Lazy day

[torquill]

It's been a long week... I gave myself permission to veg today.

I did drive into Pleasant Hill after breakfast, to check out the Master Gardener Help Desk... the schedule said that it had two MGs on duty, which is a full set, but I figured I could at least check out what was in the "pending" file. I ended up helping with the currently open cases as well, chatting with the MGs (we're always so social, I tend to forget that) and closing three cases by the end. I hadn't worked the desk for about a year, and every time I do it I remember how much I like it. I'm hoping to do it just about every other Friday until the end of term, then maybe more often in summer. They have three stations now, and the warm weather has brought enough work for three people, at least by the end of the week.

The interesting thing was when I overheard one of the other MGs fielding a call about a possible brown recluse spider. I told her afterward that it would be pretty funny if that call was from a friend of mine who had found it in the bathroom a day or two ago.... sure enough, around 11:30 or so pure_agnostic and hopeforyou walk in with a glass jar. At least I had some warning that I might see them; they hadn't known I'm a Master Gardener, I think, so they really hadn't expected to see me. :)

In case anyone else has occasion to use the information: the Master Gardener program is collecting specimens of suspected brown recluse spiders for a project at U.C. Riverside. They'll be shipped to an entomologist for identification, and the people who found them will be told what the spider was. I can't recall how long this is going on for, but I seem to recall it's all summer... since brown recluses are not known to haunt Central or Northern California (their territory tends toward the Southwest) I'm personally interested in whether people are finding them here. I keep being told we don't have them, other than the odd individual, and if they manage to establish a hold here that's something we all need to know about.

I haven't done much of anything for the rest of the day, but since walking the length of the yard and back wore me out, I think that's a good thing. At least I watered the fruit trees, and thinned the tiny nectarines.

Comments

[pure-agnostic.livejournal.com]

Thanks for helping us with the brown recluse spider. I hope the professor at UC Riverside gets back to us with confirmation that we did indeed find a brown recluse.

Good to see you there today - a very pleasant surprise.

[catnip13.livejournal.com]

One of my cousins got bitten by one in Southern California about 15 years ago.