National Public Lands Day

Today was a nice day to spend outside. I met my master naturalist friends at the Carpenter Nature Center near Hastings. I had never been there before and it is a beautiful place. I spent most of the day at tables. One table had Master Naturalist swag. I put loon temporary tattoos on many children; mostly on the arms or hands. I put one on my ankle. I put tattoos on a dozen adults too.  I am standing there holding a cold sponge on a handsome fellow's wrist thinking this was not such a bad gig! I spent time at the skull table helping people use a dichotomous key to figure out what skull they were looking at. Some kids are surprising smart. I stood by the geology table too watching kids look over the rocks.  One kid smelled the rocks so I smelled rocks too but couldn't tell the difference. Other friends were over at the herpetological table and that is the table that always get the most business.  Last year the herp table got so much business the grass was ruined so they had to put their table near the road to preserve the grass. The raptor center was there too releasing rehabilitated raptors. I saw three hawks get released. All three came to the raptor center in July, all three were male and all three were about a year old. I saw a red tailed hawk, a cooper's hawk and a broad wing hawk take off and fly over the Saint Croix River valley.  Turkey vultures and eagles were circling up there too and I was glad none of the  newly released hawks got taken by the eagle. One of the people who released a hawk was a man and his wife who volunteer at this nature center and have done that for the past twenty years. We got a wonderful free lunch and a National Public Lands Day tshirt. 3M had a booth there too and I got free duct tape and free packing tape. I think we talked a few people into joining the Master Naturalist group. The Wisconsin master naturalists were there too and that woman tried to talk me into joining her group - which I might some day but not soon.