Where has the Time Gone?

The boat will be arriving tomorrow, your today I imagine! Sometimes I just felt like I have been on this island forever, probably due to the lack of new stimuli. Like, nothing really changes here. I have lived and worked with the same four people for the past seven months.

I am ready for some changes. Like people, movies, news, a space larger than this island. The boat is supposed to pull in at eight am. We are going to do an island tour with the newbies. Later in the day, it is the plan to show them how to make and disperse bait. I think the next day we are going to do an early morning ant survey and then go to one of the outer islands to explore!

Not sure what the exact plan is, but sometime during the next five days we will show them our ant survey routes, the ant farms, how to work the compost toilets, how to make drinking water, the marine survey routes, how to go queening, how to do bird banding, how to search and destroy an invasive plant here, ant ID, where to take their trash, how to do the slop bucket runs, how to do dishes, how the oven works, changing propane tanks, how to conduct bird MICs, how the sea turtle survey works, and how to do the weekly and monthly chores.

We are going to be busy. This was our view of the island coming in. I wonder how it will feel seeing a boat coming to our remote island!

Ferdinand

I run the Karo Syrup station during ant baiting.  It is one of the ingredients to our bait mixture.  I have to pour in bottles of the stuff to each bucket of bait we make.  The stuff is sticky and in no way am I going to get all of it out.  So after I dump most of the bottle out, I do a sort of drip method to get the rest out.

I balance one bottle upside down on a right side up bottle and let the leftovers drip into the bottle.  This way I can use it for the next batch without wasting it!  The whole point of this background information is so that you will understand why I need an assistant:
Ferdinand.

Ferdinand is a gecko.  She was there during the crew change over.
Jane told me all about her, except her name.  So I had to ask Jane what it was.  On the spot, she came up with the name Ferdinand.  Now, I don’t know about you, but she looks like a girl to me.  So she is Ferdinand the gecko.  Isn’t she precious?  She is there to help me when I spill.  She is the cleanup crew.

Sometimes, Ferdinand finds that the bottles of Karo are too full.  She worries of a future spill.  So she will take time from her busy day to reduce the amount of Karo to prevent a future spill.  She is thoughtful that way.  Geckos can’t get diabetes, right?