There were only four of us, but we had a rollickin good time.
A personal aside - I'd brought a couple of printouts of some presumptive white oaks that have extremely scaly bark. Our hydrant man (see below) is quite a good tree botanist so I thought to challenge him on whether these were really white oaks, or a population of two other rather rare related species. We didn't come to a conclusion, but it serves as an example of something or other.
But white oaks aren't why you're here!
Last night, we played mostly with the lime green truck, the Margaritaville, engaging the drive transmission into the pump and getting the three main steps to success just right. Yes, it was cold but the PPEs are warm and this is the best time of year to be wearing them.
The new nozzles - and aren't they nice? - arrived and we had quite a fine evening checking them out. We got both trucks out and yanked out a bunch of hose and sprayed a lot of water. The new nozzles have two twist controls - one for character and one for volume - and they're a hard rubber star wars blaster kind of thing. Everyone who picked one up was inexorably drawn to pointing it at someone else and saying, "pow". Cool.
Of course we must top off the trucks after expending water, so we went up to the county line to fill the truck with water from their hydrant. With the Margaritaville, we do it the easy way. Rather than intravenous injection of water from the hydrant, a couple of us sit on top of the truck holding on tightly to the connected hose and direct the flowing water directly into the tank. This affords the other two of us with the opportunity for fun, as our all-too-clever hydrant man schemes: "Und now, ve turn zis up all ze way und ve launch zem into space!"
There was brief discussion to end any confusion that training sessions are the second and third Thursdays (they are), but our eclectic hydrant man mentioned above asserted that he'd be just as happy if we had a FOURTH Thursday training session.
Well, now, that's an interesting idea. Of course, you have to be very careful with the hydrant man - not only is he a good tree botanist, he's also a cunning trickster. But still, it needn't be a full fledged training session; we could think of it as a short maintenance session. Start up and run the trucks for a few minutes to keep batteries charged and the trucks certain of their places in our hearts. Meanwhile do a little chatting (that's where most of the planning and exchanges get done anyway), and come and go as we please. Sounds like a good idea to me. Ed? Mike?
--Wayne
