A Working Co-Op

Part of the privilege of having a home base in Park Sierra is the obligation to contribute to the work of the park, thus keeping our expenses down. Normally, my part is to publish the monthly newsletter, the Speak EZ. And K helps with the weed-whacking in the spring time. We are both on a Board committee which takes up a good deal of our time. Plus we do other jobs which we enjoy doing, like putting on a lunch or dinner for usually over 200 people. That said, I'm going to share with you what we chipped in to do today.

Actually I have to back up to about mid-September while we were crabbing at Winchester Bay. There was a real scare at Park Sierra—a FIRE, which started (by arsons) on the other side of the stagecoach road, a dirt road which borders our property. (It actually was the road in the days when visitors were taken by stagecoach up to Yosemite.) The fire department responded very fast with 5 engines, 20 firefighters, a helicopter, and a tanker airplane, plus a dozen inmates—all working as a team to put out the fire in 4 hours (which had burned about 6 acres). Four fire fighters even spent the night at the park, sleeping on the ground near their engine, just to make sure the fire didn’t start up again. The captain complimented our weed-whackers and brushing crew for doing such a fine job keeping our property well trimmed. It could have been such a disaster. Fortunately no rigs or structures were harmed. The brushing crew is currently hard at work clearing our neighbor’s property 100’ back from our fence-line. And they need all the help they can get. That's where today's post comes in. The work needed to be done included tree trimming and brushing. I decided to join the crew this morning just because there is so much to do plus it was a good workout!

I took these pictures to publish in the Speak EZ to show those members who are not in the park the fire damage.

We were so lucky the fire department got to us so fast.

The neighbor's property hadn't been touched in years. In the past the neighbors would not let us onto their property. I think the fire was a good scare, since we finally got permission.

K (on the left) and I spent the first two hours dragging the limbs up to the road as they were cut by the guys with the chain saws. I want to do that part next time!

Then the next hour and a half was spent feeding the chipper. There I am waiting with my branch! Those green sleeves I'm wearing were given to me by the guy running the chipper to protect my arms. I thought that was pretty sweet.

I was glad K took these pictures of me, because I'm going to use them in the next Speak EZ to get other women out to help.

After our coffee/cookie break as we were rolling down to where we were working, I noticed something moving . . .

I grabbed the camera and zoomed in on him . . . a male tarantula! This is tarantula season and we don't see them very often but we do occasionally. I think we scared this one because he just stood real still and even stood up as tall as he could so we could see how big he was . . . like he was trying to scare us with his size! They are pretty hairy as you can see. I've been told they don't bite . . . some people even keep them as pets—not something I'd ever think about!