The Second Half

Oh boy, summer is really clicking by. Our mid-summer Volunteer meeting when we will talk about our fall departure date was Wednesday night.  I realized today, that the grand kids will be back in school this time next month and the late summer birthdays will begin next week with a grandson, my daughter, daughter in law, another grandson and yet another grandson all having birthdays within 30 days of each other. The State Fair is around the corner and this morning as I walked out of the Visitor’s Center, I spied a huge flock of Pelicans circling above. They are a couple weeks early this year. Who knows why? Maybe it’s climate change, maybe the fires in Canada this summer, maybe the crazy out of character weather patterns, but they are back and that is a sure sign of fall coming.

Work here has changed up a bit. The grass does not need
mowed weekly in Iowa this time of year. I have lots of days, that I don’t need
to mow, so my duties have been quite varied. Power washing bridges, weeding the
butterfly garden, weed eating areas we can’t get with the mower, trimming bushes
and branches back from the roadsides, picking up large rocks from the beach,
left by flood waters. And, every wild area Volunteers favorite duty; pulling
fence.

I say all the time that my least favorite work is weed eating. The constant vibration in my hands makes me nauseous, always has.  Then, I get sent to pull fence and I remember, weed eating is my second least favorite work. If you work on a maintenance or natural resources team at a big park or natural area anywhere in the US, there is a good chance, that in the timber or open fields where the public doesn’t go, there are old wood fence posts and barbed wire left over from decades ago when the land was cattle ranch or some sort of agriculture operation. When time allows, a fall back job for volunteers is to work on removing the old wire and posts; mostly by hand because of the location.  It is a hazard for the wildlife especially deer who forage in the area and it also inhibits fire work.

Then, as always, Mother Nature can change the plan any day. It happened here at Saylorville last weekend. The sweltering hot humid weather was broken by a front that came through and used 60 MPH straight line winds to lower our temps and drive out the humidity. The result was some significant tree damage here. Thankfully, it occurred in day use areas that were not occupied at the time and not in campgrounds. An enormous tree fell at the Visitor’s Center and another at the edge of the Butterfly Gardens. Today's work, after our quality time with the barbed wire, included making use of the mulch left behind by the tree service and spreading it on some of the flower beds. The rest was hauled away to the mulch mountain that exists behind the scene’s here.

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  Judy standing on the stump from the giant Oak that fell at the VC

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  Wrangling old barbed wire and brambles

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  Tree trunk grown around old barbed wire and chain link

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  Downed Oak at the VC

I made reservations for our trip south a couple of days ago. We’ll start in Lindsborg, KS with my aunt and cousins for our third time at the Swedish Festival, then kill 10 days meandering our way to Mercedes, Texas with a stop on Galveston Island for 5 days. Back to School shopping is getting ready to kick into high gear and I’ll work in my friends store for the next 8 weeks helping out through the chaos. In the meantime, I’ll keep working for the park here, writing the newsletters and spend as much time as I can with the kids and friends. The pace is ramping up to fever pitch.

It’s like the storm before the calm. It will be off the
charts crazy busy from now till Mid October, when we leave. Then we’ll have a
winter of basking in warm weather, leisurely schedules, seeing old friends and
missing the hell out of the kids.

Until Next Time…