Week ten @ BTA

Sunday January 23rd, 2022

Sunday afternoon 72°F (21°C) an amazingly sunny day in Arizona, the next week is showing nothing but sunshine for our little piece of the desert. Just published last week’s blog and for a quiet week there was a lot of stuff going on and this week right now nothing is planned but I do need some repair time so I can work on some projects, but this afternoon I’m kicking back in the anti-gravity chair to confirm the results of last week’s beer tastings.

Miss Mary one of the horticulturist here at the arboretum, brought some devils claw for us to examine, it’s rather a unique formation, these are the seed pods and I suspect the shape is designed allow it to catch on animals to be transported to different areas

Well, the afternoon group on the patio grew with Tom & Kathleen, Lincoln, John & Karen, Rob & Twila and Miss Mary stopping by for a beverage. Miss Laurie rolled out a new version of last week’s whiskey sour, using lime juice and prickly pear syrup, it was a cocktail that she had seen on Facebook to celebrate the Arizona Cardinals football team as they prepare for Monday night playoff football game, I assume because of the red colour from the prickly pear syrup.

Monday, and I may have a bit of a fuzzy head this morning, just possibly I may have had a couple of beverages too many, so there is not going to be a lot happening in my world today. So here in the States, today is a federal holiday to celebrate the life of Martin Luther King, who was assassinated for demanding the right to vote for everyone regardless of colour, which seems so strange now as so many Republican States are passing laws to restrict the very thing he was killed trying to secure. But to celebrate his sacrifice the entrance to all National Park is free for the day, and here in Arizona state parks offer free entrance today as well.

At one time the arboretum operated under the Arizona State Park flag, but has not since 2019, but this morning as we watched the NBC weather, they reported todays weather for all the National parks in Arizona such as the Grand Canyon, then the next screen was a list of Arizona parks and tucked into the lower right corner of the screen was Boyce Thompson Arboretum, and it was right then that I said to Laurie that it would be a shyt show at admissions today, and it was, as hordes of people descend on the arboretum expecting free admission, a good day not to be working.

For lunch today Miss Laurie made Southwest Egg Rolls, in the air fryer, and while just her first attempt, I think they were a winner, great flavour, and not greasy at all. I had picked up a small roast of beef that was on sale to make a pot roast, and today was the day to make that happen, so after searing the roast on the barbecue, I put the Dutch oven on the induction plate and roasted it all afternoon, and while not a good cut of meat it turned out yummy, with some leftovers.

Tuesday, and the clouds have again rolled in, the temperatures today are cooler and we are under a possible rain event, they are forecasting less than a tenth of an inch, and only scattered showers possible. Not like our friends back on the east coast who are digging out after a snowstorm with more storms forecast for this week.

I ordered some glass frames from Warby Parker to try on, they let you pick five frames from their website and then they send them to you to try on at home, and if you find a suitable frame, their hope is that you will order your prescription glasses from them, in the mean time you send the five frames back with a prepaid return label. I broke my only recent pair of prescription glasses about a week before leaving Canada, so I have been wearing a pair of earlier prescription glasses, which have caused me some grief while trying to read books. So today I’m going to try the frames on, and anyone who has prescription glasses will know when trying on frames by looking in a mirror, knows that you can’t really see how they look until you have purchased them with your prescription.

So todays plan is to try each pair, and take a selfie, and look at them afterwards, I have not decided if we will venture to Mexico yet, where my last pair of glasses came from, as glasses are so much less expensive there, and usually ready the next day. So, which of these samples do you think looks best? Then the next major issue with ordering online, I’m concerned about not receiving the final glass fitting that you receive when you purchase glasses in store.

Sorry but I have to mention the total collapse of the Arizona Cardinals football team who got handed their butts on Monday night football by the Rams. This team has not won a recent game, and every week there is a long sad story (excuse), but I think the reality is that they are as bad as they have appeared, they are a young team and a lot of their earlier success was more luck than anything else, and the news casts this afternoon should be entertaining to watch, so “Go Bills Go“, and I will leave it there.

So, I decided to reseal one of the roof vents on the coach, and I knew it would be a major undertaking, but one that needed to be done, so the first stage which involved the removal of the Dicor, and then removing the attaching screws to allow removal of the vent from the roof for cleaning. That first little step consumed nearly three hours, then after cleaning the roof and vent surfaces, new butyl tape was installed then all the attaching screws installed and slowly tightened in sequence over and over again until the new butyl tape appeared to have sealed the two pieces together, after close to five hours kneeling on the roof, I made the corporate decision to wait till tomorrow to apply the new Dicor lap sealant.

