Real Volunteer Work At Last.

Still chilly mornings, Friday was 33° at 6 AM. Much like when we were at Aransas, everyone says this weather is very unusual. Ellen and I are scheduled to work Wednesday to Friday, so this week we just kept on working after the three-day orientation. So, it was off to work at 8 AM. For the bike ride over, Ellen was wearing two jackets and gloves for the ride. As we arrived at the visitor center, my bike fell apart ... literally—more on that later.

We started out by going to the quail flight pens with Emily, the SCA intern, Chuck and Betty for the morning checkup of the quails housed there. One of Emily's tasks is to check the quail on alternate days with Dan. Emily checked some of the pens, as did Chuck and I. Ellen took down the data. We record that the food supply is good, the water taps are dripping and count the number of quail we see in each pen. We also check the state of the pen fencing for things like rodent burrows and deceased quail (most of the birds in the flight pens are older, so the occasional death is expected). We scatter a bit of bird seed which the quail flock to like candy. While they eat the normal food, which are pellets like poultry feed, the seed is more attractive being a natural food source.

After the quail check, it was back to the visitor center. The refuge's annual Grassland Fair is next weekend, so a priority is getting ready for it. One of the tasks is to clean up the Ranch Loop Trail, a nature trail that starts at the visitor center and winds about a mile through the grasslands. It will have a set of interpretive locations and Betty is working on a brochure for that. Ellen and I took on something a bit more pedestrian, cleaning up the trail. Weed whacking on my part, raking and weeding on Ellen's part.

Ellen started by doing some weeding in the garden at the start of the trail and I went off to assemble the tools I'd need. I found that someone had already brought over a trimmer and fuel, but I needed ear plugs, safety glasses and a face shield (per U.S. Fish and Wildlife safety standards) and more trimmer line. Charles, one of the maintenance crew found a face shield and trimmer line, I have my own safety glasses with prescription inserts. I actually got them to use as bicycling glasses as they are tinted and wrap-around. Ellen calls them my bug-eye glasses and won't allow me to wear them in public. It took some looking, but I finally found earplugs in a supply shed. All this took what seemed like hours.

It was off to the trail. Much of the trail is lined on both sides with stones and many spots had high clumps of grass growing in the trail. The summer rainy season has recently ended and the trail hasn't been maintained since last winter, so the grasses were pretty high in places. I basically trimmed along the edges for a stretch, then came back and cleaned out the middle of the trail. Ellen followed at a distance raking any heavy debris off the trail. We went through two reels of line and did about two-thirds of the trail before running out of steam. We were pretty beat when we got back to the visitor center and I still had a bike to fix.

Clearing the Ranch Loop Trail

In the morning one of my fork legs had come apart (with a bit of New Zealand deja vu), handlebars pointing straight ahead, front wheel pointed 90° away. Fortunately, this time I had just stopped, rather than going downhill at 35 MPH. My mountain bike has rebuildable shock absorber forks and one of the shock tubes had pulled out of the fork crown. Somewhere along the line the pinch bolts holding it in place had loosened, the tube had unscrewed itself from the cap and preload adjuster which has a clip holding it in place in the crown and it fallen out.

At the end of the day, I was able to wedge the tube back up into the crown and tighten to bolts to hold it in place, but that was just temporary fix to ride the two miles back to Speedy. Once back I had to remove the wheel and disassemble the fork, removing the leg and cap, screwing the cap back on the leg (forcing it on against the fork spring) and then reassembling the fork. Aside from losing a little oil from the fork leg, it all went back together and seems to be working.

On Thursdays Dan holds an early evening get-together as his house, called Thirsty Thursdays. He lives on the refuge in a nice adobe house not far from the Sonoran Outpost (where Speedy lives). We bike past it on the way to and from the visitor center. As it would be after dark when we returned, we accepted a lift from Craig and Evelyn (and their dog, Paco). There weren't a lot of folks there, but Sally, the refuge manager, and her husband David were already there. Emily arrived with her dog, Luna, a little terrier. Dan showed up late with Becky, the refuge administrator. They'd been in Tucson getting supplies for the Grassland Fair.

It didn't matter as those in the know had access to Dan's house and refrigerator ... the one containing the beer. Ellen brought wine (and dog biscuits in her pocket); Evelyn, cheese and crackers.

We spent quite a bit of time talking with David, who is a wildlife biologist as well as an avid birder. He had spent quite a bit of time in Silver City, NM, where we'd just been and was also a major contributor to the last (and only) Arizona Breeding Bird Atlas, a copy of which I had just found in the visitor center library.

The dogs also had a great time. After a bit of back and forth (little Luna was a bit overwhelmed at first by Paco, the young Standard Poodle), they were off to the races. One of the advantages of the tall security fences around all of the refuge living quarters (probably the only advantage) is that it makes for a great yard for dogs to play in. By the time they tired out, it had gotten rather dark and chilly, so we rode back to Speedy. A long day and soup for dinner.

Today it was back to the trail and the quails. We got to the visitor center fairly early and Dan asked if we'd like to go back up to the quail pens for the daily check—of course we would! It would be about a half hour until we went, so Ellen and I cleaned up the patio where there are picnic tables. It is on the opposite side of the visitor center from the entrance plaza and overlooks the grasslands and the mountains, a great place to have lunch. The patio is under a pair of big Cedar of Lebanon trees (non-natives) and they had dropped hundreds of small cones. It looked a whole lot neater when we were done.

The Raven watched as we swept his patio.

Ellen and I went back to the flight pens with Dan and I checked the three of the four large pens, while Dan checked on the chicks and old birds in the small pens and a large pen where a bird was injured yesterday. When we were done, Dan asked if we were confident to make this one of our tasks a couple of days a week. It sounded good to us.

When we got back to the visitor center, a large group of people was there. They were the "Friends of Buenos Aires" there for a regular meeting. Most refuges have a "friends" group, a non-profit that contributes to the refuge, doing things that the Fish & Wildlife Service wouldn't be able to do otherwise. They usually are the source of local volunteers and run the refuge gift and book shop, which the USFWS cannot do. They also provide support for events such as the Grassland Fair and for other volunteer services (such as the free Wi-Fi at the Sonoran Outpost).

They were having a board meeting and Dan suggested that we attend. The first part was pretty interesting as it had to do with preparations for the fair. The rest, not so much, as it had to do with the running of the organization. We left just before lunch.

After lunch it was back to the Ranch Loop Trail. We whacked and weeded the last third, which was about as hard as the first two-thirds as it was quite hilly, with washouts, but we finished and declared the trail "Open for the Season".

It was a bit early to call it a day, so we did one more task. It was back to the patio. In addition to the Cedars, there was a large hedge along the front wall. It looked like it had not been trimmed in a year, so we did it, binging it back to a normal height (about four and half feet) and looking tidy. All this raking and clipping feels like home!

After all that, it was quite the slow ride back to Speedy. I was so dusty from the weed whacking (sometimes it was more like dirt whacking), that a rare afternoon shower was in order. We were pretty tired.

We are off until next Wednesday. Remember TGIF? That's how we felt! Tomorrow, we are off to Arivaca for the Saturday morning Audubon bird walk at Arivaca Cieniga. We expect that we will be spending a day a week there, so getting an expert tour of the birds will be useful and fun. After that it will be food shopping time. We are going to give Green Valley a try. It is a community (primarily retirees and snow birds) about 20 miles northeast of Arivaca via twisty roads, but supposedly has a good Fry's market. That should be a pretty full day as everything is further than you expect!