May 4, 2014

Ok, I say this every time I post.....where has the time gone?  It it May the 4th....and
May the 4th Be With You!

The last month has been uber busy, as always.

I have done LOTS of workdays, sometimes back to back Saturday and Sunday.  Huge workdays where I chainsawed to keep over 100 people busy and the usual small workdays.  I even had a Tuesday workday for the "Usual Suspects" with a lunch afterward.  The Tuesday workday was one of the first of the garlic mustard spraying season and we had a good number of "Suspects" comb a large area of HCB with tank and backpack sprayers.  After several hours of spraying, we all headed back to my house for lunch of my crock pot pulled pork and various other side dishes.  Yesterday I was back spraying as the weather of rain in the forecast just about every day put a real kink in the spraying works. 

I also helped do another burn at Lily Cache Prairie on 4-8-14.  The last time we burned the South Unit and this time we burned the North Unit.  The North Unit went faster and burned completely.  After the burn we went back to my favorite BBQ place nearby called Baby Back Blues. It was a little warmer for this burn, but not as bad as some others. 



On 4-11-14 I was called in the AM to assist when the FPDWC decided to burn Hickory Creek Barrens.  That day the weather was much warmer and that is usually a problem for me as I tire quickly in the warm temperatures.  That burn went fairly quickly also and a good portion of the preserve got a much needed clean out.  There were several areas that I would have liked to see burned, but either it was not in the plan for the day or the areas simply didn't catch because of too much water. 


I stayed behind to monitor burning piles and what not after the crew left and got a surprise on the east end as one of the runners on the trail told me about a fire advancing toward the trail.  I knew that the fire would not go anywhere, but people tend to get a little crazy when they see woods burning...so I used my feet to make a fire line and then stamped out the flames as they got small when they hit that line.






I put together a RFT helmet for a friend doing that costume.  It went pretty smooth.  I tend to be more nervous and critical when I make things for others rather than for myself.  I recycled my Hoth Commander costume to another member and that costume got finished and approved and debuted at C2E2.











I had intended to go to C2E2 only on Saturday, but as usual, many other things came into play and flushed my plan down the toilet.  The main thing was that Saturday of C2E2 was also the big Comcast Community Workday at Whalon Lake and my chainsaw services were needed for that.  So, I ended up going to C2E2 on Friday and Sunday. 

On Friday I got down to McCormick Place REALLY early as we were asked to appear on the CBS 2 Morning News which starts at 5:00 AM.  I ended up getting downtown at around 4:00 AM and made my way to meet up with the rest.  Suffice it to say it was an interesting morning.  The live tapings for the the news ended at 7:00 AM and then I had many hours to kill before the Con opened at 11:00 AM. 




Surprisingly, things went pretty fast.  I wore my Endor Commando costume and participated in the "Meet the Rebel Legion" panel that was given.

I returned to C2E2 on Sunday and was supposed to do the "Running of the Hoods".  Unfortunately, one of the other Hoods didn't make it and the 3rd Hood had already done it on Saturday, so I didn't get a chance to run with my ice cream maker.  I really felt bad about missing that as it looked like the Saturday Hoods had a great time of it.  I wore my X-Wing Pilot on Sunday in case we actually did do the Running of the Hoods. 

I have been doing a little work in the yard, but not much.  I did sow the carrot, beet and turnip seeds in the vegetable garden and they are up.  I also mowed the lawn for the first time and planted a bunch of milkweed plants that I had ordered awhile back.  The milkweeds are an effort to attract more Monarch butterflies to my yard and give them some additional larval food sources.