Learning the Ropes

We jumped right in yesterday, meeting up with our co-workers, Denny & Gail, at 7:30am. Gail and I went up to the Visitor Center while Denny & Randy took off in their “mule.”

There is a little more outside work to this job (for me) than I had realized. Not a big deal, but I am just not an outside girl; at least not in 90* heat or higher. Plus, I've never really enjoyed yardwork, so . . . But, I followed Gail around like a good do-bee (remember those??) and learned the ropes a bit.

The Visitor Center opens at 8am, so we unlocked the doors and turned on the lights. We checked the fish tank to be sure the fish were still swimming – they were. Then it was out to the weather station. Each morning we have to take several readings, outside and inside.

Outside at the weather station we check the rainfall measurement, evaporation measurement and the anemometer reading. If the evaporation “pool” is low, we have to add water, if it's over the needle, we take water out. Back inside the office we record our measurements. We also check the wind speed, recording the high for the day before. We also record the maximum and minimum temperatures for the day before. The last measurement we record is the lake level. Once we record all the measurements, we turn them into Jim, the Corps engineer (our boss).

Gail is a very outdoorsy woman. So, yesterday she was hauling hoses to the various plant beds to water them throughout the day. When I'm on, I'll get Randy to haul the hoses! I don't mind moving them around in the beds, but I'm not hauling them around.

After those tasks are completed, I'm in the office for the morning, at least. With the heat being so bad, the center has been closing at noon or 1pm because there are no visitors. The office is very quiet, with the phone ringing about once or twice.

Thankfully, I can bring my computer and cross stitch project with me. So, I'll be able to check in with my FB peeps, get email, post on the blog and make some progress on my project.

Randy's doing whatever projects Jim & Denny have going on outside. Yesterday the guys were building a habitat for birds up at the lake. He's working just four or five hours a day, too. We only have to work 24 hours/week per couple. Not a bad gig.

Until the next time . . .