Earth, Wind, and Fire

Where to begin, where to begin. So much has happened since I posted last—I moved from Indiana to Iowa City, burned 20 acres of grassland, pulled 70 garbage bags of garlic mustard, spent multiple days prying ancient honeysuckle bushes from the earth, lived in a church with a jazz band, then moved back to Vinton. Wow.
For the last two weeks my team and I have been working at Hickory Hill Park helping to remove invasive species and restore native prairie lands. Fun fact: plants that are native to prairies have adapted to be fire tolerant. At least 2/3s of their biomass is beneath the soil as opposed to the less than 1/3 for nonnative species. Thus, when you set what should be prairie on fire, all the invasive plants and saplings will die off and the ones that belong will start growing back almost immediately.
Turns out, setting large areas on fire is rather fun. Here’s how it works: You have a burn boss who runs the whole show and 2 line bosses with drip torches working in opposite directions. You start at a corner and work your way into the wind (I know, you would probably think you’d want the wind to help spread the fire, but turns out fire does that well enough on its own and this way it is more likely to stay under control). The bosses communicate via walkie talkie to determine which line needs to be advancing at what rate to have them meet at the opposite corner at approximately the same time. Throughout this part, additional people are along each line with water, rakes, and flappers (essentially a mud flap on a stick used for smothering) to make sure the fire stays on the appropriate side of the burn line. Once an area has burned, the fuel is gone and it won’t reignite so once those lines meet, the fire is boxed in and you basically just wait for the inside flames to hit those lines and burn out, which takes much less time than you would expect. (I'm the one in the green hard hat to the left. This particular burn went crazy fast- around 15 minutes from the first flame to completely extinguished.)
Brush pile burns are a whole different matter. It’s a lot like a bonfire, but without a fire ring and with a whole lot more of the tiny stuff so the initial blaze is huge and overwhelmingly hot. I’m talking flames 20 or 30 feet in the air (or to the side depending on the wind) and about a 20 foot comfort circle. If you had to go any closer than that, it was basically run in, extinguish what you can, then get out before your face melts off. By far the most intense work we have had the chance to do. I should probably mention the nomex. Don’t worry, they didn’t send us unprotected. Oh no, we each went equipped with our very own fire resistant nomex suit complete with goggles and helmet shroud and everything. We looked awesome!
(I'm the one on the right, can't you tell?)
Three of our 10 work days were spent burning and the rest of the time we spent removing invasive species by hand. It was hard work, but wow, I loved it. The honey suckle involved a lot of digging and lopping and pushing and pulling. You could easily spend 15 or 20 minutes on a single plant. Some of these things were massive. The garlic mustard (my favorite) you pretty much just worked your way through the forest pulling out any you saw. Some days it was downright magical with the birds chirping and the sunlight seeping through the trees bathing everything in a greenish glow. I loved it. As it turns out, I completely LOVE plants. I always knew I liked them, but I was rather caught off guard with how absolutely fascinated I was with them. We had a different supervisor (generally a board member from the Friends of Hickory Hill Park organization) almost every day and most of them were quite knowledgeable about the local flora. I probably learned to recognize about 20 new plants and it was so fun to be able to walk along the trails and have a name for almost everything I saw. If I ever decide to go back school, I feel fairly certain that it will be for something in some way related to plants. So there’s that.
The housing for this project proved to be a rather interesting situation. We were staying in a church and though the accommodations were really quite nice (wirless internet, full kitchen, multiple showers) there were a couple things that were way less than ideal. Our work week went from Wednesday through Sunday and seeing as how our bedrooms were actually Sunday school rooms, come Sunday we got to pack up everything before we headed out to work and make it look like we weren’t there. The other bizarre element was the fact that the University of Iowa Jazz Band also used the church as a practice facility. I admit, I was fairly excited when we first heard this, but come to find out practice sessions are way less enjoyable than performances and big bands are really incredibly loud. Perhaps it wouldn't have been so bad if they hadn't insisted on setting up in the most inconvenient place. The basement of the church had one large, open room with a two class/bed rooms at the south end and one at the north end along with a hall slightly to the west with the bathrooms. The bands would set up in the corner of the main room completely blocking the bathroom hall and the north room (sometimes literally leaning on the door). When you come home from work tired, dirty, and covered in poison ivy, you really just want to be able to hop in the shower, not sneak around through the entire church looking for alternate ways to get to the bathroom without disturbing a band or whatever other meetings were in session. Strange, often comical, but mostly just annoying. Though we all loved the actual project, the jazz band situation was getting rather old and seeing as how clunky steel toe boots and daily 4 mile or more hikes lead to some awfully sore feet, its probably good that its over.
Tomorrow morning my team and I will head to the tiny town of Hopkinton, Iowa. I thought Vinton was small with its mere 5,000 residents. Hopkinton has 641. To get some perspective, I graduated high school with 1040. This, my friends, is a very tiny town. We will be working with the Delaware County Historical Society doing all sorts of random things. We will be living in a gymnasium that was built in 1916 as part of Lenox college. There is a “kitchen” (our first task will be to install a stove) and there is a bathroom but no shower facilities. Funny I was ranting about a band blocking a bathroom...this time we have to walk three blocks to shower, but at least we can go whenever we want, right? The campus was a functioning college from 1859 to 1944 and now houses a museum focusing on pioneer Iowa. Looks like the majority of our work will be mostly cleaning, maintenance, and technology related projects for the museum with a few odd jobs thrown in like cleaning the city pool and cross-referencing the death registry. It definitely seems to be the type of project that will require an overarching sense of humor. I’m really quite excited. I’m sure it will be a new and strange experience for us all. Can’t wait to share some awesome stories…I’m certain there will be many!

