A Goodbye Party

On Sunday the volunteers had planned a final potluck dinner. In addition to us, Craig and Evelyn are leaving next week and Dan is leaving at the end of March. Ellen's contribution to the dinner was baked manicotti and chocolate cookies. She spent most of Sunday cooking and tidying up the community trailer for the party.

People started showing up at around 5 PM with lots of goodies. In addition to Ellen's manicotti, Evelyn brought enchiladas. There were grilled sausages, three kinds of salads, cookies, pies and blueberry bread and a selection of beverages. Most of this was polished off.

It was quite a turnout. All the resident volunteers (Craig, Evelyn, Chuck, Betty, Ellen and I) were there except Dave, who was away on a cruise! Rob and Rita, the local volunteers, came over from Green Valley. Ray, a short-term volunteer from Virginia, and Connor and Jessica, the student volunteers all came. Dan, Paula, Sally, the refuge manager, and her husband, David,  joined us as well.

After dinner, it Dan took the stage (so to speak). As it was the end of the winter season for most of us, he gave out volunteer certificates and pins which reflected the time we've spent volunteering over the years for the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service. Ellen and I got our 750-hour pins. Chuck and Betty, who've been volunteering full-time for more than ten years, got their 10,000-hour (!) pins. Dan also had some nice personal gifts for everyone, even Connor and Jessica, who'd only been volunteering for about a month now. In addition we received nice Eddie Bauer jackets with the Buenos Aires NWR logo on them which are given for 300 hours of service at Buenos Aires.

But the best gift was yet to come and it was Paula's doing. It wasn't our own Masked Bobwhite Quail, but the next best thing, a quail nest. Paula had made a feathered quail nest, complete with real hatched eggs. Of course it was wrapped in a Mazuri wild bird food bag.  It was a great, unexpected gift from the quail via Paula.

We spent Monday packing up Speedy, doing laundry and getting ready to leave. It was hard to believe that four months had come to an end. On Tuesday morning we stopped at the Visitor Center and headquarters to say a final goodbye. We said goodbye to Craig before we left the outpost. He said it was a tradition to blow your horn as you left which we did. We stopped at the Visitor Center, gave our keys to Dan, and hugs to all these amazing and wonderful people who we wish the very best as they work to save the endangered Masked Bobwhite Quail.

Photos