Wednesday, and another cloudy morning in Arizona, today we are getting our booster vaccines, we made the decision to get the Moderna booster, as it was readily available close by (Gold Canyon) and now here in the States, they are saying it a good choice to mix and match vaccines. Miss Laurie booked our appointments at the Walgreens approximately a week ago, and unlike back in Canada there was certain no line up of people waiting to get our shot. After all there were only 23,000 new cases yesterday with 170+ deaths here in Arizona yesterday, and remember that less than half of the people in stores are wearing masks, because Governor Duffuss (Ducey) is against any type of prevention, to slow the spread, and as the Arizona Covid case count is only up 300+%, from the week before, and with only 58% (as of today) of the population fully vaccinated, and only 92% of those hospitalized are unvaccinated … so I guess that whole “right to choose” thing is working out well.

This afternoon, I added the Dicor self-leveling lap sealant to the vent, which seals over the attaching screws as well as the edge of the vent where the butyl tape oozes from the vent to roof joint. Tomorrow I’m hoping to install the new vent cover after our shift tomorrow.

Thursday, and we got off to an exciting early start as Mr. Sam caught a mouse that we have been trying to trap for a couple of months. We could hear Sam chasing something while we were in bed, but it is not unusual for him to play for a bit before we rise for the day, the only difference was it was a mouse this morning instead of one of his favourite plastic springs … I picked a good morning not to be the first one up.

Back to work this morning, and my left arm is a little tender after my booster shot, but not nearly as tender as my knees and hips from my little vent resealing project from Tuesday. The sky is clear, and we are expecting another 70°F (21°C) sunny day here in Arizona, as we watch another winter storm roll through the eastern side of the continent, fresh on the heels of last week’s storm.

Well, another day struggling with equipment at the admission office, couldn’t seem to get the credit card machine to work, so only cash and membership entries today. You know I’ve worked at a number of places, but this was the first place I have worked that when there was an internet or networking issue, the upper management just went home, like seriously, hello people, if there is an issue you stay and help until it is resolved, going home would not have been in any management vocabulary in my life as a manager, still shaking my head on that one.

I checked the seal around the vent this afternoon, and while the Dicor looked fine, it was still too soft to install the new vent cover, will have to check again tomorrow. Now Miss Laurie seems to be having a few side effects from her booster, having some chills and the sweats. So she was not just messing with me, when she decided we should have burgers tonight instead of the regular Friday night schedule. I have had no side effects other than a tender arm, and it was still no worse than my knees and hips … jus’saying.

Friday, and the forecast is for a few clouds and possible rain overnight into Saturday, but the forecast is for less than a tenth of an inch, but here in the desert every little bit counts. But as I sit watching the sunrise, the skies are mainly clear, it’s a cool morning but nothing like on the east coast. Our start time is 9am this morning, and we hope they have the systems repaired from yesterday’s network failure, but whether it is or not, we can only do what we can do with the equipment we are given.

Well everything worked and we had a good day, Miss Laurie spent an hour or so sweeping and cleaning around the visitor Center, then I spent most of the afternoon explaining the arboretum and some of the highlights to see, there were a lot of first time visitors today and a number now are members of the arboretum. I explain the arboretum as being Arizona’s best kept secret, and after that first viewing, so many fall in love with the gardens. We explain that they are not manicured like the botanical gardens, the arboretum is maintained and irrigated to keep it alive but it is a very natural setting, there was a report of a large cat in the garden yesterday, as reported by a guest but staff did not see it, it was reported as a lynx but there are no lynx this far south, we have bob cats and mountain lions. The arboretum is a sanctuary for many species of creatures and we do receive some damage from time to time, but being a research facility, it is understood that nature will effect us from time to time, and it’s not as much about preventing nature as how to respond to nature, as we are only 400 acres in a very huge desert.

Saturday, morning a cloudy grey morning, today is our possible rain day, but there is no expectations of any quantity of rain, just a few sprinkles here and there. Remember the cloudy nights are warm nights as the heat doesn’t escape so we were over 50°F (10°C) at 6am this morning, and the clouds make for some amazing sunrise photos.

