Work Party #4, 2016

Saturday, 27 August 2016

The reminder for work party #4 did not bode well when 60% of the board of directors bailed out of participation.  With that for a start, we figured we'd be lucky to get 10 or 15 members to the work party.  We had, however, 26 participants including 22 adults, 3 Boy Scouts, and 1 junior member applicant.  Coffee was on at 7:30 AM, and Jim Burdett brought the doughnuts at 6:30 AM on his way out of town.  The new food servers - Grizzly Mountain Cafe - catered lunch for the first time, and their food was well received.  Very tasty.  Members fortunately brought a number of tools (saws, shovels, hammers, etc.), as there were a number of small individual tasks to be done.

The following are the tasks that were done:

• Cleaned up the trap houses, and restocked them with targets.
• Picked up unbroken birds for the users of the manual trap machine.
• Picked up shot from the ground cloth.
• Pulled weeds out of the ground cloth seams.
• Mowed the park, and spread 3.5 bags of fertilizer on the lawn areas.
• Filled the water pots at the east end of the park.
• Cut off the old chicken wire (beaver protection) that was wrapped around the ash trees at the east end of the park.
• Trimmed trees and brush along the east side of the Molalla Forest Road.
• Posted the new "Active Shooting Range" signs around the perimeter of the club property.
• Cut more logs into fireplace rounds, to be split later.
• Built 4 new target board frames for the 100 yard range, and replaced 6 target boards..
• Picked up trash on the 50 and 100 yard ranges, and emptied all trash containers.
• Deployed yellow jacket spray in every hole we could find to kill the little pests that were bothering our industrious workers.
• Dug (again, for the third or fourth time) a trench between the clubhouse and pavilion to bury power and water pipes (see below).
• Trimmed brush and knocked down a couple of split cedar trees on the west property line.

The saga of the trench deserves special mention.  Member Charles Fuller "volunteered" to dig the 26" deep, 30 foot long trench by hand, and he uncomplainingly picked and shoveled alone for about 2.5 hours.  Upon viewing how much he had accomplished by himself, he was given more help - members Jim Casey and Mike Patton - to give him some relief and assistance.  The three of them labored along, without much more than a few beers until the lunch break, and then they went back to work.  They were joined by members Steve Shepherd and Kevin Starrett, and junior applicant Jack Starrett (mostly on the tractor).  Things were progressing nicely until they discovered a water line buried where they were digging.  After an unsuccessful search for shut-off valves, power to the well pump was shut off, and the nearly finished trench was bailed out.  The water line was repaired, and the schedule 40 water and electrical pipes were laid, and the trench was refilled.  The normal 4 hour work party was streched considerably, and the hardy (and sweaty and wet) workers finally finished at 3:00 PM Saturday afternoon.  One hopes they retired to a cool place with adult refreshments, and contemplated their accomplishments, and anticipated a few aches and pains for the next day.  Please thank the members for their work when you see them.

Members who participated in the work party include (new members names are marked by an asterisk):  Feras Aburub*, Rick Bair, Berny Baustian*, Jeremy Boyd, Don Burton, Mike Butler, Jim Casey, Mike Cubbage, Wilson Davenport*, Charles Fuller, Cindy Gonzalez, Greg Marshall*, Jack Palacios (Troop 194), Jason Paolo (Troop 194), Mike Patton*, Richard Phaneuf, Bob Ray, Bruce Robbins, Jim Robertson, Steve Shepherd, Casey Silbernagel*, Mark Spickelmier (Troop 194), Kevin Starrett and Jack (son).  The names of the Boy Scouts from Troop 882 will be added as soon as they are known.