Firefighter helps his community

Seth Gardner, 20, is one of the newest recruits at our Johnson Lane Volunteer Fire Department, Station 6. Seth graduated from Douglas High School in 2004 and is currently a student at Western Nevada Community College as well as a part-time worker at the Home Depot in the kitchen and bath department.

I asked Seth why he wanted to volunteer and go through all the training it takes to be certified, and he said, "I wanted to do something to help out my community."

Seth has completed his wild land training, one of four of the Entry Level Firefighter classes required to be certified. He learned how to work the hoses on the tender, how fire works and what types of fuel it uses.

He also learned to use his little silver blanket, oh I mean fire shelter, a.k.a. "shake-n-bake." You have to be able to get inside it in less than one minute, so not to be overcome by smoke or fire. Seth will continue his training this fall with hazardous material training, structure fire training and first aid. Seth also plans to become an EMT (emergency medical technician).

Next year Seth will transfer to the University of Nevada, Reno, to continue his academics, possibly to become a history teacher. Good luck Seth! Keep us posted and thanks for volunteering. Anyone else interested?

n How is your garden doing? My peas got too hot; I guess I didn't plant them early enough. While I was out weeding at 5:30 this morning, to my surprise I found four straight neck yellow squash about 6 inches long. I have three bell peppers bigger than my fist and lots of tomatoes the size of cherries. The corn is mid-thigh high, the pepper plants are full of blossoms and the potatoes are flowering. I prefer to leave the potatoes in the ground until we get a hard freeze again. I like big baking potatoes. Some years, I have accidentally left a few in the ground and they grew again the next year. The grapes are making a come back. I think we'll get a decent harvest. And the fruit, we've never had this much, I hope the birds don't get them before me.

A couple of years ago I put a drip system in my garden. I wanted to go camping a lot and didn't want to come home to a field of weeds. The drip seems to work great because you only water the spot where the plant is. It makes my weeding chore so much easier. I am weed-free today. You know that famous saying here in Northern Nevada, "Wait five minutes, it'll change."

Oh yes, this is my favorite time of year.

n Lisa Welch is a Johnson Lane resident and can be reached at 267-9350.