Written by: Kristina Pechacek
The start of this week was very interesting. Through looking forward to the weather plans for the week. It was going to be torturous with the heat and the humidity. This week we were going to have heat index being well over 100 degrees for several days. Monday was really nice, because we got to sleep in a little later. Monday was the day we got to give our presentation for the Japanese Interns. The Dunes Team 2 did a good job presenting to them. Mostly talked about what the beginning of the day is like and the tools that they would be using. Along with that information, they talked about personal protective equipment that we would be using in the work field. Team 2 also talked about the job hazard assessment and the most important part by taking 5 for safety. The Japanese Interns Emi and Wakana were quiet but they seemed to understand what was being said and talked about. Then we decided to take a break and play an activity, it was so hot but so much fun.
On Tuesday it was much hotter, we started the day out a little later and did a walk through on how to install the plants we work with. Patrick went with Emi to show her the poisonous plants so that way she didn’t touch them by accident. Which, the whole team has done accidently several times, so knowing those plants for her would be very beneficial. Going through the day and getting ready to start, Carolyn was showing Emi what the tools did and why we were planting in this area, following what we were planting. Emi became ill from the heat, she was just exhausted already from the heat and it was only 8:30am, luckily she made a quick recovery after drinking more water and taking a rest. So you can see how hot it got so fast in the morning. I feel we should start work at 3am instead of our normal 6am because it gets so hot so fast recently that it just drains everybody. Especially our water! By noon we were pretty much out of water out of our several gallon water cooler jug. Throughout the rest of the day was slow just because of the heat.
On Wednesday we had the day off because of the holiday. That was really nice, also because we had an extremely hot day again of around 100 degrees. We decided to have a fourth of July lunch with the 2 teams together. We had potato salad, burgers, lemonade, corn, watermelon. All the most American food we could think of for Emi and Wakana to try. Through the rest of the day we hung out at the pool and cooled off, but when that wasn’t even enough we went inside in the AC to watch movies.
On Thursday we got a very nice surprise from Adam our team leader; we got our SCA backpacks. They are so nice and I’m so happy to have my pack now. I’m afraid to use it in fear of getting it dirty because it is so nice. We packed up the plants for the day and the water to head to the field. We also brought herbicide so that way 3 could plant and 3 could herbicide. Jason, Patrick and I herbicide in a new part of the unit and Adam, Emi, Carolyn planted in the same unit just in a different section for safety reasons. We got a lot of planting in and a lot of herbicide work in so we have more room to plant later. But by 11am it had reached 95 degrees and humidity was extremely high. For a good example of what that’s like, picture taking a shower and then think about that just being your sweat that is how high the humidity was. You are literally soaked in your own sweat a very uncomfortable feeling. So we called it quits, because it was only going to get worse from then on that day. Despite how hot and humid it was to lead to such a depressing blog. I’m happy to say we still got done a huge section of herbicide for future planting and a lot of planting in our old sections, also that Emi is picking up planting very quickly. Hopefully next week won’t feel like Death Valley mixing with high humidity!
