Fire Extinguishers and a Busy Day

My supervisor had asked me if I would gather all the fire extinguishers for the park and have the volunteer at Dayton bring his so they could be re-charged and inspected. Dave, our maintenance specialist, offered to gather most of them since he had to go around the park anyway. I grabbed mine from the residence this morning, and texted him at 7:45 to see if he had gone to Little Washoe yesterday to get that one, because I didn't remember him mentioning it. He had forgotten that one, so I got ready and went out there to get it. The fire extinguisher company was set to arrive at 8 a.m., so I asked Dave if he would keep an eye out for him, and a woman who was going to come in early to buy a pass. I got there shortly after 8 a.m. and dropped off the fire extinguishers, then went in the office to wait.

While I was waiting at the office, a woman came in and asked about a funny noise she had heard a few nights ago. Her daughter thought it was a fox and definitely not a coyote. I thought it could be a Western Screech Owl, but when I played the sound for her, that wasn't it. I said I would have to hear it, and that I was sorry I couldn't help her out. She took some brochures and went on her way. 

I got a phone call from some duck hunters out around Belleview, on the west side of the lake. They reported they had seen a hurt swan, and it later died. They said they contacted NDOW (Nevada Department of Wildlife) and they had said to call a ranger to come pick it up. Normally, we don't handle wildlife (dead or alive), so I got their name and phone number, called the NDOW dispatch number and passed the information along. Swan hunting is not allowed in that area, so we thought the game warden might want to check it out.

The woman I was waiting for never came in, so by noon I was thinking I better go eat lunch and get out into the park to finish rounds. I usually try to do the whole park in a day--normally in the winter it doesn't take more than half a day to check and clean all restrooms, empty garbage, and pick up litter. There is sometimes fee compliance and I check the fee tubes. Yesterday I did the main part of the park and the southernmost areas, and today all I had was the north side, Belleview, and the campground. It rained and then got really cold, so I had to move some garbage cans into the sun so I would be able to empty them later!

Our water level is rising...but we need a lot more snow if we're going to have a lake this summer!

This is our bulletin board at the Scripps parking lot. It's part of Washoe Lake, but the rest of Scripps is a Wildlife Management Area, managed by NDOW. It looks like I need to get the locks back up on the bulletin board so people stop stealing the fliers and maps!

Scripps bathroom. Not long after I started this job, I rescued a Northern Flicker from the vault of this toilet. I couldn't figure out how to get it out, so I called my supervisor. There is a hatch to open on the back side, which I opened, and the poor bird flew right out.

Sunset tonight behind Slide Mountain.

I'm at the office after dark, so I try to go through and add to my "to-do" list. I forgot I found out we were out of gas today so I need to call tomorrow morning to get the tank filled.

Our Winter Solstice night hike is tomorrow at 6 p.m. so I need to get ready for that. I also have a Christmas-themed slide show coming up at Sand Harbor (Lake Tahoe) on Saturday so I should go over it a few times to make sure I remember it. I usually take candy canes and gingerbread cookies and talk about the history of our Christmas traditions, and show Christmas scenes from around Northern Nevada (Reno, Washoe Valley, Tonopah, Virginia City).

I got home after work, heated up leftovers, put dishes away, fed the cat, and went through some pictures. I'm going in later tomorrow because of the hike, so I'm going into town in the morning for the library and post office (that will be "fun")...

Dead Skunk (Not in the Middle of the Road)

In my last post I said there hasn't been much going on. I can't say that anymore, and I won't complain about nothing going on anymore (I don't really think I was complaining, but still...).

I went home for lunch last Monday, heated up some soup, and went back to work. I didn't notice anything strange. When I got home Monday night, I could smell something outside the mud room, but it wasn't until I went in the house that the smell almost knocked me over! I couldn't identify it at first, it was so strong. My eyes were watering, and my first thought was that I had left the burner on the stove when I heated up my soup! I realized that wasn't the problem, walked through the whole house, and narrowed it down to the front bedroom and living room that were the worst.

I started to get a sinking feeling...I bent down to smell a couple of the heater vents (more on those later) and gagged. I immediately closed the offending vents--three, all on one side of the house. I lit a candle, opened a few windows and turned on a couple fans (kitchen, bathrooms).

