Note to self: add "A Faller" to resume

Nikki, Blake and Chris are finally back. Joy! =) Unfortunately, just as our team reassembled, John and Adrienne left tonight to go up to Estes Park because they're heading out to California with Alpine tomorrow. Alas. But this is what Ervin said would happen at a certain point -- it would be rare to have the entire team together in the same place for more than a few days. Now that the NoCo (Northern Colorado) crew is back, and John and Adrienne are going out with Alpine, there's talk of organizing the next NoCo crew. I would be on that crew. Woo! Two dispatches. That's luck in such a slow season. But we'll see, there was chatter about it, but also talk of how it won't go out for a while.

Speaking of Nikki being back ... on Friday, Joanna and I went down to Denver. She had a friend in town for business and we also wanted to go out in the city with Nikki since we didn't get a chance to during transition week because of Nikki's dispatch. So that was good fun. We made our way back up to Ned on Saturday and it was a big reunion in Ned that night because everyone was back from dispatch. On Sunday, it was grocery shopping as usual. Chris came with me, which was nice and different, and also helpful because Chris is a vegetarian so I have that to consider now when I shop.

Today, we all finally tested for our A Faller certifications. We had to be at the work center by 6:30 am to load some saws because we had a two and a half hour drive to Grand County where we worked with the Sulfer Ranger District because they had a C Faller certifier. Everyone had a chance to cut down at least one practice tree. John and Adrienne went first, taking their practice trees and then testing, one after the other. This enabled them to leave early so they could get back to the bunkhouse and organize before they had to head up to Alpine. After lunch, Paul took his two practice trees and then I did the same. There are a TON of beetle-kill trees in that neck of the woods, but it was really difficult to find one that didn't have a lot of hazards to mitigate. Still, I managed. And then I tested for my A Cert. It went really well, I was glad. My cuts were cleaner than the two practice cuts, so that's good.

So we're all A Certified now, which basically puts us on the level of apprentice. It means that we can cut without a B Faller watching our every blink, but we've kind of been doing that already in our cutting units. This just makes it official.

I don't know what we're doing tomorrow. Probably cutting. There's been talk of prescribed burns sometime in the near future. Exciting! Yay fire! Haha.