Today, Thursday, June 16, Stephanie and the group at Stone Lab are heading to Ottawa National Wildlife Refuge, which is located on the mainland just over 20 miles west of South Bass Island and Put-in-Bay, or about 30 miles west up the coast from Cedar Point.
Ottawa National Wildlife Refuge
Here is the update direct from Stephanie:
“Just went around Ottawa wildlife refuge today and another wildlife refuge bird watching and we saw a family of 7 bald eagles, and then more than 5 trumpeter swans and some of which having baby swans, as well as lots of great blue herons, great egrets, common tern, and lots of other birds .”
Nikki and the kids attended a gathering at the Ohio State University about Stone Laboratory run by OSU and located on Lake Erie. They are the oldest freshwater biological field station established in 1895. At the conference, Stephanie won a scholarship for a summer class. Even with the scholarship the class is pretty expensive for a week long class, but she should be having fun if they have a lot of hands on time. Here is a link to their twitter feed, which has some pictures of the type of things they will do and research.
They are on Gibraltar Island located in the bay across from Put-in-Bay on South Bass Island about 3 miles offshore into Lake Erie.
Put-in-Bay on South Bass Island near Cedar Point
Gibralter Island located in the bay on South Bass Island
Even though the class is only a week long it is a real class that earns real credit at Ohio State University. They are in class all day for 7 days which includes a combination of classroom time and field work. We all know that she is not afraid of getting dirty if it involves nature. Yesterday she was able to release some birds after they caught and banded.
Stephanie helping to band a male Wood Thrush
Staphanie releasing a male Wood Thrush after banding at Stone Lab.
Today they are going to be heading out in boats near the Canadian border to do some more research on North Bass Island. They are heading to Green Island later.
On the boat near Green Island.
Here is what Stephanie told me as she sent the picture above and the one below:
“Just tried to look for more grassland birds, north bass island I think is a state park now, maybe 50 people live on, we just walked around birding, green island we cannot go onto because it is a reserve or something, but it is a main waterfowl nesting site so we are just going to drive the boat around the island to see the nesting birds.”
“I’m not sure what island that is in the background from the boat, maybe sugar island?”
“Because that island you can see a little house on it, green island has no human building or anything on it and it’s quite small, we haven’t gotten to it yet though.”
“There’s so many different islands it’s hard to keep track of the names unless we are going to it!”
Jonny ran in the 800 Meter Run in the Ohio High School Athletic Association Championships today at Jessie Owens Memorial Stadium located on the Ohio State University Campus in Columbus, Ohio. An hour before his race, we had some severe thunderstorms roll through and it delayed the meet by over an hour. When he finally got on the track he ran a 1:56.14, which is only his third best time, but was enough to get him 8th place and a place on the medal stand. He looked like he was about done with about 250 meters left in the race, but he fought back and ended up finishing strong securing 8th place and then holding off two determined challengers. He ended up being the 1st Junior to finish the race. The other 7 in front of him were all seniors. We are excited to see what next years track season has to offer!
Jonny on the medal stand for the 800 Meter Run at the 2016 Ohio High School Track and Field State Championships
Jonny with his medal
State Championship 800 Meter Run Medal
Congratulation to Jonny on his first outdoor Track and Field State Championship berth and a solid performance in District, Regional and State. We are all so proud of you and happy for your accomplishments.
Jonny rebounded from Wednesday’s performance and ran the 800 Meter Run Finals this evening in the Regional Championship Meet held at Pickerington North High School. He ran a new personal best of 1:54.04 and took 4th place which puts him in the State Championships. With 200 meters to go he was in 6th place and took over 5th place with just under 200 meters left. At about 90 meters left in the race he passed another runner for 4th place and finished strong beating the 5th place runner by almost 3/4 of a second. Here are the official results from FinishTiming.com.
Just to show how stacked the district he was in was, all 4 runners who advanced from Jonny’s district also advanced to the State Championship. No other district in the region advanced a single runner.
For the last couple of months we have been getting a visitor in our back yard. He drives our dogs crazy and lucky for us so far, he has left our chickens alone. Let’s hope it stays that way.
Ashley had her hooding ceremony yesterday with her Grandparents in attendance. We can now introduce her as Dr. Ashley Lukins! We are very proud that all of her hard work earned her one of the 117 Pharm-D degrees from the graduating class of 2016. She already has a job working for CVS and still needs to complete her Pharmacy Licensing for the State of Ohio before she can practice as a Pharmacists.
Ashley’s Hooding Ceremony
With all the time she has been spending in classes, on homework and all the internships, she will think she has a lot of free just holding a full time job! Congratulations to her on a well deserved degree, We couldn’t be more proud of her.
I was released from the hospital this morning at around 11:00 am. I am doing much better now. The nausea is gone and my leg pain is back down to where it was before the surgery and seems to be feeling better as the day goes on. The tingling I was feeling in my right foot for months now seems to have disappeared. I am getting up and around and Nicole says that I appear to be standing more straight and comfortable when I am up and walking around. I will give another update in another couple of days to chart my progress.
I have been dealing with pain down my right leg since October of last year. I am finally scheduled for surgery with Dr. Kahn from the OSU Comprehensive Spine Center. My surgery is considered outpatient surgery now and I am expecting a 1 inch scar. That is a lot different than the overnight stay and 3 inch scar I had for the same surgery 29 years ago.
Even though it’s outpatient, less than 23 hours, I spent the night because my surgery was scheduled at 12:30 in the afternoon and that didn’t leave a lot of time for observation.
When I woke up in post op, I was expecting to be pain free down my right leg. That wasn’t the case and according to the doctor the nerve bundle was crushed, but intact. The nerve bundle will take about an extra week to recover than we originally planned, so I might be out a couple of weeks from work.
Also when I woke from anesthesia, I was more nauseous than I usual. I never vomited, but I had the dry heaves several times. They gave me something for the nausea and some morphine for the pain and that knocked me out. Unfortunately it was when Ashley, Stephanie and Shane came to visit, so I was out of it when they were there. I remember listening to them talking which made me more comfortable anyway, even I wasn’t participating in the conversation.
It took them a long time to get me a hospital room and after Nikki left, I was passed back down to the recovery room for a couple of hours, before the found me a room on the 7th floor. I was transferred into my room around 10:45 pm. At that time I was wide awake and kept Nikki up with my constant texts until she finally told me she was in bed and I had woke her up. Lucky for me my nurse, Lori was a hockey fan and grew up in Toledo, where she became a Reds Wing fan and we had lots to talk about for the next hour until I settled down again.
Jonny is going to prom this year with Riley Bruck. They were going with a group of kids from the track/cross country team. They all met at the Bryn Du Mansion for pre-prom pictures. From there they went into Easton to the Sakura Japanese Steakhouse. Then they drove back to Bryn Du Field House where the prom was being held.
Stephanie was on spring break the week of March 14th and her and Marcus too a trip a Myrtle Beach, SC. They found an economy hotel that was on the beach that still had vacancies. The room was very dated and worn but clean.
They enjoyed the beach as well as some of the local attractions like Barefoot Landing and the Ripley’s Aquarium.
Marcus caught one of the local lizards using a technique he saw on TV. He took a piece a long grass and made a lasso, put it over the lizards head and “roped him!” They both said it worked well and were surprised by their success.
Overall they had a nice short trip from Tuesday until Friday that week. They both looked like they got some sun when they came and visited.
