I am staying at the Platte River Whooping Crane Maintenance Trust, where I am volunteering over the next 10 weeks. The trust is quite remote and situated at the end of a 2 ½ mile drive about 16 miles from the nearest big town, Grand Island.
I have been provided accommodation and have a 3 bedroom trailer that overlooks fields and is positioned perfectly for the impressive sunrises that occur here. I’ve also been provided with a car, which is a necessity here, so can get out and about to explore the area. The ‘office’ is about 50 metres from my trailer so you can imagine the trouble I have getting into work!
The people here are great and have made me feel really welcome. There are a mix of nationalities, predominately Latin American so there is no excuse for me not to improve my Spanish. I’ve already established a drinking partner, Luis a guy from Mexico so safe to say I have my priorities sorted.
Unfortunately I’ve been sick with another cold, what are the chances of that! Pretty unfair I think, 2 colds in two weeks so let’s just hope I’ve had my quota for the next year. As a result I’ve not been up to much except settling into my trailer and starting to understand how I can help out the trust on the work front. There appears to be a lot that I can help out with that will make a big difference to the way in which they work here which is good news.
I’m certainly getting into the rural life and have been treated to food from the land. Luis has been hunting the past two Sundays and has shot a deer each time so I’ve been treated to venison. Yesterday I helped skin and prepare the deer which took quite a few hours but the hard work was rewarded with barbeque ribs and wine.
I don’t think I’ll be needing to buy meat for while and will have to test me venison culinary skills. For those of you surprised about me skinning a deer, I figure that if I’m happy to eat meat then I should be able to appreciate where it comes from. I agree with Luis’ motto, if you shoot it then eat it, so he shot it and I'm helping to eat it. I should have been more careful however because I was a bit careless with the knife and will now have a permanent reminder of my first deer skinning experience! 
I hope you like the photos, I hope they give you a feel for the place. The temperature highs are not dissimilar to the UK but the lows are down to about -9C at the moment. The good thing however is that there is rarely a cloud in the sky so we just need to wrap up warm and enjoy the sunshine.
(sunrise from my trailer and sunset up the drive)
Later this week I’m going to experience a typical American holiday, Thanksgiving so am looking forward to more food, drinking and socialising.
Happy Thanksgiving everyone!
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