Today i traveled with BonaResponds to the Botanical Gardens in Buffalo to help with a CYC project, scraping and painting the exterior of the building (only a small portion).  On the crew today we had Jim, Jen, myself, and a new volunteer, Andy, an alumni of the SBU MBA program through Hilbert.   I had class with Andy, so it was nice seeing him again outside of class.  Andy also donated a lawnmower, which will be great for mowing Bob's Woods.  Last but not least, Scott, another Bona alumni and Gulf Coast original showed up both to help and to donate a computer for Haiti...   THANKS ANDY & SCOTT!!!

We left SBU around 9am, after collecting our chainsaw gear from storage as we expected to have some tree work to do.  Secretly, I think Jim was excited at the prospect as he is now a chainsaw "master" following the trip to Ohio last week.  Additionally, we had two of the saws back from repair with newly sharpened blades.  Upon receipt of the saws, Jim's eyes lit up a bit, much like a young child getting their first b.b gun...   LOL

When we arrived at the gardens, it turned out that the tree work was already done, so we jumped in on the scraping crew until the rains blew through.  After a brief hiatus, we returned to scraping and then began priming the surfaces for a later application of paint.   Among the people we met today were Todd, the Botanical Gardens facility manager, who gave us and excellent brief history of the building and the "master plan" moving forward.  Todd was also kind of enough to give me a tour of the catacombs underneath the building before leaving...  neat...  We also met several members of the CYC crew that I hadn't met before and actually recruited a passer-by toward the end to volunteer.  I'm not sure its what he expected, but Justice was very helpful and did a great job painting. 

Highlights of the day include the invention of a new game I like to call; "What will Jim do for Money?"  It's a simple game with very few rules...  You pick something you want Jim to do, for example climbing up and over a 16 foot free standing ladder, assign a value that you will donate to his charity, and then haggle with him about the risk and listen to excuses why the task is undoable.   We played three rounds today (clean gutters over a glass roof, eat a hot dog, and go up and over the ladder).  Jim failed all three challenges, leaving a total of $130 on the table...  It's a great game, and I look forward to playing it again in the near future.

To summarize our work today, we scraped, scraped some more, then waited for rain, then scraped, then painted and painted, and painted, then watched Jim paint, and then washed up for the return trip home.  Great day, great work, fun times as always...

-Nate   

 From left to right:  Jen, Jim and Andy priming the scraped surfaces.

Jim slinging paint at the building...

Inside the fern room at the Botanical Gardens...