My cat kind of liked having the window open.

I texted my supervisor, "I'm 99.9% sure that a skunk died under my house!" That night I slept with the window open.

The next morning, I texted our maintenance specialist (Dave). He said, "uh oh!" and came right over. He walked in the one room I had sealed off (it was horrible) and confirmed that my house did indeed smell really, really bad. We walked around the rest of the house, out to the street, around the house. He thought maybe the skunk had sprayed under the house and then left. Nope. We opened up some of the siding on each side of the house to air it out and made a plan for Wednesday. He was going to crawl under the house and start cutting through the insulation blanket to see if the skunk was on top of the insulation or possibly in the heater duct.

The heater vents: the person who had lived in this house before me told me that when the two sides of this mobile home were put together, "married," the heater ducts on the west side of the house were never connected, so they were just dead. I knew this when I moved in, but I didn't fully understand what that could mean, until the skunk died! It died, it's muscles tensed into rigor mortis, and a few days later, those muscles relaxed. Its scent gland also relaxed, releasing all of that skunk scent under the house and into the heater vents, which brought it right up into the house. (The heater vents are now connected!) All of my clothes, including my work uniform, smelled like skunk, so I went to the store and work smelling. I bought a lot of Febreze candles and a can of spray. I got back in my car, and my car smelled because I had been in it.

I had to do some paperwork and go into town on Wednesday, so I did the paperwork as fast as I could then went to the house to help Dave. I had to go into the bedroom to get my coveralls so I could go under the house and help him find this skunk.

Opening up the skirting. We could see where the skunk had dug under the mudroom and accessed the rest of the underside of the house. The mudroom was added on later, and whoever built it did not add a concrete pad; they built it over dirt. When Dave put the skirting back up, he put it under the mudroom, up against the concrete pad so nothing else can dig under to access the house!

No one truly believed me that there was an actual dead skunk under my house, but Dave was willing to look, and he had a good idea of where to look. Pretty soon I hear, "I see a tail!" I told him he was awesome and ran for some garbage bags. I helped him bag up the skunk (I was probably just in the way), and then took out two more bags of contaminated insulation from under the house. After we stopped at the park dumpster, I took him out to Starbucks for coffee as a thank you.

Thursday I was off, but I spent a couple hours driving around Carson City looking for skunk neutralizing soap while Dave attached the heater ducts. Both of us forgot that we stuffed garbage inside the duct to stop more smell from coming up into the house, so we didn't remember until the next day why there was still no hot air coming up....by the time my husband came home from work Thursday night the smell was so much better! We still spent the weekend washing clothes and renting a carpet shampooer from Home Depot to try to get rid of the remaining smell. There are stiff whiffs here and there but the house is live-able again!

I'm thankful for co-workers willing to help out with such a crazy and not fun situation! He was so impressed that I was there under the house willing to help him out, but he was really doing me a huge favor by finding that skunk!

Winter Has Begun...

I haven't posted anything in almost a month! Except for the past couple weeks, we've managed to stay pretty busy with campers and day-users. I haven't really been inspired much to post anything because there hasn't been anything different going on. There have been a couple bad messes in the restrooms...my supervisor and I have both cleaned up equally bad "accidents" in the campground restrooms (I did NOT take pictures....) but lately people have been behaving themselves!

This was sunset last Tuesday night. Saying "night" is weird though, because right now sunset happens just after 4 p.m.!

 

It rained most of the day on Saturday and I was off work, so my husband and I drove around the valley looking at the creeks that flow into the lake. There is a lot more water in the lake than there was even a few days ago! Unfortunately that means the rain melted some snow, but hopefully that is a good sign that there will be more snow and precipitation coming this winter.

 

This is Ophir Creek, one of the major water sources coming into Washoe Lake. It was flowing pretty good after all that rain! Parts of Carson City and Reno were flooding and people could go various places to fill their own sandbags to take home.

Davis Creek, on the west side of the valley.

 

This morning I'm heading out to do rounds throughout the park, then I have some filing to do to make our year-end paperwork easier (I try to avoid filing, but this time I can't). I sent an e-mail about scheduling an interpretive meeting with other park interpreters around the state, and took care of our "office cats." Yesterday we had a program at the office--I did a slide presentation about Washoe Lake with a brief history of Washoe Valley and a "tour" of the park. There were three visitors.

