Good News

I got some good news today. My request to reopen the spring for the 4th of July weekend was approved! The spring is getting more clear every day. The water level is dropping a little faster each day. Look at the difference in the steps today compared to yesterday. There are TWO dry steps, not just ONE! We are opening the spring on July 1st. My summer starts July 1st! I e-mailed a request to update our park web page to reflect the change in status (it will be updated next week), I changed the message on our answering machine, and I notified a few others by e-mail. As the calls came in today, it felt great to be able to tell people "yes, we are still closed but we will be open for the holiday weekend!!!" Its good news to a lot of people.
So, after I collected myself and contained my joy, I did some actual work today too.
I had to go to Adams Tract to get a tire off of the mower. The valve stem had dry rotted and the tire was flat. That is the second time this has happened to this mower... two front wheels, two bad valve stems, hopefully this is the last of this silliness for a while. I will get the tire fixed tomorrow and will return to Adams Tract one day next week to put the tire back on the mower. Fortunately the volunteer at the Tract had finished mowing for the week.
When I got back to Troy, I stopped home for lunch and got back to the park just in time for a rush (a very small rush) of people. We had a few people looking for a spring to swim in, a few who just wanted to see the park, and many more who were boating on the river and stopped in to see the spring progress. Between visitors, I picked up some garbage, cleaned off a gutter and swept off the walkway at the visitor center. It was HOT today, between tasks I checked e-mail and took care of what I could in the office to cool off.
While I was walking around the park, I took a few other photos to share. One is the high bank of the spring (the hill that I watched a turtle tumble down yesterday). The photo will give you a good idea of how much the water has dropped. I will take another in the future to show you what "normal" looks like. I also had to put some more frogs into the photo mix because everyone's comments and interest in the flying frogs makes me laugh every time I see them on the walkway. I found some interesting ones. I believe that the grey frog is a tree frog and the red one is a toad. I really need to find my reptile and amphibian ID guide. The frog looked very hot on the sunny sidewalk. After his photo session, I gently moved him to a grassy area nearby where he could find some shade and moisture. The toads are a little more tolerant of drier conditions so I let them fend for themselves... until I need to blow off the walkway again.