During the course of my life I (Duanne) have done quite a bit of volunteering. I've served on numerous boards for very good causes and generally feel good about my donated time. Occasionally, I get into something that is a LOT of work or over my head intellectually (not surprising to those who know me).
Last Sunday I spent most of the day in Ashland County searching the woods for five trail cameras for which I only had GPS coordinates. After driving for 3 hours and spending nearly twice that amount wandering around the mosquito riddled woods, I began to wonder if I was cut out for the rigors of the Snapshot WI Elk Monitoring project.
Now, a week later, I have spent a couple hours handling beakers of Carlin Lake water, filtering nasty acid mixed with lake water, all while wearing bright blue rubber gloves. The DNR's Volunteer Lake Monitoring program comes with a 3 ring binder complete with idiot proof, step-by-step instructions. Its a very good thing because at once per month every water quality test is like the very first time. I follow the steps but I admit, I have no real idea what I'm doing.
The only part I get is the clarity reading (secci disk) which today was 19 feet (compared to 22 in June) and water temperature was 76.4 degrees (compared to 69.0 in June). I also measure chlorophyll and phosphorus. One has something to do with algae growth and the other, well, I know the lake's PH level is important but that's about it. Pictured is the amount of equipment necessary to accomplish lake monitoring's each summer.
The real intellectual challenge in the lake monitoring project is remembering how to do it over the 8-9 months of winter. Could it be my lengthy AARP membership??