Recycling Christmas Trees

To start the day off, I did everything right.  Knowing we were in for some extremely low night temperatures,  along with running the propane furnace, I went and put two droplights in my two wet bays to protect the water system.

I disconnected the outside water hose after topping off the onboard water tank.

  I did everything right, but it turned out wrong.  The Journey’s water system still froze up. 

We awoke to the lowest temperature we’ve ever seen in the Journey.  This was at 8am, overnight it was in the single digits.  (Just ignore the time number on the bottom, never can keep that time set right.  The outside number is in the middle.)

I decided to see if the water system would thaw itself out as the day “warmed” up.  Fortunately it did with no damage. 

Of course, on the coldest day of the year (so far) we headed out to help in the COE annual project to recycle discarded Christmas trees.

One of the nearby schools is the drop off point for trees.  The trees are loaded onto trucks and then dumped off at all the boat ramps around Thurston Lake.  Fishermen happily take the trees, weight them down and them dump them at various points around the lake.  These trees provide cover for fish and increase the populations immensely.  It’s a hugely popular program for fishing recreation and the trees naturally degrade over the year. 

But first the trees have to be loaded on to trucks to be transported.  That’s where we, and most all the volunteers came in.  Of course, we all bundled up to ward off the cold.  Marti was wrapped in a whole bunch of layers.  If she ever fell down, she’d never be able to get herself up without help!  :c)

There were well over a thousand trees dropped off.  

Every size and shape as well as color were in the huge pile.  Some even had that fancy simulated snow sprayed on them.  Don’t worry, it is harmless and biodegradable.

We loaded truck after truck with trees.

We even had a huge tractor trailer truck come.  In no time we filled it up with a bunch of trees.

While we waited for more trucks to fill, we dragged and stacked trees close to the curb to readily fill the next available truck.

Mike actually looked like he was having fun!  Maybe he missed his calling as a lumber jack?

We worked for over six hours dragging, loading and stacking trees on trucks. 

At the end of the day, it looked like we had moved a little over half of the trees.  We’ll be back on Thursday to finish the job.

We slept good last night.  The 800mgs of Motrin I took sure helped the aches and pains despite being very careful of my back and shoulder.  I sure can’t do what I used to, it was nice to have many younger park rangers to do most of the heavy lifting.

Thankfully, we didn’t have the water system freeze on us.  The past two nights, we’ve used over half of our full onboard tank of propane.

Below forty degrees, the Journey’s electric heat pump automatically shifts over to the propane furnace.  Hopefully, the days and nights will warm up more so I can use the little portable propane tank that I have hooked into the Journey that I can easily refill instead of having to drive the Journey into Augusta, GA to get the tank filled.  About a 36 mile round trip.

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