 

Jack loves the pellet stove.

 

I've also been writing down new program ideas for the coming year. I'm trying to not schedule so many because we will have several new park aids coming on this year and they will need training and probably closer supervision than I've had to do in the past.

 

I do want to keep the full moon hikes going, and do some bird watching, sunrise and sunset hikes, wildflower hikes, campfire programs, Junior Ranger programs, and a couple slide shows. That doesn't sound like I'm trying to do less, does it? haha--we are also planning to have the astronomers back twice this summer, a Dutch oven cooking class, carp fishing derby, hike to Virginia City (12+ miles), and the normal outreach activities we do every year. We also have field trips that come to the park and both group use areas are reserved most weekends and sometimes during the week.

 

I've got a full moon hike scheduled for tomorrow night. The weather is supposed to be bad (snow and/or rain) so we'll see if it really happens. I only have a few people signed up but I have done a full moon hike with one person before, on Christmas Eve last year!

 

The Winter Solstice Hike is scheduled for Wednesday, Dec. 21 at 6 p.m. The low is supposed to be around 15 that night so we really will have to bundle up! I do have 14 people signed up for that one though. I was thinking it would be a true night hike, with red flashlights so we can keep our night vision to look at the stars and maybe come across some wildlife--here that means we *might* see deer or a coyote and maybe an owl.



Around the Park

Yesterday I took some sick time--my husband's cooking?--but not the whole day. I went in a little late because I had someone planning to come to the office to buy her annual pass. I also wanted to check restrooms in the campground, go out to Bellview for garbage, and check on the two areas on the south side of the lake--the Wetlands and South Beach. I always pick up a lot of cigarette butts at South Beach for some reason. I tell myself that each one I pick up is one less the park visitor has to see. I'm thinking of planning a Facebook post about cigarette butts--how bad they are for wildlife, how they pollute, and how long they take to biodegrade.

I like checking our equestrian areas. Most of the horses are friendly and so are the dogs. The other day when I was out there checking fee compliance, etc, I saw a couple of people riding their horses back to the parking lot. I overheard the woman talking to her dad (she addressed him as her dad later), saying that I (as a ranger) had my role here too. I'm assuming he had said something that wasn't very nice because I was checking for fees, but I was also there to empty the garbage and clean the restrooms. I know a lot of people expect parks and other areas to be free, but cleaning supplies, gas, and garbage bags all cost money and the facilities aren't cheap to maintain. One of the hardest parts of our jobs is helping people to see that, and to understand why they do have to pay for these park areas.

On Sunday, I cleaned up the equestrian group use area after our last group of the year. There is an informal group using the area, including the arena, next weekend but they didn't make a reservation. They just called to make sure there were no groups scheduled when they were planning to come out, because they would plan around those groups.

As I was cleaning campground restrooms yesterday, a magpie was watching me and chirping at me as I worked. I think they like to supervise!

Jack is our solar-powered office cat. He is in charge of catching mice and keeping them out of the park office. He was actually abandoned at the park around 5 years ago and is now very spoiled. He soaks up the sun, has a cat door so he can come and go as he pleases, regular cat food, a litter box, and treats. Our volunteer buys his food and I buy his treats and cat litter. I keep telling him it's a good thing all of that is cheap!

Programs and Other Excitement

Yesterday I had an animal program at Dayton State Park and I had six people! For Dayton, that's pretty good... I talked a little about the Great Basin and the Carson River Watershed, read an excerpt from Adventures of a Nature Guide by Enos Mills about woodpeckers building their nest, showed my Northern Flicker nest, and some pictures of wildlife from Dayton, Washoe Lake, and Fort Churchill. We also took a short walk down to the Carson River to look for wildlife and signs of wildlife.

The Fremont cottonwoods along the river are at the peak of their fall colors right now!

We talked about bat boxes and cottonwood galleries.

Today I had a guided hike scheduled for 10 a.m. The route I chose was to the gazebo above Deadman's Creek, and then into the hills above, in the Virginia Range. The hike is 2.6 miles long, with an elevation gain of approximately 620 feet. 

