It has been a bit of a hiatus in posting to the Speedy Journal. We hit the ground running big time.
During the weekend, with no one around, we were basically stuck in the volunteer compound, which is a locked area. We could go in and out with Speedy since the vehicle gate opens via a sensor inside and a keypad outside (we knew the code), but not we walk out easily. Since none of the staff were present, we could not get a gate key for the pedestrian gates. Once wee got the bikes unloaded I was able find the one spot where the sensor would pick up my steel-framed bike and open the vehicle gate. But it took until Monday to find it. Fortunately, we ran into Stan, the Assistant Refuge Manager, on Monday afternoon and he was able to give a a truck to get back and forth to the quail facility, which is in Arivaca, about 25 miles away and the route there is partially on road a bit too rough for Speedy.
After the Thanksgiving weekend, we started right in at the quail facility on Tuesday and Wednesday. Getting there was a surprise. The route there goes down a back road that had a gate installed when we were here last spring. At that time, we just opened the gate, drove through and closed the gate, This time, we arrived at the gate to find it locked.
No one mentioned this to us. Not only that, but both Ellen and I had forgotten our phones, so we couldn't even call Paula or the refuge Headquarterd to find out what we were supposed to do. Ellen suggested that we enquire at the Arivaca Boy's Ranch which paralleled the road, thinking they might control the gate. They didn't, but pointed a route around that meant going back a bit and taking two very poor dirt roads to get back on route. This worked and we subsequently found out that this was a recent change by the owner of the land that the road goes through and this new longer, rougher workaround was now the normal route.
We help Paula with general quail care of the breeding flock of Masked Bobwhite quail. This means that we clean and refill the the water bottles in each pen and pick the shavings out of and refill the feeding trays. We also sweep the floors. The quail pens are all at floor level and have wood shavings on the floor and the quail are none too neat. They manage to kick shavings out of the pens, into their food trays and into the water feeders. When we are there we do the daily cleanup. On other days it falls to Paula and her relatively new assistant, Hannah. This is pretty much the same as we did last May when we visited and volunteered for a week.
We will be working at the quail facility every Tuesday and Wednesday as those are Hannah's days off. In addition to the general care, we will be helping out with all the other maintenance and operational tasks that are needed and there are always more things to do than Paula has time for and even with Hannah's help, they are straining to catch up.
After spending Wednesday with the quail, we were finally able to catch up with Josh Smith, the Refuge Specialist who is also the volunteer coordinator to get keys. We were also asked if we could lead a Brown Canyon Hike on Saturday. We said sure. why not.
We took a day off on Thursday to go into Green Valley. We needed to get insulation and heat tape to try to keep Speedy's exposed water lines from freezing. The overnight temperatures were already going below freezing and we really don't need burst lines. Having no water in Speedy for the next four months is not really feasible. We also stopped to get food and a rope light to put around Speedy at night to ward off the mice and other critters. We didn't do this during our last stay, but it seems like the common practice of all the other RVs in the compound. We don't want Speedy to be the only tempting mouse target.
By the time we got back, there was not enough time to install the insulation, but we did lay down the rope light. When it got dark, we turned it on...it was a 40 foot string of closely-spaced daylight white LEDs and lit up the underside of Speedy like a stadium. It was obviously several times brighter than any other strings in the compound. That lasted one night.
On Friday, we did a pre-hike of Brown Canyon. It has been about two and a half years since we last did this hike and there had been a wildfire in the canyon since we last visited it. Fortunately, the refuge was able to protect the refuge buildings in the canyon, but not the abandoned house on the adjacent state land that the trail passes by.
The trail itself didn't look much different except for some burned trees. The fire was in 2016 and all of the grasses and shrubs have grown back. Most of the big Sycamores, a signature species in the canyon, survived, but with some damage. The most obvious change was just before the arch at the top of the trail where much of the larger trees, mostly oaks, had burned. The view to the arch was much more open.
On Saturday, we were back on the trail, leading a private hike. It was just five persons, four women and one man, the husband of the woman who made the reservations. They were all older, but very active hikers and all they wanted to do was hike and look at the scenery. This made easy for us in one way, we didn't have to do much explaining. But Ray, the man, was a very fast hiker and left us in the dust. The trail is wide and obvious, so we just let him go.
We were at the arch at the top of the trail by11am. Usually, on a public hike, we arrive there just before lunch and have lunch either at the arch or an open spot just below it. This time we hiked back down to the Environmental Education Center, where the trail starts and lunched there.
In the afternoon, I finally got started on the water line project. I put Speedy up on its leveling boards to give it another four inches of clearance, then crawled underneath to try to attach the heat tape along all of the water lines. I finished just at sundown. Between the hike and the afternoon under the van, I was a hurtin' puppy.
There are still three sections that have no tape and will have no insulation. The line to the toilet and the lines to and from the fresh water tank are mounted between the waste tanks and the side of the van. There is no way to access them without removing the waste tanks. We aren't using the fresh water tank so I think that the line from the tank, which has been drained and the pump is empty. with other two, we are hoping that there is enough protection by the waste tanks and residual heat from the heated sections that they won't freeze. We'll see.
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