I had a good time yesterday with Bret, another CCMGA, at the local Farmer's Market. We met at 11:30am, sat under our little tent starting at noon, but then quickly took everything down when a Dust Devil (microburst) came down and blasted us with sand four hours later . Although we were not harmed and our free hand-outs were tied down with bungee cords, the Co-Op people next to us lost their tent and all their flyers that blew quickly across the street and into a mini-mall's parking lot.
We were busy with passionate new homeowners and gardeners who came to us with all kinds of questions. Our first question came from an elderly couple who were waiting for exactly 12pm to approach us with their personal problem: why was their Pindo Palm showing these brown spots on their fronds when all their other palms were healthy? Beats me! Bret didn't know for sure, either, but he took their names and email/phone number so that a certified MG could assess the problem better. The couple even brought in a frond with the brown spots, which became even more brown from sitting in Bret's SUV while we manned the tent.
Bret doesn't garden but I'm already into it this year, so all the garden questions came my way. Several young couples had moved down from Vermont, Wisconsin, etc and wanted to know the best soil conditions for their gardens. That stuff was right up my alley so I gladly helped them out.
Although sitting under a tent waiting for gardners to approach us with questions is actually a little boring for me (I'd rather do hands-on stuff), I enjoyed chatting with Bret who recently acquired two acres of land near the SP River and who complains about the much cooler temps there. Being so closs to the river and easily a few hundred feet lower in elevation, he has freezes overnight still. Not us!
Jim, an older CCMG came over at 3pm to "check" on us. He saw me photograph a mesquite tree next to our tent that was heavily infested with some scale bug that seemed to eat the buds which caused the mesquite to ooze sap to heal itself. The poor tree also had a few paper bugs nesting on some branches. I came up close to the scale bugs to photograph them and within a few minutes he had me recruited for the next macro-photographer in training. He wants me to talk to him in greater detail at the CCMG office next week so I can start training on a microscope. The person for this training needs to know how to operate a digital camera, not mind hiking out into the wilderness to photograph bugs and other pests, and be willing to learn how to use a camera with a microscope. Sounds like I'm just the right person for that! I have plenty of photographs of lizards, birds and various flora here that I still haven't properly identified.
One thing that Jim warned me, though, which is the same thing Bill told me two months ago is this: "don't over-volunteer yourself!" Even as a CCMG I still have a life; I can't let gardening and volunteer projects overtake me. Learning how to operate a microscope and use a camera with said object, however, is a new skill I'd gladly learn, and if that also teaches me how to better identify bugs better, all the better!
We were busy with passionate new homeowners and gardeners who came to us with all kinds of questions. Our first question came from an elderly couple who were waiting for exactly 12pm to approach us with their personal problem: why was their Pindo Palm showing these brown spots on their fronds when all their other palms were healthy? Beats me! Bret didn't know for sure, either, but he took their names and email/phone number so that a certified MG could assess the problem better. The couple even brought in a frond with the brown spots, which became even more brown from sitting in Bret's SUV while we manned the tent.
Bret doesn't garden but I'm already into it this year, so all the garden questions came my way. Several young couples had moved down from Vermont, Wisconsin, etc and wanted to know the best soil conditions for their gardens. That stuff was right up my alley so I gladly helped them out.
Although sitting under a tent waiting for gardners to approach us with questions is actually a little boring for me (I'd rather do hands-on stuff), I enjoyed chatting with Bret who recently acquired two acres of land near the SP River and who complains about the much cooler temps there. Being so closs to the river and easily a few hundred feet lower in elevation, he has freezes overnight still. Not us!
Jim, an older CCMG came over at 3pm to "check" on us. He saw me photograph a mesquite tree next to our tent that was heavily infested with some scale bug that seemed to eat the buds which caused the mesquite to ooze sap to heal itself. The poor tree also had a few paper bugs nesting on some branches. I came up close to the scale bugs to photograph them and within a few minutes he had me recruited for the next macro-photographer in training. He wants me to talk to him in greater detail at the CCMG office next week so I can start training on a microscope. The person for this training needs to know how to operate a digital camera, not mind hiking out into the wilderness to photograph bugs and other pests, and be willing to learn how to use a camera with a microscope. Sounds like I'm just the right person for that! I have plenty of photographs of lizards, birds and various flora here that I still haven't properly identified.
One thing that Jim warned me, though, which is the same thing Bill told me two months ago is this: "don't over-volunteer yourself!" Even as a CCMG I still have a life; I can't let gardening and volunteer projects overtake me. Learning how to operate a microscope and use a camera with said object, however, is a new skill I'd gladly learn, and if that also teaches me how to better identify bugs better, all the better!
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