Week 4 - Another Exciting Week at Buenos Aires

The week started out pretty normally, we returned to the quail flight pens on Monday to continue painting A-frame shelters for the quail (Ellen) and installing heaters in the long A-frames (Steve). This took most of the day. Mid-afternoon, Steve returned to the Biology building to give Ann some tech support.

They are still doing hydrology measurements at Arivaca Cienega. When we were here before, we did weekly measurements of water depths in a series of wells at the Cienega to determine ground water changes over time. During much of that winter, the levels mostly rose, but since then they have consistently decreased, so much so that some of the wells have gone dry. The cause is not known, but weather changes in the watershed and increased water well drilling as Arivaca grows are likely contributors.

They have started to place level recorders in the still-operative wells. These record the water level at fixed intervals, with much more frequency than our weekly readings. They are currently set to hourly readings. They are hung in the well pipes by a communication cable with a connector at the top which can be connected to a computer or tablet. Up until now, the connection has been via a USB cable to a laptop, but they have a acquired a Bluetooth connection device and a tablet. I was asked to set them up.

The tablet is a generic ruggedized Android tablet just called a Pad. It designed for industrial use and has a number of optional hardware features, none of which were installed in this model. It is actually a giant smartphone. With the addition of a SIM card, it will do both voice calls and mobile data. We haven't added a SIM yet. It came with no software beyond the Android basics.

I took the Pad, the Bluetooth connector, the cable and a recorder back to Speedy to try to make it all work.

The first task was to connect it to the internet and download the software for the level recorder management. This meant connecting to the Google Play Store, which meant adding an account to the Pad/phone...I added mine, of course. While I was downloading the software, I investigated the Bluetooth device. It had to be charged first; fortunately, it used a USB connection for charging, so I just plugged it into one of Speedy's many USB charge ports. It attaches to the top end of the cable and the level recorder attaches to the bottom.

Everything had to be connected and active to initialize the software. All that done, I opened the app and went to work, setting up a Bluetooth connection and associating the level recorder with the app. This was as far as I went, since any further setup needed to be done when the recorder was in the well.  This activity would wait until Thursday. The software sets up the recorder was starts and stops logging. It also reads the logs and saves the data.

Tuesday, we were back at the quail breeding facility. Paula had gone out onto the refuge to help with tracking previously released birds, so we were on our own. After the general care of setting out clean food and water, we meant to begin cleaning the brooder cages from the summer breeding season. This similar to the cleaning of grates that we had done two weeks ago, but on a somewhat larger scale.

The brooders are about 3' x 8' and over 6' high. They have 6 stories of cages with spring doors all around, grates underneath each layer and shallow drawers under the grates. The chicks are raised in the cages until they are large enough to go into pens. This is for several weeks, if not months. While the grates are changed as they grow and the drawers are cleaned out regularly, they end up needing cleaning when it is all over. Everything except the main frame of the brooder gets removed, scrubbed clean and disinfected, before being stored until next season. This is a lot of parts, about 325 pieces in total over the three brooders.

Paula and Hannah had mostly disassembled one of the brooders on Monday, so we could get a start on cleaning, but there was a bit of a hiccup. We were going to be power washing scrubbing and forgot our boots.

We had a rather disorganized start to the morning, as we were getting ready to load up the truck, I couldn't find the keys. We looked everywhere in the van and Ellen finally found them in the outside pocket of my backpack. On our return on Monday we had a lot of excess stuff coming into the van and they must have fallen off the dashboard and landed in the open pocket. In the confusion of getting started, we neglected to put the Muck boots in the truck.

With power washing out for the day, we set to disassembling the rest of the brooders. This took us the rest of our day.

Wednesday, we didn't forget our boots. After general care, we went over the cleaning tasks with Paula and explained that it would take us a while as we need to cut back our time there a bit. First, to preserve our strength...the last time we spent about four hours cleaning grates and could barely move the next day, and second, we really wanted to get back to the refuge while we still had some daytime. So, our schedule should be to leave the quail facility about 2:30 in the afternoon. If we leave the Outpost at around 6:30 am, we would have an 8 hour day. This was quite acceptable to Paula.

We spent the rest of the day disassembling and cleaning wooden chick pens that were on the cleaning pad between the buildings, mostly to make room for the massive brooder part cleaning to come.

We weren't done when we got back to Speedy. We had stopped into the Visitor Center on our return on Tuesday to pick up a package and Josh mentioned that there was another potluck supper on Wednesday evening. We were not quite prepared for that as we figured that last week's holiday party had taken its place.  This meant an emergency stop at the Arivaca Merchantile on our way back and a potluck dish to prepare when we got back.

We still had some really good flour tortillas from St. Mary's, so Ellen put together bean and cheese quesadillas, which I cooked on the grill. Another potluck dinner followed with much good food and there were only two wedges of quesadilla left at the end of the day.

Thursday morning, we met Ann at the Cienega with all of the water level recording equipment. We were going to install it in one of the wells and start it logging using the new tablet and Bluetooth connector. It was still dark and 25° when we left the Outpost to meet Ann at 7am. Needless to say, it was a rather chilly installation. It all went fairly smoothly and we set up the recorder and started it  logging. We intended to meet on next Monday morning to check it and also connect the existing loggers in two other wells to the tablet. Once that is done, Ellen and I will take over the weekly reading and also manual readings for the other wells, some of which may be dry, and the open water gages in Arivaca Creek and Honnas Pond, if any have water.

