Slave Labor at the Tortoise Reserve
by Mike McCrea
Thursday,
June 20
Arriving at the Bladen County Tortoise Reserve outpost on Thursday afternoon I was treated to a guided tour of the expanded and improved facilities, which now include a library, fully functional bathroom, pole barn, breeding barn and many tortoise pens, ponds and enclosures in various states of completion. The task for the volunteer crew this weekend - move these "incompletes" toward completion.
I have more experience than most in this realm: having received an "incomplete" on a high school field biology project from Dave Lee in 1974 I've spent the last 28 years endeavoring to change this grade. I've helped him build a cabin in the Chiricahuas (1988), reshingled the roof of his home in Raleigh (1991) and built the original tortoise enclosure here at South River (1993). Dave says that if I keep up the good work for another decade or two he'll change that incomplete to a D-. Woohoo, I may get my diploma yet!
Thursday's festivities concluded with a marathon session of aquarium cleaning in the breeding barn, scrubbing glass tanks with one hand while enjoying a frosty libation with another. We finally called it quits at 1:30, wisely pacing ourselves for later nights to follow.
Friday, June 21
Arising at a moderately early hour I discovered that Dave was still abed and, scouting around for a solo project, decided that pounding in the protruding nails on the cabin porch was vitally important. Employing a 20-ounce roofing hammer and a hefty swing produced the desired results - the nail heads disappeared into the deck boards and Dave soon appeared bleary-eyed at the cabin door. Oh, did I wake you, Dave?
Friday's first major task was to set out an array of tools. I had literally filled the back of the van with anything and everything from the shop that I thought might be useful. Next trip I'll bring a few additional items - a chalk line, an additional Skil saw and spare blades, Sawzall, and various sized clamps.
Dave appeared to have taken the expedient tool provisioning method of spending $19.95 at K-mart. With the exception of a Skil saw (more on this later) and a bent step ladder Dave doesn't own a tool that can't be bought in a Dollar General store.
First task of the day - install 20-some breather vents in the exterior walls of the library. Half-inch drill, circle cutter, stepladder and elbow grease did the trick. Finding the aluminum breather vents to be a tad smaller than the holes it was necessary to caulk these pieces into place. Standing atop the ladder with Dave serving as caulk-man below I tested Dave's construction IQ by suggesting that he use Hard-As-Nails in lieu of caulk and, more importantly, that he spread the Hard-As-Nails on the vent caps using his fingers.
Well, duh there, eh Dave? That makes us almost even for the night I spent in the Irish Grove marsh, crouched amidst the spartina grass and mosquito clouds, waiting to throw my weighted net over an Oyster Catcher...whose range, I realized after some hours of blood letting, does not extend into Southern Maryland. Not quite even though...maybe if I'd had you spread that Hard-As-Nails with your tongue. Or some other appendage.
As additional volunteers began arriving Dave took each and every new arrival on a guided tour of the facilities before putting them to work. Not only was Dave being a good host, but also this had the additional benefit of fully occupying Dave's time throughout the day, so that he was unable to wield a posthole digger, trenching shovel or other instrument of manual labor. He's not as dumb as he looks, the Hard-As-Nails incident notwithstanding.
The major task for new volunteers was to shovel dirt around the edges of the plastic pond liners. Several tons of dirt. Noticing that we had a dozen shovels and an equal number of shovelers, I somehow anticipated a frenzy of dirt slinging akin to the roadwork scene in "Cool Hand Luke". Glancing up towards to ponds-to-be from my finish carpentry work I saw no such activity. What I saw looked less like Cool Hand Luke and more like a modern day State Highway crew - six people, five leaning on their shovel, one slowly and desultorily pitching dirt. Admittedly, by the end of the day most of the ponds had been filled in, but this may have been due more to naturally occurring erosion and less to any volunteer activity.
Not everyone was ensnared in manual labor. Alex spent a full day waiting patiently in the breeding barn before discovering to her disappointment that this facility was in fact specific to the servicing of fecund tortoises. Still, a day spent watching tortoise porn beats a day with no porn at all.
Finding the Breeding barn an unexpectedly lonely outpost Alex moved on to furnishing the Yellow-marginated turtle compound with an artful arrangement of native flora (Dave: "I thing those ferns would look better on the other side"... "No, not that other side Alex, the other other side") Despite the fact that the new turtle compounds were surrounded by heaping mountains of freshly dug dirt, Dave managed to convince Alex that she needed to schlep all the way down to the river, dig up dirt there, and then transport it back to the turtle compound. Can you say "Snipe hunt" Alex?
Assisted by the best and brightest of the volunteer staff, Arthur and Char, I managed to complete the bulk of the trim work inside the library building
Saturday, June 22
The morning started out with that most necessary of activities - brewing up the 20-cup pot of coffee and making the rounds of scattered and sleepy volunteers while Char waved the coffee flag and Arthur proffered the eagerly awaited pot of java. Char and Arthur were a most welcome sight to our caffeine-starved cohort.