I was in the office getting ready for the hike, about to leave, when a visitor came to the office at 9:30 saying the dump station was clogged and he wanted to use it...I'm thinking Of course the dump station is clogged right now. I followed him down, unclogged it, and made it to the parking lot (meeting location) with 15 minutes to spare! Is it weird that I'm proud of myself when I get it unclogged and ready for people to use? (hahaha)

There was a person already waiting to use the dump station when I showed up and he asked me questions about the park the whole time I was trying to get it open. It was a little distracting, but today the clog wasn't that bad so it wasn't hard to answer questions while working on it. Sometimes that's not the case....the first time I had to work on it this year, my allergies were killing me, hornets were swarming around the water, and both my supervisor and a park visitor were watching me, waiting for it to be open. After 20 minutes or so I had to give up and we ended up calling our maintenance specialist on his day off to come work on it. The visitor had to go somewhere else for her RV. 

Our maintenance specialist, Dave, told me I probably did not have enough upper body strength to use the hand snake to unclog the dump station...and that's all it took! I was determined to not have to call him on his day off (or anyone else) to do it for me. It worked...the next few times it was clogged, I was able to get it back open! I even had our volunteer tell me it's not my job and that I should call him, but it really is my job--especially when I work alone on Sundays and that's the busiest day for it. People are heading home from camping and come into the park to use the dump station before they make the drive. I figure it uses less gas because their vehicle is lighter afterwards!

This time of year it clogs more than normal because there is a cottonwood tree in the island beside it. The leaves get washed down and build up. We think...know...there is something blocking the pipe between the main hole and the leach field. There is at least one power snake "head" down there and maybe a cap or something from the RV hoses. We have baskets installed now to prevent more from going down there--the dump station at Dayton State Park had to be dug up and cleared out because someone put a plastic "red cup" down there full of rocks, which succeeded in blocking and clogging the whole thing! The plan is to dig ours up this spring and see why it has been clogging so much and fix the problem. I'm definitely in favor of that plan!!

The guided hike went well. There were three people willing to do a "strenuous" hike in November. The weather has been perfect lately. Today I think we had a high of 60 or so. (Yesterday my husband and I drove to Reno after work and there was a convertible with the top down--it was 75 degrees!) My supervisor and I debated whether to call the hike "moderate" or "strenuous" because it's not really a strenuous hike, but I know that people have very different definitions of strenuous. I had a guided hike to the gazebo this spring, a wildflower walk, and had people who were unable to finish the hike (turned around early), and some who did do the whole thing complained that they thought it was going to be an easy walk instead of a hard hike. I decided that the more description I could give, the better, so I used my Strava app on my phone to measure the distance and elevation gain this time, so I could be exact in the hike description. I think it worked this time. I only worried about one person, a man who showed up with a large energy drink can instead of water, but he didn't seem to have any problems on the hike at all.

We saw a lot of deer from a distance, and this guy showed up as we were heading back to the parking lot. It's a Jerusalem cricket but I have also heard them called "potato bugs." I got to point out a couple of long-eared owl nests along the way. The visitors were interested in seeing the wild horses, but they didn't show up today.

Carson River Snapshot Day

This morning I went to Dayton to help with the Carson River Snapshot Day. The Carson River is a terminal watershed, meaning that its water will never reach the ocean. It starts in Alpine County, California, and ends east of Fallon, NV in the Carson Sink. Each year, volunteers meet on one day, from 9 a.m. to noon, and sample the water. We take several samples that get sent to the state lab for testing. This happens throughout the watershed, beginning to end. We also write out observations, like water color, odor, drainages, inputs, pollution sources, and more. I think this is the fourth year I have been involved and this year I got to work with a representative from the Dayton Valley Conservation District. We had nine high school chemistry students plus their teacher.

Sometimes the river is low enough to walk out to the middle for the sample. This year there is a lot more water so we needed a pole dipper and waders.

The sample comes from the middle of the river, collected upstream from the volunteers so its not polluted with sediment or material washing off waders, etc.

Estimating the width of the stream.

Another shot of measuring the width of the stream. I loved being there surrounded by the fall colors!

Group of volunteers with the site locator--MCR-DAYT (Middle Carson River, Dayton Bridge)

Rob from the Dayton Valley Conservation District talking about water quality and why it's important.

