12/1/2011 Our Workday

I was recently asked to explain what it is we do in our workamping job here in the Valley. I’ll try to do that now.

I do have a hard time calling three hours in the morning a workday but that’s what it is.

Our day starts at eight most mornings. If we’re ready we’ll go a little earlier and if we’re working on a Monday we always start early because we have three courts to get ready for nine o’clock play.

Depending on the day Bob drives us to whichever court is going to be played on. There is one bocce ball court and two shuffleboard courts.

Let’s say it’s a Monday and we have all three courts to get ready. We’ll hop in the Barbie cart, yes the Barbie cart, (thanks to Joy for this picture I borrowed from her Facebook page) and drive over to Mission Bell. Bob will get started on the shuffleboard courts using a leaf blower to get rid of all the leaves on the courts. Either he or I

will wipe down the benches if they are wet with morning dew. In the meantime, I’ll sweep in front of the office so that it is neat and tidy. I’ll then move to the fountain area and lightly rake over the

stones to gather any debris that has fallen from the trees and to rake out footprints from people who can’t seem to stick to the cement paths which is quickly becoming a pet peeve for me. I’ll turn the fountain on and add more water to it if necessary. A trip to the office is necessary to pick up the walkie-talkie and see if there are any work orders for us.

By now Bob is done with the shuffleboard courts and we’re off to Trade Winds where he’ll blow the leaves off the bocce ball court and the shuffleboards courts there. While he does that I sweep the leaves off the palapa, fill the fountain if necessary and then start raking leaves around the shuffleboard courts in hopes that there won’t be so many tomorrow. Unfortunately, there is a very large tree right in this area that has thousands of leaves that must fall. EVERY. DAY.

We now go back to Mission Bell and start the routine drive through there. There’s a large fenced parking lot to the side of Friendship Hall and litter is always against the fence.

We pick up any litter we see and then we check the area in front of Friendship Hall to make sure it neat and tidy and to see if the curb area is full of landscaping stones. If it is we sweep them up and put them back where they belong.

Back in the Barbie cart we have a certain routine in which we go up and down every street looking for litter, fallen branches and fruit that has fallen from the trees. Some days we are in and out of the cart continuously and others not so much, it all depends on how much the wind blew the day and night before. Mission Bell clean and tidy its back to Trade Winds to do the same thing there. By now, three hours is about up.

On days we don’t have three courts to get ready but only one or two, we have time for projects. For instance we noticed recently that the courtyard on the Mission Bell side was in need of power washing. The seating area is covered by trees which in turn attract birds, birds that eat. You can figure the rest out. So Bob power washed the whole area.

When he got done the tables and benches were all clean once again.

What did I do while he did this? Well, I, um, well, gee what did I do? I took pictures!

Of the fountain….

of the sitting area….

of a stone wall with archway….

and the underside of the tree….

Some days finding us spending every hour moving the sprinkler in the dog run in between tasks. We may be called on to pick up bags of leaves that were raked by a winter resident or to even take a rake to the a winter resident.

There is always something to do. Always.

We’re glad we don’t have someone assigning tasks to us, other than the occasional work order, and looking over our shoulder all the time. However, a lot of people (the managers and winter residents) in both parks do notice and we know that because they are always telling us how much they appreciate us and what we do.

So do we feel we have a good workamping job? Oh yeah.