Jobs

My work week was a mixed bag. I'm still using a hand held grinder with a wire brush head to clean and prepare the flag pole for painting. I cleaned, prepped and put a first prime coat on about 50 feet of the main pole and the cross tree. The grinder is hard on my hands so I mix in other jobs and I don't end up with numb hands. I cleaned and raked the Japanese Fisherman's monument and partially buried black floats in the 4 corners to delineate the markers. I also spent time cleaning and raking in the Doctor's Cemetery and the trail to the first gun emplacement past the cemetery. The trail took several sessions to smooth out all the Petrel damage and get a reasonable grade up the steep slope. I started work on the "Ave Maria" monument on Friday.This monument is a small structure that protects some artifacts from the church that stood in this location. It isn't a building but an open air backdrop and roof to provide some weather protection for the artifacts. It will be an ongoing project with lots of plastic mesh and shade cloth laid along the concrete to slow the damage created by burrowing petrels. There is also some damage to the small roof that I will need to repair. Friday I did some pruning and looking at what was there so I can decide how to proceed. I also got over to Eastern Island to do a seep check looking for dead or sick Laysan Ducks. The ducks contract botulism  and the spread of this disease can be slowed or stopped with seep monitoring and pick up of dead or dieing ducks. The sick birds can usually be successfully treated and released within a couple of days. The Galley sign that I had been working on has a White Tern Chick sitting on the lower portion, so that has stopped work on the sign for a couple weeks.While I put the roof on the front side the adult Tern sat firm on the egg incubating but since it has hatched I need to stay away until it takes off from the ledge where it was hatched. I mentioned earlier that the internet has been very slow and this makes uploading pictures very difficult. I'm going to write more and upload fewer pictures and try to keep you up to date that way.