Nevada Day Parade Part 2

Here are the pictures from the Nevada Day Parade:

This is what I was so excited to see. The truck with the ranger hat, eyes, and mouth. This is what everyone saw as the float came their way, and this is what people stopped on the street to pose in front of! We ended up tying for 2nd place.

The outhouse had to be my favorite thing on the float (except maybe my husband). A veteran stopped me on the street and explained that outhouses for women were marked with a moon. These outhouses had hooks on each side for women to hang their skirts and petticoats out of the way!

This is the timeline featuring each state park. I don't have a better close-up picture but I can find one later of the stamp designs.

All dressed up and official for the parade! I've never worn my official "flat" hat, but I have worn the tie before, when the governor and his crew came to the park to talk about the drought (what's a better location for that discussion than a dry lakebed?).

Nevada Day Parade

October 31 is Nevada Day and every other year or so we have a float in the parade. This year the theme was Nevada--Then and Now. I missed a lot of float building and meetings because days off and other activities but I still got to be in the parade! The float turned out pretty awesome. Our mechanic, Kevin, built a giant ranger hat to top the truck, and a mouth like Mater from Cars to go on the front. It even had eyes!

People walking by had to stop and pose with the truck. I think it looked great!

The siding is a timeline of when each state park was designated as a state park. Thanks to our passport program, each park has its own individual stamp, so the stamp designs were used to represent each park along with its date.

Also on the float were camping scenes. This is the "then" side with an old canvas tent, wooden canoe, and Dutch oven over a campfire.

When I upload my pictures, I will add one of me all dressed up for the parade, complete with ranger hat (matching the truck's hat), and a tie!

My job this year was to walk alongside the float and hand out candy, free day passes, and dog-tag necklaces with the Nevada State Parks logo. I was trying to hand the items to the kids and adults when it would have been faster and much easier to throw them at their feet or "sprinkle" them over their heads like my co-workers were doing! Two years ago I was on the float, standing and waving, and it felt like the parade took forever. This year because I was walking and focused on the people, it went by a lot faster! I was sore from the speed walking the next day but during the parade, I really didn't notice how much or how fast I was really walking!

My husband even made it in the parade, on the float as a fisherman dressed in old-fashioned fishing gear, and keeping an eye on the three little girls sitting in the canoe!

We got great comments and reviews of the float, but I haven't heard whether we placed or not. I heard that our floats usually get 1st or 2nd place...so we'll see!

So Much Garbage!

I haven't posted in a while...we've been pretty busy at the park! This weekend we had two groups. Cub Scouts stayed in our main group use area, and the Nevada Painted Horse Club stayed in our equestrian area. We also had a busy campground and some day use!

Yesterday I took out three truckloads of garbage (and got covered in "garbage juice")! One load from each group use area, and one from the campground! I'm hoping to be able to walk around today picking up litter and start cleaning sites again. They look really good when the tables and grills are cleaned, and the site is raked out.

I've been taking over the morning rounds and cleaning campsites because our Park Tech is out sick with a neurological condition (painful), and our Park Aid is painting a residence. One Park Aid is in med school so he only works one day a week right now--since school started. Three of our Park Aids are already gone for the season! This summer went by too fast...

Today I thought I was helping with a field trip just outside of Carson City, but it turns out that field trip is scheduled for October and not September! That will free up a lot of time and I can get some campsites cleaned. I'll also be able to get ready for my program at Dayton on Saturday. I was wondering how I was going to do that with two days of field trips coming up this week!

My next post will have some pictures, but I didn't have a lot of time this morning. I'm trying to work 10 hour days now, so in the morning, I'll have an hour to work on interpretation before everyone gets there. Soon there will only be two of us anyway, but it might work out better. It's worth a try!

Labor Day Weekend

We were pretty busy for Labor Day Weekend. The campground didn't fill up, but it was still pretty busy. On Sunday our Day Use Area was pretty full with people grilling, picnicking, and walking their dogs.

I worked in the fee booth Sunday and Monday mornings; Monday most people that came in just wanted to use the dump station!

I also walked through the campground all three days--Saturday, Sunday, and Monday, picking up litter and checking everything out. I found one fire that hadn't been put out all the way. The ashes were still hot, so I walked over and got a bucket of water for it.

