Back to work and computer woes

I’ve spent a good share of this week going through orientation and training sessions for my stint here at Imperial NWR.  Not too exciting going through all the policies and such, but it’s necessary. 

Then this morning, we had our first batch of school children visiting the refuge.  My work schedule is Sunday through Tuesday, but we all pitch in to give these kids a memorable experience whether or not it’s a scheduled work day.

My assignment was to man the overlook, and talk about beavers and coyotes.  We have both species on the refuge.  I had pelts and skulls, and decided to make it a lesson on omnivores and herbivores.  Apparently there’s no set curriculum, so we just play it by ear.  I’ve heard that Arizona ranks very low in education, and it’s my opinion that if they don’t have any set learning standards then it’s no surprise they’re not doing well.

Their first stop was to take the Painted Desert Trail, and then come to the visitors center.  If you look closely you can see all the solar panels on the roof of the VC, and the roof of the picnic area in front of it.  Behind the flag you can also get a glimpse of a trailer in the volunteer village.  We don’t have far to walk each day to get to the VC, but quite a few of us use our bikes to get to work.  I took this pic from the overlook towards the VC across the wash.

This is the view from the overlook towards the Chocolate Mountains.  There are two scopes here to look for things, but I have to say that there’s not much to see.    It’s a great spot for me though, as there’s a bit of a breeze and shade.  One of the teachers told me that these kids mostly come from low income families, and seldom get a chance to go anywhere.

Here they come up the walk!  The student body was just about all Hispanic, and all the kids were bilingual.  So were the teachers.  I was jealous of that fact.  I wish I knew more Spanish.

Their excitement with being on the refuge was contagious, and they politely waited in line for their turn at the scope.  For a bunch of fifth graders, their behavior was pretty exemplary.  I’ll be working with more kids from this school for the next three or four Fridays, and I’m really looking forward to it.

As far as the computer woes goes, I’m really just having problems with Google and Blogger.  Everything has been working fine until this morning.  It’s been touch and go to get to my email.  Mostly I get a message that the computer is “establishing secure connection”, whatever that means, and then it tells me Gmail is not available at this time.  If I go to my Blogger Dashboard, I get the list of all the blogs I follow, but can only read the first paragraph of each post.  If I click on a blog, it just says loading, and nothing happens.  I’m hoping it will all resolve itself by tomorrow.  Anyone else having this problem?  I don’t even know if I’ll be able to publish this post.  I’ll just have to see what happens.

Thanks for stopping by… talk to you later,  Judy

P.S.  It’s now Saturday night and I’m going to try to post again.  Still have trouble…