We got back to the Outpost by lunchtime, as Thursday is our half-day. The intent was to do laundry in the afternoon and go into Tucson on Friday to go shopping. After lunch, we were enjoying some tasty homemade chocolate and caramel candies that Josh's wife, Felicia, had made and given as Christmas gifts at the potluck, when Ellen bit down on one and pulled a crown right off one of her molars.

This is a gold crown that we think is at least 30 years old and was already going to be replaced when we got home in the spring. A slight panic ensued. There wasn't any pain, but it had to be at least put back in. Ellen thought superglue, but reason and a quick online search put that to rest with reports from dentists that it wouldn't work and could actually damage the underlying tooth.

She found that there was a dental cement available over the counter to hold crowns on temporarily, and that, in hindsight, probably would have been enough, but we decided that it was prudent that we have it reset by a dentist who could also make sure the underlying tooth was okay. This got us to the next hurdle finding a dentist would be in on the Friday before Christmas and would take Ellen in...and would also accept her insurance. After searching our insurance site, comparing the listed dentists to online reviews, figuring out where they were in Tucson, and making several calls, we found a practice that would see Ellen at noon on Friday....and it was right across the street from the Fry's we were planning to shop at.

Friday morning we got a fairly early start on our trip to Tucson. We were experimenting again, planning to try a Trader Joe's, Whole Foods and Fry's on the northwest side of the city, near Oro Valley. It was an extra 10 miles, but we thought that they might be larger, better stocked stores than the ones we usually used nearer to downtown. We had extra items to buy this week. All of the other volunteers had dropped by during the week with edible Christmas goodies and it seemed right that we reciprocate. Ellen planned to make pralines and mini-lemon cakes. Ingredients that we didn't normally stock in Speedy were needed as well as cake pans and gift bags.

We managed the stops at Trader Joe's and Whole Foods before noon...and Ellen's appointment. They were each a little larger than the downtown ones, but weren't that much better. Then it was off to the dentist. We arrived early enough to fill out what seemed like a ream of paperwork. Ellen went in. They took an X-ray of the tooth and cemented the crown back on. $66 and we were on our way. Like I said, in hindsight, a tube of dental cement from CVS would have sufficed.

It was off to lunch. There was a Mexican restaurant in the same mall as the dentist so we decided to give it a try. It was okay, but our favorite is still S. Mary's. There was also a Michael's craft store in the mall, so we stopped in there for Christmas gift bags for the pralines. While we were there we noticed holiday themed ceramic min-loaf pans on sale at 70% off. At 60 cents apiece, it was a no-brainer, less that we could buy the disposable aluminum ones for.

There was a long line at check out in Michael's. I'd noticed a barber shop next door to the restaurant and we had been discussing that I needed a haircut, so I figured I'd give them a try while Ellen was waiting in line.

This was not a good idea.

I walked in and there were two young barbers cutting hair. They said to have a seat and they'd be right with me. A couple of seconds later a middle-aged Hispanic woman barber comes out and asks me to sit down, so I did...one barber is like another, right?  She asked how I'd like my hair cut. I said I'd like to take about a month's worth off, the sides just over my ears, long in the back. She asked rounded our square in the back. I answered rounded. A gentlemen's haircut she replied. Okay.

I wasn't facing the mirror and when I heard the her turning on her clippers, I got an uncomfortable feeling, but a few minutes later she turned the chair around and it looked okay. She asked how it was was. I said fine, expecting that we were about done. Then she turned the chair around and started the clippers again. By the time she turned me around again, most of my hair was gone. I haven't had hair this short in 50 years, just after basic training. I think there was a communication failure.

By the time we got to the Fry's across the street, it was not a good afternoon. We did the rest of our shopping, stopped at the local UPS store to send a package and were back on the highway, I-10, just in time to run into traffic. By the time we got back to the refuge it was after dark. We decided that north Tucson was not a good idea. Next week we will be back to our old haunts.

Saturday, we found out that the government was being shut down due to the yellow clown and that the refuge would close down after Sunday, when the funding expired. We would be allowed to stay on the refuge at the Outpost, but would not be able to work, go into any of the refuge buildings or use any of the refuge vehicles. There would be only two essential staff members and no essential volunteers. Stan, the assistant refuge manager, would care for the quail in the flight pens and Paula would have to come in to care for the quail at the breeding facility. This was a bit disheartening, as we had gladly volunteered to care for the quail on Christmas so Paula could have the day off.

We, and the other volunteers, have an unexpected vacation until it is all over, which will be sometime after Christmas...but who knows when. This may also impact the Christmas Bird Count scheduled for the 29th, as some of us volunteers were depending on the availability of refuge trucks to get out on the back roads of the refuge. Oh well...

Today, we went back to Florida Canyon with Jess and Suzy, one of the other volunteer couples, to continue our search for the Rufous-capped Warbler. Once again we were unsuccessful. But it was a good day for a hike and we also birded the pond at Canoa Ranch and the Amado Water Treatment Plant and got our fill of ducks.

Tomorrow we might even sleep in and think about what we might do through Christmas.