Additional volunteers continued to arrive, and Dave continued to conduct increasingly lengthy tours of the Tortoise Reserve facilities, again preventing him from doing a lick of work all day. In the tradition of the Reserve's Semi-Successful Task Completion Dave made the first beer and ice run, returning with a truckload of ice (successful) and Budweiser (unsuccessful).
Saturday's major volunteer task was to construct an enclosure surrounding the library building, walling off the crawlspace and erecting perimeter fencing. Since my Skil Saw was being employed in cutting the remaining trim work for the library it was necessary to fire up Dave's Skil Saw, whereupon it was discovered that, due to some sentimental attachment, Dave's saw still has the same blade we used to construct his cabin in the Chiricahuas 15 years ago. This blade might be of use in cutting Styrofoam, or slicing bread, but it wouldn't make a dent in a two-by-four. If you're wondering what to get Dave for Christmas I'd suggest a new blade for his saw. Seven inch. Carbide tipped, since he'll no doubt expect to get 15 years use out of this one as well.
A minor scare ran through the collective workforce when the well pump died and the thought of a toilet that wouldn't flush and a shower that wouldn't spray ran miserably through the field hands. Fortunately, Dave had saved enough money by purchasing cheap beer to be able to afford the local plumber's Saturday rates and we were soon back in the graces of modern amenities.
Other minor inconveniences endured on Saturday included occasional rain - shoveling mud instead of dirt, cutting wet wood - and the variety of stinging and biting insects that appeared after the rain ceased. Winged fire ants...what'll they think of next?
Saturday's festivities concluded with a Silent Auction, which raised over $500 for the Chelonian Research Foundation's Turtle & Tortoise Newsletter. The bidding for Alex started at seventy-three cents and remained there until Alex herself upped the bid to $50.
Actually, Saturday's festivities stretched on long into Sunday morning. The more rational minds amongst us retired shortly after midnight, but a select group was up and about until sunrise. Hearing this stalwart group wander past my tent at 5:00am, mumbling about taking a hike down to the river to tease the water moccasins, I knew that no matter how bad I looked or felt upon arising at least a few folks were going to be in far worse shape.
Alex at least had some excuse, as she had paid good money for herself and wanted to get the most out of her $50. The "D" boys however should have known better, and by dawns early light had been reduced to complete incoherence, gesticulating wildly and speaking in tongues. A traditional Sunday morning down south...if you belong to a snake-handling backwoods Baptist congregation. Alleluia Alex, Hosanna D-boys, demons come out, heal these poor wretches!
En route to a much needed post dawn nap D-boy Danny demonstrated a classic camping pick-up move by crawling into the wrong tent, Valerie & Kristen's tent, of course. An understandable mistake, since at this point Danny couldn't see a tent, couldn't spell "tent" and, in attempting to say "tent", mumbled something like "tageebuhfl".
You boys should know better than to try to keep up with Alex.
Sunday, June 23
Escorted by my young helper Char we once again made the rounds, flying the coffee flag and offering wake-up juice to the needy. The neediest of the needy, Alex and the D-boys, were deemed beyond the point where a simple stimulant like coffee could be of use and, our only viable alternative being to hit them with the Epinephrin syringe from the bee sting kit, we decided to let sleeping turtle preservationists lie.
The library enclosure team was soon hard at work, led by an indefatigable Canadian migrant worker, and John and Jim teamed up to handle the all important clean up of the area, trash collection, tool resorting, scrap wood organization and the like. When they were finished the grounds and buildings looked their best. Ever, as in since years before we arrived.
Packing my tools in the van I took stock of what we had accomplished: Breather vents in the library walls, 10 installed, 18 to go...dirt shoveling, only a few ponds left to do ...finish carpentry on the library, done except for the window and gable vents... painting the bathroom, incomplete... tile floor in the bathroom, not even started... library tortoise enclosure, incomplete, ran out of materials... landscaping the pens that surround the breeding barn with native flora, not even close to finished...
And so the tradition of Semi-Successful Task Completion was once again upheld, and plenty of work remains for the next batch of volunteers...hint, hint.
Epilogue -
Some of us drove home (8 hours to the Pennsylvania line). Some of us flew home (11 hours to Boston). Seven of those eleven hours were spent detained at the Raleigh airport, a consequence of having been the high bidder for a pair of captive bred tortoises at the silent auction and of Arthur's ill-time question to Leslie as they passed through airport security - "Mommy, are you gonna tell them about the turtles in your carry on?"
Mike McCrea still routinely
searches high and low for the Fuller Brush man in a quest for
the perfect teasing comb.
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