Felix's Crew March 5, 2023
Greetings all! Felix's Crew, which so far is Felix and my family, has been busy working for about a month now. As I mentioned in the first post, we don't always pick up trash when we go out for a walk, but so far we've picked up 12 full grocery bags of trash over 3 weeks’ time. The full bags often look like the image at the right here. I'm still working on creating on a spreadsheet to tally all the items we pick-up, but I think Busch Light beer cans has been the item that we have picked up the most so far. Sadly, we are still working on picking up items that have been out there for quite some time, but we are starting to see fewer of those things and more often we're picking up new items.
There were a few larger items that I had been avoiding picking up because they were large and would take up a majority of a bag, but I got a couple of those this past week. The first of those items was a pair of high top shoes. I've only picked up one so far, but I felt that was an accomplishment. I'll try to get the other one this coming week. I also picked up an unknown car/motorcycle part this weekend as well. It's been sitting out there for over a month, and I finally had enough space in my bag to snag it.
Over the past week we have had around a total of 5 inches of rain fall. This created quite a bit of flooding in the creek just down the road from our house that we pass over on most walks we take. It also flooded many ditches along our route. At the side here you can see a picture of the flooded creek and another one of Felix enjoying his walk through the flooded ditch. Many Sheepadoodles and dogs in general love water and can't resist it. Of course, this meant Felix had to get a bath when we got home that day because he wasn't smelling too fresh. He both looks and smells a lot better now. On the last walk we took, Felix finally gabbed a piece of trash from lower in the ditch and brought it up for me. I could tell he was just curious as to what it was and wasn't necessarily trying to help, but I'll take it as win anyway. I had been worried about the ditches near the creek, because they contained a lot of trash that I hadn't been able to get to yet. After the water level from the first rainfall started to go down I noticed that the trash was still there. I was afraid it would wash out to the creek and I'm sure some of it probably did, but a lot of it is still there waiting for me. I need to get down to it soon before the brush grows back this spring and I can't get to it.
During the past week, we have also seen a lot of birds. It felt like we were in the movie 'Birds' on a couple of different days when we saw large flocks of birds. 
According to a brief internet search, they were most likely common grackles, red-winged blackbirds, rusty blackbirds, or European starlings and are often mixed in these large flocks. They didn't seem to care what we were doing and kept up their loud chatting. We've also been seeing a lot of sandhill cranes lately too. As I mentioned the creek is just down the road from us and we also have a wetland in our back yard, so we often see a lot of birds and other wildlife. We saw the first turtles of the year down at the creek as well.
If you'd like to officially join Felix's crew, send me a message or add a comment below and I'll add you to the crew and note the new crew total in the next blog post. Be on the lookout in the next blog for a link to download a spreadsheet if you want to track what you pick up to share back with me in the future. Also feel free to share any of your experiences in a comment to the blog entry below. Anyone can create an account here on STEMEdhub.org for free in order to add a comment.
Take care and stay safe till next time!