Today is our long day so in the admissions booth at 8am, it’s not crazy busy in the mornings but there are a number of visitors out early before the crowds hit, I’m in the booth, and Miss Laurie is helping in the store, unwrapping merchandise, we have been amazed by how much product is sold every day in the store. But after our recent visit to Scottsdale, we know our pricing is very reasonable in comparison. So Miss Laurie is unpacking turtles, a very popular purchase by many guests, it has been a subject of many a conversation but every day dozens of these turtles disappear, it’s like a great magic trick.

I have been staying on top of the blog this week and in fact I’m typing on my phone in the admissions booth this morning. I realize that I haven’t been for a walk in the arboretum this week as I have added nothing to my park highlights for over a week, so tomorrow morning I will be going for a walk to check the gardens to better be able to answer the most common question, what’s in bloom? And right know the aloes are the main blooming feature, although with most days being over the average temperature for January, I expect that a number of things will be blooming in the near future.

The arboretum offers discovery tours of the Wallace Garden, The Arboretum, or the medical tour. The first two tours are no charge and there is a five-dollar charge for the medical tour. The photo below is of one of the host volunteers starting this morning’s Arboretum Discovery tour, which is a recommendation i would make for any visitor, you sign up for online up to a couple of weeks in advance and are done by docens, who are trained to give qualified tours.

As Saturday morning comes to a close, the visitor flow seems to lighten at noon, so we take turns sneaking to the courtyard to grab some lunch which Miss Laurie has prepared, the courtyard is located behind the store and is usually one of the quieter areas in the arboretum, many tables and chairs where we can usually find a seat in the sunshine. Today’s lunch is some left over pot roast sliced up for sandwiches, with some horseradish, mmmm good.

Admissions has been busy today, I always find it amazing how the visitors seem to arrive in waves, you look up and think some bus must have pulled in but, NO BUS. And don’t misunderstand me, we like to be busy so the more the merrier, when busy the shift flies by, it is the slow days that drag on so bring on the bus! Today we have had periods of sunshine, followed by the occasional gust of wind, then around our quitting time the sky turned dark, and we are seeing the occasional rain drop, as we cash out our tray, and again our work week over.

This is our long day and by the end of the day, you are exhausted from repeating the same welcome or introduction over and over again. So Saturday nights are usually pretty calm in The Buchanan coach, a beverage or two, a little dinner, and some mindless television before an early evening. This evening Miss Laurie is off chasing rainbows, and I’m watching some golf on the golf channel, because it’s a windy cool evening some spaghetti will hit the spot, the days are stretching out a little longer each day, so I have been watching the storm roll by just north of the arboretum from my lounge chair in the coach.

Sunday, and Miss Laurie is off to help in the visitor centre as there is a group of birdwatchers coming in at 8am, and the other volunteers don’t start on Sunday till 10am. And I’m heading into the gardens for a walk through and get some photos, for the blog, and it has been over a week since my last walk about. Not sure if the photos will make this week’s blog as I worked hard to close it out on schedule today

Now I have sat on this for a day and have debated whether to go here or not, but I just can’t let it go. So here is the story, at a school board meeting somewhere in Virginia, imagine if you can a mother threatening the school board that if they bring in a mask mandate for the students, to try to protect her offspring, that she will bring her loaded guns to the school on Monday morning. Now just pause for a moment to let that sink in. Covid is presently hospitalizing hundreds of children daily, some with serious consequences, so here is a school board trying to protect the students, just to have some “whack job” parent threaten to bring loaded guns to the school. There are a couple of issues here first this “whack job” would seem to be part of the special group that still most likely believes the pandemic is a hoax, secondly now the world knows she has threatened the whole school board on video, I personally thinking it is time for child services steps in to remove the children from her before she is able to do any more harm to them. And I pretty sure you can’t threaten to shoot up a school without some consequence even in Virginia. The question that comes to mind is what the he!! is wrong with people, how can they be so out of touch with the real world that anyone can think this kind of behaviour is OK.

As always be well, stay strong, and avoid the “Special People”!

Day 1573

Blog 401

Week nine @ BTA

Sunday January 16th, 2022

Sunday, afternoon shortly after two in the afternoon, and I just finished pushing the publish button on last weeks blog. it is a bright sunny afternoon and I’m sitting in my anti-gravity chair with the sunshine making it almost impossible to see the screen, I had to retract the awning because of a few wind gusts but the warmth of the Arizona sun feels good on this old body. I just cracked my first Sunday afternoon beer, a craft beer from a local brewer in Tempe Arizona, it is a wheat beer, which is style that I enjoy, on a warm day and this one has mandarin orange flavour added which saves the mess of cutting an orange slice that is commonly served in a lot of wheat beers. It has a good taste and I was able to purchase it at a bargain price of a buck a can, for a craft beer from the Costco in Mesa 12 wheat beer and twelve Blonde style, I will report later on the Scottsdale Blonde.

