Round Rio Rancho

Mark & Sheila were among over 100 volunteers this weekend who, together planted several thousand pine tree seedlings within the 2011 Las Conchas Fire burn area, near Los Alamos. The planting area was near the Pajarito Trailhead, just a couple miles from the National Labs. Most volunteers used a “dibble tool” (a combination spike and shovel), to dig a wedge shaped hole deep enough t0 completely bury the seedling’s roots.

The fun part was that even when you found the perfect location to plant the little tree, (on the North side of a fallen log; in the shade of a rock; in a patch of fallen oak leaves; or near a tiny creek bed) most times you’d find a layer of solid rock just 4 or 5 inches below the surface. The tree couldn’t be buried deeply enough and would struggle to extend its roots downward.  We dug hundreds of holes to find good spots for the 40 seedlings we planted.  After 90 minutes on site, the cool, calm morning weather turned wet. The trees probably appreciated the rain, but we were soaked as we planted the last couple sacks of seedlings.

Members of the US Forest Service were there to ride herd on everybody, and supplied the hardhats, tools and the seedlings.

Well, another of Mark and Sheila’s Neighborhood Yard Sales in Rio Rancho came to a successful conclusion today… The weather cooperated, with warm, but not hot temperatures, slightly elevated humidity,  a light breeze, and it didn’t start to rain until an hour after the sale ended. Phew!

90 households (Yes – 90!) held sales in their own driveways in the Broadmoor, Ridges and Cascades areas – all within a few blocks of each other.  If you haven’t experienced this before, to have this many yard sales in one place at the same time is truly a unique shopping experience.  The fact is, if you started at 8:00 am and attempted to visit every sale site before they ended at 1:00 pm, (and spent just 30 seconds getting from site to site) you would only be able to spend 3 minutes going though the goodies at each location. Since we know that a number of people actually do make it all the way through the whole thing, it’s interesting to study their technique – evaluating the goods via drive-by, negotiating prices while their husband is already putting purchases in the car and Grandpa keeps it idling at the curb and maps the shortest route to the next sale site. It’s really intense!

Since by the morning of the sale most of our work of organizing things has already been completed, our job on sale day is to feed the Sellers and the Shoppers breakfast and snacks, to give out bottles of cold water to keep everybody hydrated, to arbitrate the occasional minor issue, and to keep the Shoppers shopping! 

At the end of today’s sale we filled about 3/4 of our moving truck with donations of leftover sale goods. The books and tapes went to Friends of the Libray of Rio Rancho, and the household items went to support Big Brothers, Big Sisters. 

The video shows just a few scenes from today’s activities. For a more complete view of what Mark and Sheila’s Neighborhood Yard Sale Series is about, plus dates and locations of our future sales, follow this link to our main Yard Sale web page.