Picking up litter. For some reason, this is one of my favorite things to do in the campground, and throughout the park. I like catching the small, hard-to-see litter like nut shells (they don't decompose in this desert environment), food scraps (same as nut shells), those little square plastic things that come on loaves of bread and packages of hamburger buns...things like that. I know visitors appreciate a clean campsite, just like I do when I go camping!

Most trash that I pick up is cigarette butts. I'm not sure why, but people tend to put all their garbage, including cigarette butts into the fire rings! It is better than leaving trash spread around the campsite and throughout the campground, but if you pay $15-$17 for a campsite, I would expect to find a garbage-free campfire ring! This is one thing that really bothers me when we go camping...

More cigarette butts...and yes, I do take the time to stand there and clean them all out of the fire rings! (Time consuming, but worth it!)

I also found several sites with used toilet paper (yup) around the perimeter of the site, and hidden back in the sagebrush. I did not take a picture of that....you're welcome.....

Park Housing

We just moved into park housing! The mechanic who had been living at the park got engaged and bought a house, so it was open. We just finished moving most of the big stuff...bedroom stuff, dressers, the bathroom, and fridge. The fridge was an adventure....we had to take the handles off the fridge and the doors off the oven because of how the kitchen is set up, in order to fit the fridge into the kitchen. Then we had to put it all back together!

My husband already caught a bunch of teenagers driving out in the sand dunes (not allowed). He went out and talked to them. I saw my supervisor soon afterward, and she went out and talked to them also. Surprisingly, they were still out there!

I will post pictures soon, but the house needs to be painted first. I've been here almost a week now and saw a very cool rainbow! We've had 80-90 days without any precipitation so even though I didn't get rain where I am, it did fall in the valley. It's a start!

I worked in the fee booth this morning and we had lots of questions about the boat ramps and how much water is in the lake. I always say the lake was dry for a year and a half, so now we have more than we've had, even though it's not much at all! I like working in the fee booth because I can get other things done (prepping for an astronomy program) while I talk to the park visitors. I even had people coming in looking for hiking trails today and got to describe my favorite (sand dunes). They walked around for a while, then went up the Deadman's Creek trail.

Last time I lived in park housing, we were pretty isolated. It was 45 minutes away from the nearest town. Now, we live about 5 minutes from a really small city, and about 15 minutes from a normal-sized city. Walmart is right down the hill along with a real grocery store!

Thursday night I did a full moon hike, using an equestrian trail that is around 3 miles long. I had 8 people, including a group of five girls who chatted loudly the whole time. I had been planning to do a "sit and listen" activity, to have everyone quiet for five minutes, observing and listening for sounds of nocturnal animals. At the start of the hike, I had decided not to do it, but after listening to the group of girls for a while, I thought it would be good for this group after all. It worked! Five minutes of silence, except for frogs, crickets, airplanes, and cars on the freeway. It's so quiet in the valley you can hear the cars all the way over on the freeway!

The moon rose and I pointed out that we could all see our shadows. One guy had asked if it would really be lighter once the moon rose. That's why I like doing these hikes--giving people new experiences and showing them something they might not normally see.

The trail I chose started out as a dirt road, turned into a wide trail through tall sagebrush and sand, then turned into a narrow trail in a wide open area with short grass, sort of like a dry lake bed (which it probably was a lakebed at some point). When the moon got higher, the wide open area was lit up and we had a beautiful moonlit view of the valley. It was one of the few full moon hikes where I felt like it turned out almost perfect!

Ordering Supplies, Finding New Projects

Today I am working on ordering the last of our interpretive supplies from the last grant I wrote. I sent it in in May, but it got lost somewhere between signatures, so I am just now trying to finish it up. The grant was for black lights, animal pelts, track replicas, and references like night sky and bird guides. I also really want a program about gold, so I ordered a couple supplies to get me started--a vial of gold and gold pans.

Bird Watching Program

 

Yesterday I posted that my friend Linda brought her history trunk, which I thought was a great idea. I think I am going to send in a grant asking for funds to build and fill two trunks...one for Dayton and one for Washoe Lake. We would use them during park programs and we would also be able to take them into schools with us.

