Kim finished in 54:38 by my stopwatch. Made it in under an hour which
was his goal. Yay! However, he didn’t
get a trophy or medal this year because they did the age brackets
different. Instead of 65 and older, the
last bracket was 55 and older. Too bad
because he might have been the oldest participant there. But meeting his time goal and living to tell
about it is better than a trophy.
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Went back to camp to change our clothes, apply sunscreen and head to
Marana to help with the Burrowing Owl Project happening out by the Water Reclamation
Facility. We knew we’d be about an hour
late but were assured by Steve, the volunteer coordinator, that it wouldn’t be
a problem. Arrived just as the demonstration
of how to build a burrow was ending, so when I approached Greg, the head
honcho, he told me that we could get on the job training with him.
He’s retired, has been volunteering with Wild At Heart Raptor Rescue for
about 25 years and has been focusing on the Burrowing Owl relocation project
for most of it…basically, in charge of it. He designed the artificial burrows
and has made adjustments as necessary over the years to foil the predators. Badgers, rattlesnakes, and gophers are some
of the animals he mentioned that have either gotten into the burrows or
destroyed them. He was very meticulous in his instructions on building the sites,
but it was easy to remember. So, all
this is to say that the Burrowing Owl Project is his baby.
The burrows will be underground with only the entrance hole
visible. Each site contains two burrows,
which are each half of a 55-gallon plastic drum. The drums halves are set back-to-back,
each with its own entrance…so it’s basically an underground owl condo. Access is through about 12 feet of 4” diameter
flexible sewer line (tubing). There is about a 5’ section of PVC pipe around
the entrance end of the tubing…the other end is attached to
the drum through a hole drilled in its side.
But, first, one must level the ground but in a sloping manner and gopher-proof
the bottom of the burrow before setting the drum in place…gopher-proofing is
accomplished by laying a section of chicken wire on the ground, covering it
with dirt which then forms the floor of the condo unit. When that is
accomplished, the drum is set in place. Attach one end of the tubing to the drum,
run it up to the entrance, into and out of the PVC pipe and commence with badger-proofing
the burrow. That involves hammering a piece of rebar into holes already drilled
into the PVC and using various types of wire laid just so over both the black
tubing and the PVC…don’t forget to tighten everything down by twisting the wire
around the rebar and the bolts, then securing it on the bolts with washers and
nuts. And don't forget the end caps to keep snakes and other critters out of the burrow. Last three things to do: 1. Spray paint the ends of the PVC pipe black,
so the pipe doesn’t become brittle under the hot sun…2. Spray expanding foam
into pre-drilled holes in the PVC pipe to form a barrier around the black
tubing…3. Tap covers onto the rebar, so no humans get impaled. The dirt will be filled in with a backhoe
later.
We watched
Greg do one burrow, giving us detailed instructions, then we finished the
second burrow ourselves. But he had forgotten to tell the other volunteers
about the black paint and spray foam, so as he scurried off to check on the
other volunteers’ progress, he mentioned that maybe we could do the painting
and foaming for the other sites. Sure,
no problem. Except…when he saw that we
had started spraying the foam in the holes, he said that he wished we’d waited
for his instruction before starting. When
I off-handedly said that Kim knows what he’s doing, he said, “No, he doesn’t”
before hurrying over to Kim. I don’t know
exactly was said but Kim wasn’t happy at how he was treated…and it turns out that
he was spraying the foam in the holes correctly. Like, is there a
wrong way to do it?
Yeah, that sort of put a damper on what was supposed to be a fun
experience. We finished out the day by
painting, foaming, and tapping the rest of the finished burrows in the first
field. Today’s work was finished about 2 o’clock; there will be a total of 24
burrows built over the weekend. I’ve
told myself that Greg’s micromanaging is just part of the story and won’t take
the joy out of what we did today…that meeting the other volunteers and doing whatever
we could to help the project is what matters.
But I hesitate to ask what Kim’s telling himself about the experience.
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The burrows being built today were not only replacing old burrows, but they are being built on the same locations as the old ones. The previous burrows were dug up which meant that old tubing and PVC pipes were laying around the dirt piles. At the end of his burrow building demonstration, Greg mentioned that rattlesnakes love to crawl into the PVC pipes so be very careful when moving them and walk with a hoe out in front of yourself to keep them from striking. It didn’t take long before a loud “Oh, Shit” rang through the air with someone asking, “Did you find a snake?”
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Coolidge Days means fair food and fry bread tacos are more likely to be
available on Saturday than Sunday. I
know this from experience. So, about 4 o’clock,
we headed back to Coolidge for supper. A
whole lot of running around today, but Kim did his 5K and got to see a rattlesnake, we helped the owls, and I
got my fry bread taco. It was a good day!
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Sky is clear, so the telescope’s in use.
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