It’s Not Always Glamorous

Although there are lots of fun jobs to do here at J. Strom Thurmond COE, some projects are downright dirty jobs, but important, nonetheless.

After finishing painting all the picnic tables and shelters,

               

we took on the heavy job to finish all the mulching projects around the Corp’s gatehouses, located all around Thurmond Lake.  We dug right in and loaded up several truckloads of wood chips.  Thankfully we had Laura along to help us, she’s a very hard worker.

                

                

It started out as a very hot, muggy day, with threatening rain clouds.  We very shortly were soaked from sweating in the humidity.  Then the rain started, just a soft falling as we worked, which actually made us cool down as we worked.  We decided to push on and keep working.

Some of the gate houses already had loads of mulch dumped next to them so we didn’t have to load the truck up again.  It made the job go quicker.

                

A few gatehouse areas were overgrown with weeds, so we had to pull them first before we spread the mulch.  With the three of us, it went pretty quickly.

It was some hard work, but the results looked great and we had the satisfaction of a job well done.

                 

At some of the gate houses the areas to be mulched were quite small, others were quite large.  So far, between our work and the work the Girl Scouts did on National Parks Lands Day, seven gate house areas have been completed, leaving us just two more  to finish up next week.

We took a day off today, letting our tired muscles and achy bones rest up.  Tomorrow, if the weather cooperates should be a more interesting day, with a completely different project.  We do love the variety of the jobs here, always something to do, even without any pin hunting.  Pin hunting is also on our agenda, but these other higher priorities need to be completed first.

I should point out that there are all types of tasks here for volunteers, and no job is a required job.  You get to pick the type of work you’d like to do, or are able to do.  Marti and I choose to do the more physical work (I do what I can with my limitations and have to be careful not to overdo it) and be outdoors, we let other folks handle the inside jobs that they enjoy, from staffing the Visitor Center, to filing and doing other office related projects.

Who would ever have thought after retiring from our careers and hitting the road fulltime, that we’d be looking forward to and enjoying working again?  :c)

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