Today was a very busy day. We worked in many different areas of the campgrounds. We started with an introduction to the facility management on the site from Donald. He showed us different areas of the property and roles we will fill while we are working this summer.
The interns then went off to work in the garden. My plot is already sprouting greens. Yesterday I created my own compost pile, black toxic cobra (named by Stanley). So today I was able to measure the temperature of my mixture. It already reached 150 degrees. We know our piles are composting correctly when they maintain a temperature between 130-160 for 5-7 days. I was extremely happy that my first pile was doing so well.
Before lunch we had an opportunity to read our book for the summer. We are reading FISH! It’s book that demonstrates how a positive attitude in your business model will make for an enjoyable environment for workers and customers. This became helpful for our next task that I found less enjoyable.
We worked on painting. Now painting is normally fun but I had a negative experience of trying to paint the halls of my house at Graceland and the experience was long and difficult. I now dislike painting. So today when Mikayla and I went out to paint the pool house in what became a very sunny afternoon, I was reminded to choose my attitude. It was hot but I was in California so I took the time to enjoy the sun and the nice breeze that we get in the valley. When I was working next to the woody area I struggled to move branches away but I embraced the time in the shade and chuckled at occasionally painting the plants red, like Alice in Wonderland. It was definitely rewarding when Tess came by and told us that the area already looked more beautiful from our hard work. It helped me realize the importance this job was to the aesthetic appeal of the area.
After painting I worked as a lifegaurd and helped some of the other interns prepare for their future lifeguard test. We skyped with Tim and had a lovely discussion over another ACA article and at the end of the night we helped Karli put away materials used by a group that had a conference. As you can tell today was almost a complete day of working in every area of service as an intern. I really enjoy that part of the work I am doing here. I am able to learn skills in multiple areas and provide service in so many unique ways.
