National Public Lands Day

Well, it was my first NPLD, but it went well. I had two volunteers, and we stumbled into a very dense thistle population:

From npld08

With our bounty:

From npld08

haiku...

Anne's big summer of
maintenance - just don't call her
"Reinemachefrau"

Farewell, funniest of seasonals. The Ukraine is getting one of our best.

On a lighter note...

The new equipment arrived for the "Fishing is Fun" project. It's actually simpler to operate than the mini-excavator we had earlier this week. Just much, MUCH bigger.

From fif

The Unnamable

My week was dominated by processing human waste. Accordingly, there will be no pictures today.

Highlights include:
1) Learning that everything about the evap toilets is counterintuitive. They don't just need some wood shavings - they need to be filled. They don't just need a little sprinkling of water every so often, they need regular soakings. When the black water builds up in the bottom of the tanks, and they start to stink, they need more fan, not less.

2) Creating a sanitary procedure for dealing with the evap toilets. In the basement, where the vaults are, everything is set up so that the unlucky visitor can put on gloves, work with tools that will be kept exclusively in that basement, wipe the tools down with a bleach solution, and de-glove before leaving. I'll refine the system.

3) The foulness that is the south restroom vaults. We need trash cans either in the restrooms or immediately outside. It is amazing what people manage to fit down the seats...

Low-hanging Fruit

A lot of people stopped and said "thanks" - this will be a good job for the occasional day when I need a booster.

From roads

I used 3/4" crushed rock from a local mine. $5/ton - very affordable project with good results (so far). We'll see how well it works long-term.