in the morning at one campground and the evening at another. The day started off pretty easily, I showed up at the first campground, walked around and talked to people for a while and went to give the talk at 10. The "Bats are Beneficial Beasts" talk is aimed at children and six adults show up so it turned into a question and answer/chit chat about bats. It was pretty fun, I liked the people that came.

Because I had the middle of the day off I went to Hume Lake where I was going to give my next presentation that evening. I spent the day walking around, reading, and swimming, it was very nice! Then when I needed to begin making my rounds about the campground telling folks the event of the evening I changed into my uniform and le the camp directors know what I was up to. They were confused; apparently D-- the bird lady always does presentations there Saturday night. Lo and behold! D-- arrived and I got out of doing a presentation. Best part? She going to teach me how to handle raptors!! She said I could hold the red tailed hawk next week when we walk around the campgrounds and she'll hold the great horned owl!

As soon as D-- and I finished our roving of the campground telling people about her presentation 7, a woman walked up to me asking for help.

It turns out that her friends had accidentally left her behind at the place they were hiking and she had hitch hiked a ride back. She needed help trying to contact her friends. Unfortunately, the places where her friends were and where some of her things were was all in Park Service lands. So I was on the radio with Forest Service dispatch who was on the phone with Park Service dispatch who was on the radio with their rangers in the area. I had to wait at the campground until all her party finally arrived. Some took a while because they went back to look for her after she had already left. I ended up leaving Hume Lake at 9PM. But the lady and her friends were really nice and fed me a big dinner and gave me Snapple.

When I got back to the barracks at 10:30, one of the girls I work with was getting ready to freak out. She had heard the beginning of my radio conversation while driving home but didn’t know I had to wait at the campground so she was really worried! All’s well that ends well though.

Interpretation

Today is morning number six at Giant Sequoia National Monument. There was quite a rush to get here, but once you arrive everything slows down. So far there has been an interesting mix of camper time and professionalism. My supervisor is definitely the on time, efficient type. She is the District Planner, in charge of making sure all environmental laws are followed within her district, on top of being in charge of the three of us interpretive interns. It seems nearly every long time Forest Service employee has multiple jobs and titles assigned to them over time. So M-- is the district planner but she is also in charge of interpretation. I learned the other day that there is no budget anywhere in the Forest Service for interpretation. Those interested in having interpreters must carve the money from the recreation and wilderness departments within their district. In this case, the three of us interns are paid through the Student Conservation Association. The Forest Service just has to give us a place to stay, reimburse the driving that we do as part of our job, and pay for the indirect cost of people dealing with more paperwork.

When I speak of an interpreter I mean someone who teaches visitors about a forest, park, monument, historical site, etc without simply relaying information. In one of the interpretive theory books we are assigned to read the author described interpretation as a cross between an art and a science.

Part of our job yesterday was to walk around Hume Lake, to try and familiarize ourselves with the area. We then met up with a long time Forest Service volunteer who does raptor programs. This woman is amazing; she has a house in the middle of the city where she rehabilitates wild animals, or cares for those that can’t be rehabilitated. She has large cages in her backyard where she keeps owls, she has had deer and coyotes running around before, and a red-tailed hawk that just lives in the house. The opportunity to talk to this woman and have her as a resource will be wonderful. She is an encyclopedia of local plant and animal knowledge.

D-- and a Burrowing Owl