We met our new volunteer hosts today Johnny & Mila, they are from the Chicago area, and this is their first work camping position, we have not had a chance to grill them for details yet, having just met them so all I really know is that he is a retired teacher and they are still pretty green into the whole process. So as I sitting here thinking that wheat beer tasted so good that its very unfair not to test the Scottsdale Blonde beer as well, and right about now you are probably wondering who it is unfair to, well me of course, beer and blondes are a couple of my favorite things and combined, well I just couldn’t wait any longer. So snap, and we are into testing mode, and I must say after the first couple of sips, that I’m pleasantly surprised and very pleased, to find two very drinkable craft beers in one inexpensive case of twenty-four cans is very pleasing, and after seeing the octane level of some of the cocktails been mixed around here lately, this could be a very welcome safe place for me … jus’saying.

Miss Laurie is cooking up something special for dinner, and I have been catching a whiff every now and then, and I’m thinking if it tastes half as good as it smells, I’m in for a really great treat tonight. Well I’m pleased to report dinner wtasted just as good as it smelt, grilled vegetables, over chicken with hatch chilies in a curry cream sauce served over a bed of rice, delicious, seems a little weak for the description.

Hatch chillies are a southwestern delight, grown in New Mexico, near the town of Hatch, the chilies have a short growing season and are long and green in colour, they are not as hot as jalapeño peppers but hotter than California or Anaheim peppers and are most commonly roasted because of their thick skin and meaty body, where they develop a rich smokey flavour profile that makes they a hit, to compliment almost any dish. We have had roasted hatch chilies in our omelets for breakfast, appetizer dips, as well as multiple other dishes, and was one of the first purchases we made when reaching the area. We have purchases them fresh roasted, canned, bottled, and even dehydrated as flakes, the flavour profile never disappoints.

Before settling in for the night we caught up on some of our YouTube peeps, and then watched episode four of “1883”, which is about the adventures that preceded the Yellowstone series that is so popular right now, Tim McGraw and Faith Hill play leading parts in the storyline and I have been pleasantly surprised on the quality of their acting, sometimes crossing from singing to acting just doesn’t work well but so far it works.

Monday, Today is a shopping adventure day with the Savino’s, we are going to apparently a better “Trader Joes”, then to “AJ’s Fine Foods”, an “Aldi” and I’m not really sure where else, but it doesn’t really matter. I think I remember San Tan being mentioned which is one of the smaller outlying areas around Mesa. Oh “Total Wine” was the other shopping stop and it was excellent choice, I found a box of red wine that sounds like it should be excellent, and they had a number of craft beers that has peaked my interest, and for Miss Laurie who doesn’t like beer and struggles to find coolers that that are not brewed, she has picked up a number of single cans to explore some new choices, and while they carried limited liquor choices, there were some favourites on the shelves.

Just to add to an already busy day we stopped for a late lunch / early dinner at “Joes Farm Grill”. Their claim to fame is that everything they produce is from their farm or from the immediate area. And while set up like a fast food location, you counter order, and your meal is delivered to your table. This was one of the choices in the “Diners, Drive ins, or Dives”, and one of the feature items was the garlic fries, and they were as good as declared, Miss Laurie and I shared the barbecue sampler tray, ribs, pulled pork, pork chop, cold slaw, with corn bread. It was excellent and we left full, as with most places in the desert we ate on picnic tables outside under the shade sails just to complete the fast food feel.

As we headed back to Gold Canyon, we sat with Ray & Karen to enjoy a cocktail, and talk about the days experience, and our plans for the balance of the week. before returning to the arboretum.

Tuesday, and it’s a seven o’clock start to another sunny day in Arizona, it was another windy night, but my tape repair on our air conditioner cover seems to be holding. And the weather people here are talking about the chance for rain on Saturday with the same excitement that they talk about a snow storm back in Ontario, my weather app still shows the possibility of rain here at only fifty percent, and the local weather people thinks it will not come to fruition.

