It's a wild, wild life

So I've seen my first Skua of the season. The bird was flying around the other day, and when it disappeared I thought it had gone to roost on the roof of the galley, waiting for a sandwich to be carried out for its lunch. But no! It had just hunkered down in the parking lot known as derelict junction, and was resting comfortably on the ground about 2 feet from one of the vans. They're pretty big birds-wingspan is over 24"- and the top of the food chain around here. People are just convenient carriers of goodies as far as the skuas are concerned.
I've got an extra day off-it's my Thanksgiving holiday. Needless to say (so why am I saying it then? Very good question...) on Thanksgiving itself the galley staff is busy. Very, very busy.
So we get our holidays when we can manage them. I spent my extra time in the ceramics room, working on a project that I'll post more about when it's closer to being done. And it isn't a pot or an ashtray, either!
Yesterday was an informal galley gathering in Hut 10, which used to be the Admiral's hose when this was real Navy base. Now we use it for parties and housing visiting brass. In contrast to previous galley parties this one was quite subdued-for much of the day just Rob, one of the AM cooks and myself were hanging out, watching movies, playing loud music and playing Set. Set is a very nifty card game- look at the web site www.setgame.com for an idea. And there was almost no food. Most galley parties are overflowing with enough food to feed a village, but this one had only some nice fruit kuchen from Rob and some pizza that came by around 9PM. During the course of the evening other folks drifted in and out-at one point we had five guests! It was great, just like having a living room again. After the Midrats shift was done the whole crew came by and we watched Pirates of the Caribbean. (Shane, one of our cooks, has a radio show. He is serializing the exploits of Pirate Captain Drew ((our sous-chef)) and the rest of us. It's rather...odd. Drew just had his legs gnawed off by hamsters, and Emily goes around preaching democracy to preschoolers whilst I myself am some knod of secret ninja.) Much fun was had by all.
We have a greenhouse here that provides hydroponically grown vegetables. The gardener-person can also grow other stuff- Brent gave me a present. See the link to find out what it was.
http://s106.photobucket.com/albums/m266/bheydemann/wild%20life/?sc=4