Doing It By Myself

So I know my dad has posted a pretty recent entry on me doing the saguaro cactus. I have had fun doing several cacti and desert plants since then, including the creosote and prickly pear.

Mark and Lynn gave me a proposal. They suggested that I do the whole program by myself. At first, I was like, “No way! I’d freak out!” But then I got to thinking. And I got to asking other people their opinions. I asked both people in the park, and people back home. Everyone I asked said that I should do it, and that I’d do a great job. So I decided that yes, I’d do it, and yes, I’d probably freak out in the process.

Finally the day arrived. Mark passed me a folder of pictures and said, “Are you sure you want to do this? You could just do the plants, and Lynn and I could do the animals.” I had only done one animal, so they were going to be the hardest. But I told Mark that I was perfectly fine with doing it all by myself, so he told me a couple of tips while I picked out photos.

We had a good sized crowd for the program. For the first animal, the Harris Hawk, I was freaking out. But then, I hit my groove and started rattling off facts and stories. People laughed when I was trying to get them to laugh, and people laughed when I was not trying to get them to laugh. Pretty happy group, we was.

And then I noticed that my mom was attending the program. Pretty sneaky of her to tag along after I had started, giving me no time to tell her “You’re going to make me nervous.” But I was fine with the animals, and did wonderfully with the plants. Everybody told me I did a good job, and all the camphosts told me I did a good job, even five days later.

So if you need a program to be done on cacti….