Todays plan is not really much of a plan, a trip to retrieve some Amazon packages from the visitor centre, then I was off for a morning walk through the arboretum, this morning I stayed on the main trail, and was amazed at how some of the trees are back in leaf after the rain a couple of weeks ago.

The Boojum trees were back in full leaf, they are native to Baja Mexico, so the climate here is cooler in the winter and they had lost their leaves by mid December.

The bottle tree which is native to Australia, was wearing a fresh leafy green display as well.

And a little further up the trail I found this one of last tree that was still in fall colour, a cottonwood tree I suspect.

And I sat near the palm grove to enjoy some sunshine and watching the wildlife, we have squirrels here but not like back home, these are called rock squirrels, because they live on the ground but on the side of the ridges, not to be confused with the ground squirrels that burrows under ground or the chipmunks that are grey instead of brown. The arboretum is so different that the normal desert foliage found in most natural desert, where trees are only 15 to 20 feet tall (5 to 8 meters) and usually covered with thorns so tree squirrels are few and far between. And of course we have the dreaded pack rats that are nocturnal and never seen during the day they also live underground.

A little lunch and we settled into an afternoon of sunshine on our little patio, the new volunteer Johnny came over to visit and we learnt a lot more back ground on Johnny & Mila, and this is their first work-camping positions. A retired teacher from Chicago, second marriage, and so on … and while great that he wanted to share it was maybe just TMI for this early.

Just finished the evening with with grilled broccoli and steak, along with a bottle of Josh cabernet, after catching up on the evening news and some YouTube videos, we filled the evening with the amazing race and Guy’s new show trying for find an operator for his new chicken franchise before turning in.

Wednesday, and almost a repeat of yesterday, another sunny Arizona morning, watch the news, great breakfast, and a trip to the visitor center to pickup some packages, I have been struggling to get some needed supplies, so they are landing in dribs and drabs, but by noon l think most items are here now, but with the possibility of rain in the forecast and going back to work tomorrow, this is looking like a next week job now. So that having been decided I’m going to open that box of red wine, kickback in the anti-gravity chair and work on the blog, I’ve got a bunch of photos from yesterday so lots to do …

… well some times the best laid plans, just go to hell in a hand basket, and this was going to be one of those days. So some of the details seem a little fuzzy but I do remember enough to know that the afternoon was filled with, lots of laughs, some stories, and multiple beverages, and a as the afternoon rolled along Tom & Kathleen, John & Karen, Johnny & Mila, as well as Lincoln joined the group. Miss Laurie was again mixing whiskey sours for everyone, I decided to just stick with red wine, but that plan fell by the wayside when Lincoln rolled out his prickly pear hooch, and that could have been an error on my part, but it seemed like the correct decision at the time. And of course as soon as the sun moves behind the coach we rolled out the fire pit to help warm the cool January afternoon.

As the group dispersed, we retired to the warmth of the coach, and I’m quite sure that Miss Laurie was feeling the effects of the afternoons beverages, and while I’m almost positive we had dinner that night, I have to admit details are a little foggy. So lets just say that I slept well and woke the next morning feeling better than I deserved.

Thursday, and back to work, and amazingly the world had changed during our time off … now masks are required for all staff and volunteers when inside of any building, or crowed areas anyplace in the arboretum. This is a decision of the management team here at the arboretum, as the Arizona Governor is a opponent to any restrictions that might help prevent the transmission of Covid, you need to understand that here in the United States that a lot of politicians that are more qualified in issues of viruses and their transmission, and their negative health issues than medical doctors, and while that may sound pro prosperous you see it everywhere through the states. These same amazing individuals usually end up calling in the National Guard to try to help the health care system cope with all the cases. It is thought that the 23,000 daily reported cases that is actually closer to 40,000 because of all the unreported self tests, in a population of less than half of Ontario, and on most days only a hundred or less citizens die each day. And when you think about the 800,000+ cases reported each day in the US, I guess it makes sense to a politician, especially ones that knows more than medically trained doctors.

So when offered the chance to work moving plants from the greenhouse today I said yes … but after a day of moving hundreds of one gallon plant pots, I’m thinking that it’s been a few months since I did much manual labour. As I was hurting by the time we made it back to the coach, and our short work day that had seemed too long today. An Aleve and a couple of hours later, I was almost feeling almost normal, Miss Laurie thought it was somewhat funny that I was hurting. Miss Laurie made pizza in the Ninja, as we keep exploring the new options, the pizza was excellent, the pizza dough is still a bit of a challenge but the toppings are as good as any pizza and way better than anything frozen. A little television and an early evening wrapped up day.