 

I think the hardest part will be deciding how to make it and what to fill it with. We go to a lot of outreach activities (Nevada State Fair, Dayton Valley Days, Capitol City Gun Club, Cabella's, Sportsman's Warehouse) and I think this would be great to bring to get people's attention. I even think that Nevada State Parks could have its own traveling trunk that has something in it to represent each of the state parks...but for now I'm going to stick with Dayton and Washoe!



I also joined the Nevada Day Parade float committee and our first meeting is Wednesday. I'm going to try coming up with a few ideas. The theme is Nevada: Then and Now, and I think we could come up with some really fun ideas. The last parade we were in was the 150th Anniversary of Nevada's statehood and our float was a birthday cake surrounded by people dressed up like historic figures: Mark Twain, Sara Winnemucca, Liberace, and Bugsy Segal.

It's August Already!

I can't believe it's August already, and that the season is coming to an end in a month or so! Labor Day weekend is usually our last busy weekend, but sometimes the week after is busy too. We had an almost-full campground this weekend because of an event in Reno called Hot August Nights--a big classic car show!

Yesterday, I had two programs. One at Dayton State Park about the Carson River, and one at Washoe Lake--an astronomy program with telescopes! A fellow River Wrangler, Linda Conlin, asked to help with the program at Dayton because she needed some environmental education time to put on her quarterly report, so she brought the Carson River history trunk and her maps (which are much better than mine!).

Linda talking about the history of Dayton and the Carson River.

The Carson River History Trunk, complete with an adobe brick from Fort Churchill.

 

We've had several programs this summer, both at Dayton and Washoe, and I've given one at Mormon Station State Historic Park. Participation has been kind of spotty and unpredictable lately. I had three at Mormon Station, two people at Dayton, and only two on my last full moon hike at Washoe Lake. We did have great participation at the Kid's Carp Fishing Derby at Little Washoe and at our Dutch Oven Cooking Class. The Park Interpreters at Fort Churchill and Mormon Station have said the same about their programs. We don't usually cancel the programs though, because even though we might only have a few people, it's great to show we are doing these programs and that they are available for the public!

 

I also can't believe that I've already given out our end of season notices to our Park Aid staff! Because we hired both a Park Aid II and a Park Ranger Technician, our budget was spent faster than I thought it would! We are keeping the Park Tech and a Park Aid into October so we can get more projects finished, but one is finished at the end of this month, and the other two are finished on September 11. It seems like Easter came early this year, so we hired people early, and everything else sped up because of that. We are getting some great projects done this season, including giving our buildings a fresh coat of paint, trails are getting cleared, and bulletin boards are getting re-built.

 

I'll try to post again soon with a better description of our projects. Until then, I hope you are having a great summer and don't forget to watch the upcoming meteor shower this week!

A Hike After Work

Last Wednesday evening, I was going to a workshop with a friend, and I had two hours to use before that, so I decided to go for a walk up to the gazebo on the Deadman's Creek trail. I got to the gazebo, walked around and took pictures of the flowers blooming up there, then decided to follow the dirt road to finally see where it goes.

Phlox is blooming at the top of the trail, and I was feeling creative, so I got down on the ground to take an "ant's eye view" of the flowers with the lake behind them. I admit that I have never smelled a phlox. I never thought about it, but I just read that it's worth getting on the ground for!

 

The dirt road climbs...and climbs...and climbs until it loops back around to meet the return trail. The lake is definitely growing again!

 

The light was perfect on the way back down. It was warm, and I could smell the flowers starting to bloom. I'm SO glad I did this hike instead of going to the library like I had planned to. (I was sore the next couple days from climbing though!)

 

 

Today I spent most of the day in the fee booth with a great view! The park is very busy because it warmed up, so people are out hiking, walking out to the water, and there is a huge group in the equestrian area doing an endurance ride. Our two new seasonal employees did the rounds all around the park and said most parts of the park were just as busy!

Behind!

I know I am so far behind with this blog that it'll be impossible to catch up! We've been through the process of interviewing and hiring seasonal employees. We have three returning and three new. One returning will be a park tech this year, which will take a lot of daily planning away from my supervisor and I...things like who is doing what for the day, and projects to be completed. Another is a Park Aid 2, who will also help with the day-to-day assignments and projects. Two seasonals have already started, another started yesterday, and the last new person starts on Monday. There is a lot of training and paperwork to do, including reading the Seasonal Orientation Manual I wrote up last year. It's got everything I wish I had known when I started at the park!

