I'm a Big Liar

As if you all didn't know, I'm a big liar. "I'll see you tomorrow" and here it is weeks later. Please forgive me. Here is a quick run down on what's been keeping me away from you my faithful reader, uh, I mean readers.

Our Executive Director has resigned to become a stay-at-home-dad. What an adventure! It will make managing the Gardens seem like a piece of cake. We wish him well.

We are doing a lot of really great improvements in the butterfly house. Unfortunately that means that we don't have any butterflies at the moment. It looks like it will be a couple more weeks before we'll be done. The Butterfly Wranglers are practicing their roping techniques in the meantime.

We are working on the structural elements for our new native plant garden. There is a lot of heavy equipment in the gardens. Have I already mentioned that I got to ride in a dumptruck? It was fabulous! We placed rocks yesterday and the day before. It it amazing how a backhoe operator can just pluck up a boulder and set it down right where you want it. The plants will be showing up in about 3 weeks. Yay! Yikes!

The NRCS came out today and did an incredible workshop on revegetation planting. I got to use this bright yellow 8 pound drill to plant willows with. I loved that the safety tip for it was "Now this drill will keep spinning if you hit rock so take your thumb off of the power or it will spin you around." Sounds like a carnival ride. I know the guys all know this and probably a lot of you gals out there too but power tools are fun. However, it was nothing compared to the huge augur that NRCS Keith operated to dig the planting holes for the cottonwoods. I was a little nervous because you have to put the tree in as the augur comes out of the hole or the hole fills up before you can plant the tree. Like 99.9% of worry, it was for nothing. It went in slick as a whistle. You have to be careful though or the augur will hit you in the head. Revegetation is dangerous. Who knew?

The Gardens almost burned down Sunday night but thanks to the firefighters, policemen and BLM crews they contained the fire that started down on the river and put it out before it did too much damage. Sounds like not a big deal but you should have seen the flames and the wind. It was awful and headed right for the Gardens. I was there watching the flames get closer when the police evacuated the area. There wasn't anything I could do so I was trying to be logical about it. The damage wouldn't be too bad really. It is early spring. A good fire would probably clean everything out. And hey the Arizona Cypress would germinate seeing as how they need a fire to do that. I freaked out anyway. But they got it under control, I don't know how they did it but they did. Boy am I happy. We still have a garden. They did a great job.

Well boys and girls I think that is enough excitement for one day. Catch ya next time.