The amount of hours that I have to put in each week on the refuge, is a yearly good natured debate that Stephanie, the volunteer coordinator, and I have. She wants me to put in 32 hours/week, and I think it should be 24 hrs/week. To me, 32 hours is practically a fulltime job, and I’m retired! The 32 hours for solos seems to be very common along the Texas coast and at many Arizona refuges. At just about all of the other refuges I’ve volunteered at, I’ve only been required to put in 17-24 hours. So, some weeks I put in 32 hours and some weeks I don’t. There are various arguments to support either position that I won’t go into here. :)
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Anyway, this weekend I put in two nine hour days working the VIS. That’s a pretty good chunk out of my weekly quota! This is not the busiest time of the year for refuge visitors, so I was happy to see this young Cooper’s hawk alight in a nearby dead tree yesterday. He stopped for an afternoon preening session.
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A little while later, this orange-crowned warbler (L), and a common yellowthroat (R) bubbled through the semi live oak trees across the road. I was anxious for my stint to be done because I knew that JOHN AND BRENDA would be arriving at the RV pads in the afternoon from Louisiana. When I was done with work, we met, and I enjoyed a delicious lasagna meal that Brenda had prepared, and a great evening of conversation. As others have said, meeting people in the RV lifestyle or from the RV blogland community is like meeting old friends.
We were so busy chit chatting, that I didn’t even get any pictures. I tried this morning before I headed in for work, but Brenda declined being seen on the blog in her PJs (:)), and John, and their dog Meg, somehow disappeared off of the highway as I tried to catch them on my way into the VIS. Oh well, maybe we’ll meet again some time down the road.
For some reason, I didn’t sleep very well last night so today really dragged by. I was happy to be done.
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Until a red-tailed hawk had the audacity to fly overhead and land at the top of an electrical pole! I guess Emma thought it was a turkey vulture. :) She seldom barks, but when she does she puts her whole being into it! Do you think she knows that if you are going to do something, you should do it well? :) Such expressive antics she goes through.
 |  Tonight’s moon rise and sunset… |
I’m supposed to have the next two days off, but with the Christmas Bird Count on Wednesday, and my normal bird surveys on Thursday, it seems to me I’m going to have to take some time to scope out the new way to get to the survey areas before then. (was that a run on sentence, or just a very long one?) Hmmm, looks like a 32 hour work week to me. :)
Thanks for stopping by…. talk to you later, Judy
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