The Adventures of Ellsworth...

For those of you who don't know, I have a son. Now that my parents and grandmother have had heartattacks, I don't really have a son. But I am the surrogate father to a little green being. His name is Ellsworth.

Ellsworth belongs to my dear friend Amy whom I worked with at Pole and who is now wintering at McMurdo. I promised her a blog to prove that Ellsworth is ok. He has been in my care for over a year now. During our winter at the South Pole Erin and I, shown here with Ellsworth, promised Aim-eye that we would take good care of him.


Over the South Pole winter, Erin and I had joint custody of Ellsworth and traded parental duties every six weeks. I ended up bringing him home with me in hopes to reunite him with his real mother. Unfortunately it didn't happen this time. Perhaps soon.

Ellsworth always puts in a busy day down here at Palmer Station. First he helps me bake dessert. Here he is carefully watching over the Pate au Choix; the pastry we use to make eclairs and cream puffs.

He checks out the pastry before it is baked, makes sure I am filling the eclair correctly, then tries to be sneaky and take the first bite. I scold him for trying to ruin his appetite.


After he finishes supervising my eclair making, he goes outside to see if he can help Dave drive the SkyTrek or help with line handling when the boat comes in.

Unfortunately he is too young and very small for his age. He is also not properly trained and cannot operate such equipment without proper instruction. So rather than help, he was happy watching the boat come in. This is the last boat we will see for a while. It will be here for a month fishing but then it will depart on June 4th and will not return until September. So Ellsworth is happy to enjoy the view.

Next, Ellsworth returns to the kitchen to see if there is anything else he can help with. Because it is Saturday night and we have hors d'oeuvres with steak dinner, Ellsworth wants to help Diane with preparing the roasted tomato, goat cheese and garlic hors d'oeuvres. But Diane works super fast and doesn't need Ellsworth's help.
So not knowing what to do he wanders out into the galley where Robin is making a cocktail to have with her dinner.
Ellsworth attempts to join her inbibing in a tasty beverage, but Robin knows better. Ellsworth is only about two years old. He is the youngest person on station and he should not be drinking adult beverages. Robin scolds him which he doesn't like very much.








After his scolding, Ellsworth went outside to pout on the back porch. But his mood instantly brightened when he saw he had company. Because Palmer Station is located right on the water, sometimes we get fur seal visitors. They have been hanging out a lot lately so Ellsworth was very happy to get his picture taken with two of them.
He really wanted to get closer and play with them but because the Antarctic treaty is very specific about how humans are to deal with wildlife, he understood that he could go no further. Ellsworth knew that if a human being or a sponge horse is altering the behavior of an animal in it's own enviroment then he is too close and must observe from a distance. So Ellsworth was very happy for the invention of the digital zoom!



Well, Ellsworth has had a long day of work and recreational activities. At the end of a day like this he likes to kick back and relax with his surrogate father. Ellsworth agrees that it is a nice thing to put your feet up, play some acoustic tunes and unwind after a great day on Palmer Station. I hope Amy and Erin can now rest assured that their son is in good hands. He misses them but I think he's having fun on his little peninsula excursion.