Safety first Safety second

After our little adventure in the forest last week, we've had a pretty easy week so far studying plants around the college. Finally got my 50 species cracked. Out of our list of over 350 species we have to learn as part of the nature portion of the course, we had to collect or photo 50 of them, ID and label them with certain info. I started old school by collecting, drying and sticking the plants on paper, but soon realised that it was far easier to just snap a few pic's and hand the thing on a memory stick. As for the remaining 300 or so species, we will have nature knowledge tests throughout the year, the first one in about 8 weeks time.

Herb paris

Fireweed

Red stemmed feather moss

Labrador tea

I've got the 50 plants ID'd plus a few extra cos i'm sure I've got a few wrong, loads of them look the bloody same. I just need to transfer them to a computer with power point so I can create the file to hand in and add the extra info about the locations.

Ludo

Silja

Some of the guy's hard at work. Maybe I'll get in a picture one day

Fari and Irina

Andy and Emily

Yesterday we were put to work clearing a meadow to earn a little money for our upcoming trips. We were also there to find and preserve a few rare species of orchid that grow in the area, a few were found and a few were probably hacked down. But we earned something like 600€ for our troubles.

This week we've also been going through trip preperations and safety and risk assesments, not too exiting but all necessary as part of the business plan we have to write up also as part of the course. I have some idea's but nothing concrete yet so lots of work still to do.

Tongs

Tent peg

Feather stick

Feather sticks

Another part of the course is whittling, here are my first attempt's when I was sat at home. The tent peg is a little short and stumpy but it's just practice, I didnt get to tie up and try out the tongs cos the dog chewed it up before I had finished. He was obviously not impressed with my effort. Then there are the feather sticks, probably not the best but I think they would work just fine. Hopefully we start in the workshop soon. I found a few old axe heads at a flea market the other week that I bought for 1€ a piece, they'll clean up pretty good and I'll get to make handles for them and hopefully get one ready for our trip to Russia.

I'm off to prepare for our orienteering execrise tomorrow and get my stuff ready to head back to Turku for the weekend. Back to the big city where they have people and shops and everything.

Laters.