carpool to Water For Wildlife project may 20-22 2011? Mojave desert, MNP, Essex Ca

[527varmint]

Talked with Cliff Mcdonald last night about this months water for wildlife project. I'm guessing someone will post all the details on JHO sometime soon.

The dates are may 20-21-22. The location is about 90 miles past barstow on I40. Going to be hot out there!

I'm in Orange County. If anyone is interested in going and carpooling that would be great. I got a 4x4 ford ranger so there is one seat available. With gas almost 5 bucks and being laid off almost 4 years it would really help to share the gas cost!

If you can't do all three days maybe we can work out just going for two days.

[spectr17]

527, I'd be happy to carpool but we've got our Tejon Hog hunt that weekend. Holler at me next WFW.

Here's the info from the last WFW in April and the one coming May 20-22 2011.

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Water for Wildlife
April 15-16-17, 2011
Old Woman Mountains

Ecstasy in Essex Part Three

To All

Well.................. gas prices were not hovering at $4 per gal they were $4 per gal or above, but the volunteers still showed up to work on the wildlife drinkers. What do you say to this group? This three day project recorded a showing of 47 volunteers, lets say that again, "47 volunteers" showed up to work their butts off. These volunteers combined travel miles were 12,550 round trip. We completed two drinkers, one more was 80% completed and the caved in lid drinker was merlexed. In May we will completely finish the lid. We had several new folks at this project, some from as far away as Hermosa Beach.

Friday we left camp around 12 noon and headed out to work on the first two guzzlers. Josh took one crew, along with Lyle and the Merlex crew and headed out to the drinker with the caved in lid (you can see some of their work in the attached pic's), while I headed out to the hills with another bunch of eager and willing volunteers. It took over an hour, over rough roads for us to reach the first drinkers. The guzzler that we went to was in poor shape. The apron had several cracks and these cracks were full.....full of old henrys tar. We work for three hours, then headed back to camp.

We arrived back in camp around 5:30 and found the cooks working away preparing our spaghetti dinner. For those of you who were lucky enough to enjoy this dinner, it was "bon appetite"! I ate too much and barely had enough room for the chocolate chip cookies. After dinner we had our raffle, bull %^$^% around the fire, then hit the sack. My cot felt good this night and I slept like a baby. Friday evening several more volunteers showed up and were ready to work the next morning.

Sat morning we woke to cowboy coffee with Judy, Kippy and Jenette working away preparing a breakfast feast of eggs, sausage and fruit. After breakfast, Josh took a crew up the mountain to another drinker, Lyle, BJ, Jim and the rest of the Merlex crew headed out to merlex the broken lid guzzler, while the rest of us headed back to the tar baby drinker. It took us most of the day to get this drinker cleaned and mortared and ready for the merlex crew. When we finished, we headed out to drinker #2. On the way we ran into Josh and his bunch, they had finished their guzzler. They then followed us further up the mountain to the next drinker. This drinker had more tar on it then the first one, fortunately we had both crews and both equipment trailers at one time attack the tar embedded apron. There were 6 chipping hammers, three air chisels, several brooms and shovels working at one time on this apron. We worked for 2 1/2 hours, left both trailers at the site, then drove the 1 1/2 hrs back to camp. Back at camp, I walked over to where the cooks were working, the elk chili smelled good. At 7 pm we were served elk chili along with all the trimmings, and it was delicious!!! I had a choice of home made apple cobbler with a big scoop of ice cream or another bowl of chili, the chili was so good I had the chili, hope the rest of you enjoyed the cobbler. After dinner, Debra and Marie did a great job selling raffle tickets. This night was one of the best raffles we have had over the last several years. Thanks for your participation.

Sunday morning the cooks served us breakfast burritos, juice and cowboy coffee. Several volunteers had to leave Sunday morning to make the long trip home with the rest of us splitting up into two groups. The merlex crew needed a couple volunteers to help them, and it did not take long before we had three eager volunteers going with Lyle to merlex the readied drinkers. Josh and I along with several volunteers headed back up the mountain to the drinker we worked on the day before. Around 1 pm, we were loading the trailers and heading back to camp. Lyle, Jim, BJ, Michael, Mark and Marnie were still in the hills merlexing the drinkers.

We had just a couple problems..........flat tire on the trailer, new tire $100.00, flat on my truck and when I arrived back at camp Sunday afternoon the trailer had a broken spring. I came back Monday morning and brought a spring and replaced it, then headed back to Needles. I bought two new heavy duty springs and it looks like these springs are what we need for these rough roads... problem solved. Monday morning when I arrived at camp to replace the spring at 6:30 am, the merlex crew was already back in the hills applying the second coat of merlex to the drinkers. At these projects, Lyle, Jim and BJ show up three days early and scout for the drinkers, they stay two or three days after we leave to finish merlexing. Thanks to these guys we have the drinkers located and the merlex is applied to specification. Thanks, Lyle, Jim and BJ.

