Week of Volunteering

This last week I had pretty full "work days". As I mentioned before, I was volunteering for two days for the middlesex conservation district plant sale. Both days were very different but tons of fun. The first day was preparing all the plants. They came bundled together so it involved packaging up individual or groups of plants. And then the next day was boxing up the pre-orders. All very well organized and composed of retired folks doing the volunteer work. It was fun to sit and work the first day, socializing with folks. I sat with one lady, Ginny, who had started her career off at Cornell in their ecological department and I heard about the various detours her life went through from children with special needs and reinventing her career later in life. And later, sat with Al who had served in the Air Force and had recently been forced into retirement after a career as a truck driver. He seemed to have had 9 lives and had pieces of him missing from a finger tip (bomb went off overseas), ear tip (frostbite) to a bunch of other stuff. I was thinking how I fell into this volunteer experience and it being a good fit. I love repetitive work (in moderation), learning and supporting native ecosystems, and I had been looking into volunteering with seniors who might be isolated. I'm not saying these individuals were but it was a nice overlap of all my interests. And it felt good being able to help pick up some slack from a few folks who had canceled and get us finished on time the first day. 

The second day was like a fun version of being an Amazon warehouse runner - filling orders. I really got to know a lot of plants through the repetition of boxing up the orders (over 200 we did). And I wish I had brought my pedometer to track my steps. It was a lot of work. I was hungry by 11 a burning up the calories. But so satisfying seeing the floor of the tent fill up with boxes of goodies for the customers coming to the sale. And of course the comradery was fun as we figured things out. 

And then I switched gears and helped my friend out with her three kids (ages 4, 3, and 9 months). Her husband was away for a few days and she had trouble sleeping with this disruption to her routine. Plus her partner in crime was gone and she was doing everything. I could only spend one night but it was a ton of fun to catch up and help out. The kids warmed up to me quickly and I got them ready for bed, read books and put them to sleep so my friend could catch up with stuff around the house. 

One fun thing was that at dinner, we had a fish dish and there were some extra wedges of lemons. The 9 month old was on solids but had never tried the sour lemon.  Having watched my share of YouTube videos and also running out of ideas to keep him occupied (he was getting fussy and tired) I gave him his first lemon wedge. Of course after asking permission. The face was priceless but then he got into the taste and really sucked on the lemon for awhile. My friend was surprised and I felt good introducing him to a new flavor and technique the mom could use. 

And it was such a nice dopamine hit the next day when we were parting ways and my friend explained all the ways I had been helpful. It was the last night alone and she was worn out and the help came at the perfect time. She was really excited about discovering this worked out especially since her husband might be going on more work trips later this year. I did put it out there that this worked well because of my flexible schedule from not working. Doing this in the middle of the week would be challenging, mainly because of her location. She's pretty close to me but on the other side of town so that just getting to her place takes as long as getting to my friends way out in suburbia. 

Well, I'm off for another packed day - orienteering in central Mass.,  visiting with another friend afterwards and then on my way home, visiting with my old neighbors. And I'm running behind schedule!