Friday, and our seven hour day, I woke this morning feeling better than I expected, and not knowing what today would bring, I decided to pre-medicate before going to work, Fridays are busy days in admissions, but they wanted to transplant some more plants so Miss Laurie decided to take on this project. And I was ok with that, and while the admission booth can be hectic at times, my sore back was still ok with working the booth. Wearing the mask for seven hours, while not pleasant is certainly doable, and if it keeps us safe from the special people it’s all good.

So let’s just say that Miss Laurie was moving about the same speed this afternoon as I was yesterday. Part of the issue is that the transplanting process is not ergonomic in any form or manner, so by the end of a shift we were feeling pretty much done for the day. So let’s just stop and think for a moment, two months in and we have had two physical days, now they were very recent so looming large, but overall not a big issue. Dinner of chicken quesadillas, and some television, just regular programming tonight, as it will be another early evening.

Saturday, our Friday, not a bright sunny day as normal, we got the forecast breeze that was warned about, but the rain never materialized, and as the wind subsided the sun made an appearance for part of the day. Saturdays are always busy at the arboretum, and today was no different, Miss Laurie manned the admission booth and I had a project of assembling a table for the admission booth to make it all flow a little better. The admission booth is not located where it was designed for, and when it was put in place the inside counter that was to be the working counter ended up on the wrong wall, so while we are making it work, it’s just not the best design, so now they are trying to find solutions to make the best of it, again not how I would have tried to fix it … but it wasn’t mine to fix, enough said on that topic.

It was a very busy day and our admission count for the day was quite high, I don’t think either Laurie or myself was sorry not to have any greenhouse duties today, as the aching back was still a vivid memory. They have a new website for the volunteers to record their hours, which seems to make much more sense than the old paper method, and I think our work schedules will become part of the site in the near future, there is an event in the arboretum in February and we were able to go in and pick the tasks that we wanted to do, Laurie picked an admission shift and I picked a bartending shift, both sounded better than set up or tear down of chairs and tables.

So Saturdays always seem long because it is our eight hour day, but I think we were both pleased that we didn’t pull for a greenhouse shift, and by four o’clock I was ready for a glass of wine, the boxed wine has been good, and I have been enjoying it, not sure Miss Laurie has even tried it yet, but it is a nice dry full bodied wine from Chile, and one I would most likely buy again. Tonight was our burger night and again it is just hard to beat a burger fresh off of the barbeque, although Miss Laurie had found a purple onion that was strong on attitude. So a little television time watching the Bills beat the Patriots, add a little golf from Hawaii, then the evening news before we settled into watch “Skyfall” the latest James Bond movie before calling it an evening.

Now you may have noticed that there was no mention of working on the blog for the last few days … and that’s because there was no work done on the blog, after that (wine induced) foggy Wednesday, so as usual I’m playing catch up, its now almost an hour after my scheduled publication time and I’m sitting in the sunshine re-living this past week, the good, the bad, and the ugly of it.

Sunday, at 5:30am and I have just picked up the iPad to catch up on this weeks blog, its not bad for temperature this morning and although still dark outside, the sky looks clear, dawn is an hour and a half away and the sun will peak over the summit at around eight o’clock. As I look back it has been a reasonably quiet week, as I have been gathering items for a number of projects, we have enjoyed some companionship from the other hosts, and another couple has just got here, and while we have been introduced to Peter & Trish, they are camping up closer to the Picket Post House, as all the spots are full down here, they are here for a couple of months only, and while we just spoke for a few moments I have learnt that they have never done this type of work before and I’m thinking their anticipation and the job reality have not met yet. Volunteer work can take many different appearances, but the reality that shines through them all is that volunteers are used for simple menial tasks that are hard to fill, and here in the arboretum many of these volunteers that think they are going to be working with one of the horticulturist, and don’t yet understand, that is just a grunt position of weeding and carrying needed supplies, like we experienced this week, so I’m ok with doing my grunt work in a heated / air conditioned ticket booth with a chair.

So as the weeks roll by it should be interesting to watch as the newbies learn the ropes, and the realities of how this whole volunteering thing works, so as I try to finish this off, it has been a week of watching storms on the east side of the country, and while I watch storm after storm roll through I’m reminded why we go south to enjoy the winter in sunny Arizona.

Be strong, stay safe, and do your part to help control this pandemic!

Day 1566

Blog 400