Birthday Hike

(**Note, I started writing this yesterday on 1/26, which was my birthday**)

So for my birthday I went on a quest. This quest was to find the elusive tiger salamander with one of my herpetologist friends. According to this friend's research, the best place to find these salamanders is in Hoke County, which is about 2 hours south of where I live. However, last night we were hit by a mild ice storm (although by North Carolina standards it may as well have been the armageddon). I jokingly asked my friend if salamanders like the snow, and he said that there probably wouldn't be snow since we were going to go two hours South...I didn't quite believe him so I looked up the weather online. The weather according to last night's forecast was supposed to be sunny and 55º. I should know better than to trust weatherman. After years of going to school despite forecasts of severe snow, I should just know better. Because today was actually 30º and cloudy. Even two hours south.

The first part of the day was spent trailblazing through forest. I wore only a light jacket and pants because I stupidly trusted the weatherman. I was cold. The temperature slowly climbed its way up to 32º, just enough to make all the ice coating the branches of the trees melt and fall like rain on us for the rest of the morning. So then I was cold and wet. Also, it appears that the salamanders were more intelligent than us because we could not find any. In fact, it seems as if most of the wildlife was smarter than us because we did not see a living creature the whole time. I don't blame them. I also have a newfound appreciation for those pioneers who bushwhacked their way through untamed America. They must have gotten a lot of wet socks and prickly bushes stuck to their pants, because I sure did and I was only there for about 2 hours. But I don't want to give the wrong impression. I still had a grand old time regardless of the cold/dripping weather and the lack of an appropriate attire.

After thawing out in the car for a few minutes, we decided to go investigate the All American Trail, which is located around Fort Bragg. My favorite part about the All American Trail is that it is, in fact, a trail. No bushwhacking required. Also, the sun finally decided to emerge from hiding, which was nice of it. We actually saw some actual wildlife there as well in the form of a variety of birds. The ones that deserve the most attention are the Eastern Bluebirds, because they were so pretty and I had never seen these birds before. So feast your eyes:

Grunt Work

Today I ventured out to Carolina Tiger Rescue yet again. If you recall, last time I was there I was chopping down trees and brush to clear a path around the perimeter of the rescue. This is to A) discourage hunters from trespassing onto the premises B) Provide a fire break in case of a brush fire, and C) provide a fast route around the premises in the case of an emergency. So basically, this path is very important. However, since it was forged through a forest, there was SO MUCH underbrush and things to chop away. And when the chopping is finished, there is just a lot of branches and such just lying around.
So that was today's task - hauling brush/sticks/smallish trees from the path to a large brush pile that will eventually become a large bonfire. This path through the woods, besides being uneven, is fairly long. I'm not sure exactly how long, but it took 20 minutes to walk from the brush pile to the end of the trail. So pretty long. On top of this, it rained all day yesterday. So there were giant mud pits everywhere. Also, there was a creek with a bridge composed of four logs. Four very slippery logs. So it was quite a challenge. I'm fairly certain that we were only out there doing grunt work for 3.5 hours or so, but that was more than enough to wear me out. My feet were wet and muddy, I was beaten up by a thorny tree, and generally tired. But there is nothing quite like a hard day of manual labor. At least it really makes you appreciate a shower at the end of the day. Despite the fact that I should have been so tired of sticks and logs that I'd never want to see one again, I did take a picture of some pretty cool bark patterns:

As always, we were given a tour of the facilities in return for our labor. My legs were so tired that I was considering just sitting at a picnic table and never getting up again. But I went anyway, and I was glad I did because I got some pretty entertaining videos:
This first one is of Elvis the serval (you all know how I feel about servals). He wanted a treat very badly. He did get some earlier, but clearly he didn't think it was quite enough.

This second video is of one of their lions stalking us. Actually, I think he was stalking our tour guide because he had some meat treats. But that was fun to watch. His name is Roman.