It’s me again. You’re probably getting tired of the steady stream of blog posts. Oh, wait. Those are the ones in my head. The ones I didn’t write down. The ones you missed. And they were really great. Too bad. Just rest assured, I enjoyed them very much. But let’s not quibble over the past; let’s move on to the present.

Let’s start with two views of the refuge so you are on the same page with us.

You can see we are in the middle of the desert; this one is the Chihuahuan Desert. The bare desert look and the green creosote bush dominating the foreground are hints that tell you we are dry here. But when you look beyond the dry landscape you can see water, trees, and fields. When we arrived, the fields were dry but have been flooded to manage the vegetation and provide habitat for the migrating birds. The Rio Grande River is somewhere in the middle of the background and is the source of the water. However, the water arrives by canals that take water from the Rio Grande further north of the refuge.

Here is another view. In this picture you can see some crop fields in the background. In the foreground is a marsh. To get the cranes through the coldest months of the winter, corn is planted. The local farmers plant the corn and in exchange they get areas to raise alfalfa which is their cash crop. The refuge has had varied results relying on farmers, but refuge personnel don’t have the capacity to do the farming themselves. The refuge is experimenting with heirloom corn varieties and seems to have found some varieties that are more productive than the standard corn seed bought from the local seed dealer. The other thing you see is a canal. This one is a drainage canal which is taking the excess water that runs off the fields after flooding and returning the water back to the Rio Grande so it can make its way to Texas to avoid lawsuits from Texas. Another story…

The big attractions of the refuge are the sandhill cranes and snow geese. Every Wednesday we get population estimates from the biologist, and last Wednesday there were 659 cranes and several thousand snow geese. We also have at least 8 species of ducks, herons, coots, cormorants, shore birds, and raptors along with lots of different LBBs or little brown birds.

The cranes started showing up at the end of October and so did the volunteers. When we came here in September there was one other RV with a couple volunteering at the VC. Now we have 12 more RV’s including a seasonal person. There are 19 volunteers. Unlike other volunteer gigs we have been involved in, we actually had a formal orientation and training lasting three days. Here is part of the group of volunteers. Our hair is mostly all grey or hardly existing, we walk with an assortment of limps, we all don’t bend at the middle very readily and no one squats anymore, our speed is no longer fast but fast enough for us, and our hearing at times leads to some misunderstandings or in my case no understanding. But we have a wealth of experiences, still as much enthusiasm as a bunch of 3^rd graders getting out of a day of school to go on a field trip, and still get giddy watching cranes fly over. The surprising demographic of our group is the number of single women who drive and pull their own RV’s and love the volunteer full time RV life style. So, see, anyone can do this.