All-in-all it seems like we had a very successful three days in the desert, working for the wildlife. Good food, good people and plenty to do, what else can we ask for?? Thank you folks for making my weekend a very enjoyable three days.

OK, now I am going to give thanks to some folks. Frank Rorabaugh for the cash donation, Donnie Sims for the buckets of Water Plug, Doug for 90 lb bags of plastic cement, Predator Callers of Orange County for their cash donation, Daniels Septic for giving us a discount on the two out houses, Nick Byrne, David Diekman, Dave & Jonna Smith, Joel Tureaud, for the raffle prizes, Deb and Marie for running the raffle, Jesse for doing lots of running around to make sure we have enough tools, the merlex crew for their cash donation and hard work, Safari Club, Orange County Chapter for the $600.00 donation, Craig Fulfer for the cash donation, Dave & Jonna Smith for the cash donation, Judy, Kippy and Jeanette for our delicious meals. I know I did not mention some folks, my memory is just not as good as it used to be. Take a look at this list, the volunteers and other groups are the main reason Water for Wildlife exists. Thank You to all volunteers, you worked so hard to make this another successful project.


MAY 20-21-22

We are going to meet at the same camp site near Essex. We will not have Judy, Kippy or Jenette, but Jesse Gosset and John Clark are going to make sure we have breakfast and dinner for the weekend.

Friday night, Jesse's, bacon wrapped BBQ tuna
Saturday night, John will prepare smoked ham and chicken
Don't know exactly what we will have for breakfast, but I am sure it will have something to do with, eggs, bacon, sausage, maybe gravy and other goodies.

We will try and get out of camp a little early, as the weather will be around 95 mid day. If we can leave the camp around 7 am this will give us a head start on the drinker before the sun is directly over head. If you have a E-Z up that can be transported to the work site and you want to bring it this would be a good thing, as we do not want anyone to get over heated.

What you could bring: gloves, knee pads, 5 gal jugs of water, folding tables are needed around the camp fire area, firewood, EZ-UP if you can bring one, a 60 lb bag of ready mix mortar or ready mix concrete, safety glasses and ear/noise protection. Bring plenty of drinks, ice and your lunch fixens.

Directions: From Barstow travel approximately 90 miles East on I 40 to the Essex Rd exit, go South 4 miles to powerline road, turn right go 200 yards and you will be at the camp. The turn on the powerline road will be marked with a orange flag. You do not need 4x4 to get to the camp site, motorhome and camp trailers will not have any problem in this flat area. Like before the only luxury will be two outhouses.

Events: I will be at the camp site around 7am Friday morning, we will set up the camp and try to head out to work around 9 am, returning to camp around 5:00 pm. Dinner will be served on Friday and Sat around 6:30, breakfast will be served at 6:30 am. After dinners we will have our raffle and plenty of time around the fire. Saturday and Sunday morning we will leave camp at 7am and return around 5 pm.

The pictures; You can see what was done to the drinker with the caved in lid. Lyle is building a new form for the concrete and we will install the new lid in May. The other guzzlers/drinkers are the ones we worked on.

Again, Thank You

Best regards

Cliff McDonald
760-326-2935
760-449-4820

PS

If you do not belong to a conservation group I am going to list several with contact person & phone #, give them a call, you might like what you hear and want to join.

Safari Club Orange County
'Paul Whitelock'
wpaulw@cox.net
Phone: 9494955968
Mobile: 9495330850

Society for the Conservation of Bighorn Sheep
Gary Thomas
g.cranky@verizon.net
Phone: 9512066410
Mobile: 9512066410


California Deer Association
Glenn Tessers
gtesserscdasoca@earthlink.net
Phone: 3109738148

Quail Forever
Dave Smith
oak1ridge1@aol.com
Phone: 7606173291

Quail Unlimited
Ron Gibben
gibbent@gte.net
Phone: 9099175832

Quail & Upland Wildlife Federation
John Nelson
johnnelson@ft.newyorklife.com
Phone: 661-253-4072
Mobile: 661-714-1325

Preadator Callers of Orange County
Bob Peters
bpi1@ca.rr.com
Phone: 7149723103
Mobile: 7144543103

[527varmint]

Spectr

There is going to be a guzzler project with SCQUWF around june 20th. I was thinking of going to that one if you want to car pool. I'm hoping that one is in the NF and closer to home. Essex is going to be really hot in late june. Maybe the WFW in june will be in the high country.

[527varmint]

It was alot of fun out there! Everyone is really nice and the food was good. Got alot of work done. Saw alot of wildlife out there. 2 desert tortois, quail, tons of jack rabbits, one guy saw a kit fox and another saw a coyote. went to some very remote spots where really no one would ever be able to hike far enough into the wilderness areas to hunt the guzzlers. 40 miles of dirt road then turn off on an unsigned overgrown road into the wilderness area. It would be an 8 mile hike to the guzzler and another grueling hike to get up into the chukar country. I hope the birds enjoy it because the wilderness area will keep anyone from ever seeing some of these canyons ever again. Only way you could hunt some of these spots is horse back.