Last night as I was making the cupcakes up in the community building, I pitched in to help Barbara sort the five bags of harvested rice stalks we had been given by the biologist.
Each of the five paper grocery bags is full of stalks like this harvested off of the refuge. Each bag has a code on the outside identifying the field it was taken from. The study is to determine productivity. And who better to do the tedious work of separating the seed from the chaff than the volunteers?
We put the results of our sorting into separate smaller bags. Here’s the weeds found in amongst the rice stalks.
Then we break off all of the stalk heads and put them in a pile. 
Each individual rice seed (?) was to be removed from the seed head and then counted before being put in a specially labeled bag. This small pile is the result of several hours of work the night before by Barb and James. One night of all of this and Barb talked to the biologist and suggested he find someone else to take off the individual seeds and count them. I guess an intern will get that little job. 
The flexible part of this assignment is that we can do it up at a table in the community building in the evening, and chat or bake cupcakes while we’re doing it. For some reason, not too many people are clamoring to help us with this. I can’t imagine why.
This afternoon, a secret admirer that reads this blog showed up to take me out to dinner. Imagine that! He opened the door and helped me in and out of his vehicle as we made our way to the exciting community of Winnie. I’m not used to someone asking me to wait while he got the door. He wined and dined and sweet talked me until I decided it was best that he drop me off at the rig and return to his motel room. Do you remember when I had that bittersweet short shipboard romance last year? Well, I’ve decided to give this a little more time, and have allowed him to visit me again in about three weeks when I’m back in Mississippi. 
There’s something about those tall long-leafed pines…
Thanks for stopping by… talk to you later, Judy