Saturday was our annual Easter egg hunt, hosted by the South Valley Volunteer Fire Department. We estimated around 250 vehicles with around 750 people! I think it's the biggest one we've ever had! Other parks, like Spring Mountain Ranch, said theirs was huge too. We did almost have a fight after two drivers almost got into an accident while entering the park. Our park supervisor is great at calming people down and making them really think. She also knew the person, so that had to help. I was in the fee booth most of the day, so I cleaned it out, wiped down the counters, and got it *almost* ready for the season. It still needs to be de-winterized and really cleaned, but for that day it worked fine...except that there was no restroom!

I met with another park interpreter and our personnel analyst to go over seasonal paperwork. I had been using a lot of old forms and not getting everything filled out right. It helped to go over all the forms and hear why they were needed. I'm going back Monday for information on hiring new seasonals. Even though I've already done all the new employees' paperwork, it won't hurt, and hopefully we can go over it again before the new season starts next year!

It had been getting warm and flowers are starting to come out, until it snowed yesterday and froze overnight! I need to get out on the Deadman's Creek trail again to see what has bloomed already. We do have some early-blooming flowers that I may have missed already...

One of my favorite wildflowers is Desert Peach. It has already started blooming in a few places in Dayton and around Washoe.

Another of my favorites is Phlox.

 

I am behind in another way too, not just my blog! I started looking for books on the Great Basin, which covers most of Nevada and Utah, and parts of California, Oregon, and Idaho. I was looking for "nature writing" types of books. I just finished Land of Little Rain by Mary Austin and realized that when we moved from Moab to Yerington, I had just stopped reading and researching native plants, local history, and local nature writers. I've been here almost five years now (really, 4 and a 1/2), and I'm just now starting to look for these books at the library and thrift stores. I think that I had gotten to know Moab and the Colorado River, and the plants, history, etc. so well, that when we moved into a new area, I didn't know where to start. The stress with the new job(s), and moving distracted me for a long time. Now I feel like I need to catch up on 4 years of reading Now.

 

I looked at the library and saw that most of the books I want to at least look at are in the reference section and can't be checked out, so that will be good for me to be at the library without many distractions after work for a while, spending time reading about our new-ish area. I'm working on an outline now for a plant program at Dayton this Saturday, so I'm reading a lot about the Great Basin and its plants, especially riparian and upland scrub plants. I'm going to start at the library tonight and tomorrow night to hopefully get a good start and an idea of where I want to focus for now. I'm sad it's taken me this long to get back into reading but I also have been able to learn about the parks themselves and explore a new area, so when I read these books, I'll have a much better picture in my mind than I might have at the beginning!

 

Beach Walk and Reading Day

Yesterday's guided walk was advertised as a short, easy walk along the beach to serve as an introduction to Washoe Lake State Park. I ended up with nine people, one of whom had never been to the park and was new to Carson City (yay!). A few had been to the park but not for years. I decided to make it a loop, because I was planning on talking about the sand dunes, so we made a short loop around one sand dune so I could talk about their formation, preservation, and vegetation. We had perfect walking weather too, just a little breezy and close to 60 degrees!

Coming out of the dunes and back onto the beach.

 

This trail leads from the beach to the Maze, a fairly new kid's area.

 

I had been asked to be part of a local elementary school's reading week program, so today I went into town and read to 23 4th graders for 30 minutes. Even though I was a little worried it was higher than their reading level, I chose Adventures of a Nature Guide, by Enos Mills (1870-1922). I read most of the chapter "Waiting for Wildlife" because as I was reading that chapter in preparation for the event, it made me want to put the book down and go outside, to get to know the wildlife in our park as well as he knew his small meadow in Rocky Mountain National Park. We don't have big wooded forests (and very few trees), but what we do have, I want to know!

 

I definitely recommend the book to anyone interested in this profession--he was one of the first  Nature Guides for Rocky Mountain National Park, sort of paving the way for all of us as Park Interpreters!