Week 2

Sept. 8^th, 2007

Shopping for food for our next tour with Becky was very different than shopping with Eric, our crew supervisor. We kept track of everything. All the items, how much they cost, how much of all the items; it was nice because even though it took longer, we knew exactly what we could and could not buy. We also went a lot earlier in the day, so there was still timei n the evening to prep some food and then go play ultimate frisbee with some of the crews. Total blast. I even learned how to throw with my forearm instead of the “normal way”, which I must say is harder then I thought it would be.

Tuesday morning started in the North parking lot of University of Nevada- Reno (UNR) at 6:30 am with everyone checking all of the equipment: tools, cars, food, etc. Because of Labor Day none of the crews started until Tuesday, but unlike last week we all left at the same time. We packed up and left at 7 and began our trek to South Tahoe to meet Jenn from the US Forest Service, get our assignment and load our supplies. By 10:15 we were on our way to North Tahoe to Incline Village. On our drive, we had a talk about a religion that Becky studied in school and just generally made conversation to compensate for our hour drive. The site we were going to was the same we had been to the week before building a straight style fence, and we were going to do the other side in order to stop encroachment from the other side as well. Once parked, everyone unloaded and we began the hole digging process. Unfortunately we had gotten to the site so late that we only had an hour and half working time before lunch. Now, knowing me, I normally like to sit with the group during lunch but I'd been feeling very nostalgic and decided that looking out over the mountains alone fit my feelings of the day. Then a nap was in order, but I forewent said nap to “eavesdrop” on the leaders and their conversation about Burning Man. Which, from what I understand is an expensive hippy art festival out in the middle of the Nevada desert with a lot of drinking and even more drugs. Perhaps that's a cynical view of it, but I just don't think that you can reach further into yourself by imbibing. I don't think drinking is bad, in fact I do it rather often, I just personally don't like to mix drinking with other activities (ie: Mardi Gras, drinking games, festivals, music, art, etc), it just doesn't make sense to cloud your conscious to “find” your subconscious. Though I am leaving out the detailed part of our work day, I think it's even more important to realize why I'm here and what this job means to me. After lunch and my personal contemplation time, we went back to work and finished the majority of the fence. Unfortunately we rand out of work time and couldn't finish. That would be fore tomorrow. That evening, dinner included spaghetti with sauce and zucchini. Bedtime came quickly upon us and I as well as many other passed out, most didn't even go to the beach.

Wednesday morning came and Becky and I planned a semi-elaborate breakfast of eggs and hasbrowns. Though it was tasty it took so long to prepare that I immediately swore off making eggs for breakfast ever again. Maybe for dinner, but that is all. The End. We puled into the trucks and made our way to the USFS offices, picked up enough wood to make a worm fence on Thursday and to make sure we could get to the peeler cord for the straight style fence we had started the day before. Come to find out, they had a different project for us for this day, so we weren't going to be finishing the fence. Today was all about a a restoration project in Zephyr Heights, which is basically one of the ritzier areas. We were on a steep slope helping stop some erosion that had begun progressively getting worse on the hillside. In order to do this, we had to build water bars which are basically logs propped up with steel bars (rebar) at different angles along the slope and then a biodegradable erosion control matting, seeds and lots of time. There was about 100 feet of slope that needed to be controlled and we got through all of it. At the same time, there were over 4 piles of logs that couldn't be used as water bars so a few of us had to make burning piles. There are special “rules” that are used to decide where burn piles go, and how big they can be, and by the end of the day we had 5 burn piles and they were sturdily awesome. The cool part about burn piles is the Forest Service doesn't do anything with them until there is at least one foot of snow on the ground. That is when there are the least worries about forest fires and such. I helped build the majority of those burn piles. Unfortunately, I'd been having major back troubles and was having problems moving much of anything, so mostly there was a lot of figuring out ways to take our time because I hurt so much. Stephanie was my accomplice in this mission and we passed the time by picking songs that the other person had to sing as loud as they possibly could and not get into trouble. It was truly grand times. Thankfully by the end of the day my back felt much better and it was to feel as good for the rest of the week. We finished our restoration project and headed back to our camp. It was a pretty straight forward project and that made it wonderful. When we got back it was time for grilled cheese and tomato soup. It was a huge hit. There had been complaints all week about the food, but this night, everyone enjoyed it. Bedtime came upon us quickly and Thursday was around the corner.

Ahh but for 5:30 on a Thursday morning. We packed up, went to the USFS offices and got our assignment for the day. We already kind of knew what we were going to do, but we had to also pick up the trailer full of wood. So off we went to our fence from the first day and we finished the straight style fence. Sadly, we broke three of the 4 foot poles because there were big cracks running down the side and the rebar that we drill into the tops literally broke the posts in two. It was not exciting. In fact, it was terrible because we had to replace the poles which meant digging them out and redigging and etc. But we managed it before lunch time and then it was off to build a worm fence down the road. Funny enough, it was also close to a lot that we had been to the week before. We pulled all the materials out and then it was lunch time. The fence was only about 40 feet long and it was relatively simple. We knew how to do it, and next thing we knew it was done. There were few rocks, and thus it was much much easier then our last worm fence. Because of how quickly we built this fence (an hour and a half) we had one more site to see, a revegging area. We fix the area by taking a multi seed that contains only local vegetation and then cover the seed with pine straw and whatnot. Overall, kind of boring but the drive was not. We were carrying a trailer in my truck and our leader, Andrew, was having issues with backing the truck up because of the hill, lack of turning area, and the fact that even if his wheels are completely straight, the trailer will still turn at an odd angle. Once we were done with the reveg, we went home and went straight to the beach with food (burritos) and had some fun times on the sand. There were two kids who were hanging out, they were probably 8 and 10, and they played frisbee with Stephanie, me and our international from England Andy. We had a great time. After that, it was back to camp and then bedtime.

Friday morning, packed and ready to go with tent and all, we grumbled the entire way to the truck and drove to the USFS office once more and then found out we were building one more fence and then would be finishing off our week by picking more bull thistle in two different locations. The fence was rather small, only 30 feet, but as per normal, though it should have only taken an hour or so, it took all morning because we had one of our 4 foot poles off of the line, and one 8 foot pole crack in half when we pounded the rebar into the drilled hole. Those problems both took an extra hour because of the amount of awesome work we did putting them in. Once done with the fence, we drove off to our next site which was down the road and we began picking bull thistle. Wonderfully enough, there was actually very little thistle to pick, and that's a good thing because that means they are not coming back. After lunch at this site, we moved on to our last site and picked more bull thistle. This area was far more full and it was a lot more water-y because it was almost a marsh area. We picked quite a few and then at 2:30 it was time to pack up and move out because our drive was quite long.

We drove home to UNR, unpacked the cars, went through all of our belongings, waited for our sup and leader to wash the cars and then we repacked the cars and went home. End of work week 2 and it feels great! Off to another fun filled week of restoration and fence building. From what I hear there is a 100 foot straight-style fence coming our way, and this time I've got a camera to make it even better... Be prepared.