My Little Taste of the Big Apple

Spring break came and went with the sure swiftness of all things too good to be true. I packed an awful lot into those four days of freedom, but vacation just never really is long enough is it? The trip got off to a rather rocky start. I’ll spare you the intricate details but let’s just say that some donated Easter baskets and the wonders of the Chicago roadways nearly waylaid my travel plans. By the time my train dragged into O’Hare, I had exactly 5 minutes until my plane started boarding. I raced up the stairs and through the check-in, convinced the security man to let me slip under the rope ahead of the line with the pilots, begged the other travelers to let me cut for the security scan, then ran to the very end of the terminal. I made it from train to gate in the record time of 13 minutes- sweaty, out of breath and fairly stunned that no one had reported me as “agitated or suspicious.”
Since Renee had work on Friday, she dropped me at the New Jersey transit station on her way into work. I took the train into the city and proceeded to spend a marvelous day exploring by myself. Most people seem to be under the impression that tourism should be done as a group. Fortunately, I have always been a much bigger fan of wandering than touring and seeing as how alone time is probably the rarest and most valuable commodity of my life at present, the day was absolutely delightful. I did some shopping, spent about 5 hours roaming the Guggenheim, had a picnic in Central Park, and whiled away the afternoon simply absorbing the sights and sounds. Perhaps the most unexpected highlight of the day was the 15 minutes I spent in the quiet still of a meditation labyrinth in the candle lit basement of a church. You just never know what you’ll find… and had I not been alone I doubt I would have had the liberty of choosing a street to roam simply for its trees, let alone have noticed and followed the little sign with the intriguing maze on it. Adventure is always around; you just have to keep your eyes open. I met up with Renee around 5 and my dear friend Whitney joined us a couple hours later for dinner. I had my first Korean barbeque experience with the added delight of a friend of Whitney’s joining us to show us the ins and outs of how it’s done. It was a lovely evening of good food and good friends.
On Saturday, I ventured into an Ikea store for the first time ever. Amazing! So much fun stuff--so much Swedish! I’ve pretty much been a vegetarian for a while now, but when confronted with those delicious smelling Swedish meatballs complete with lingonberry sauce I totally caved. Paid for it later, but wow, they were good.
Easter Sunday was a bit more than I expected. A few months back, while newly emboldened by my success with sixth graders, I had agreed to join Renee in the church nursery when I came to visit. Had I remembered what day I would be there and the influx of kiddos that this would mean, perhaps I would not have been so eager. We ended up with six helpers and over 25 kids in the infant to 2 year old room. After one little girl puked and a couple of the unfamiliar kids started crying, everyone started crying (not me, but it was kind of the laugh so you don't cry sort of situation). Divide and conquer became the new plan and I suddenly found myself in room with two other adults and six screaming, snotting, slobbering, tiny babies and proceeded to spend an hour holding and walking and rocking two babies at a time attempting to get everyone calm at once. It never happened, and by the time the service was over and I got cleaned up I was fairly certain I needed to be left alone in a dark quiet room for at least 7 hours in order to recuperate. To put things in perspective, prior to entering that war zone I can only remember holding a baby about 6 other times in my entire life. The phrase trial by fire comes to mind. Don’t get me wrong, they were quite cute and all, but I think I’ve had my fill for another five years or so. After church we had a lovely Easter lunch with a few of Renee’s friends. We finished up the day experimenting with a new egg dyeing method Renee had heard about. It is absurdly easy and the results were outstanding. You simply take an old silk tie or scarf, cut a piece off, wrap it around an egg, wrap a piece of white cloth around that and rubber band it, then drop the whole thing in boiling water and the pattern on the silk magically transfers to the egg. Can’t really imagine ever bothering with the messy pots of dye and overwhelming vinegar fumes again now that I’ve learned this secret.
Monday proved to be a beautiful spring day and we welcomed it fittingly by planting an assortment of herbs and flowers to grow in her windows and on her rooftop. As a grand finale, we spent the next couple of hours making ravioli. By making ravioli, I do indeed mean “making” it, not just cooking it. We made the ricotta from scratch (which turns out to be simple, cost effective, and delicious) as well as the pasta, assembled, cooked, and coated with a browned butter and sage sauce.
It was a delicious meal and an excellent way to wrap up the weekend. I hopped on a plane, then a train, and finally an automobile and made it back to the house right around midnight. It was so refreshing to be away from it all for a few days, but unfortunately my short glimpse into “normal life” has reminded me of all the little things I gave up and reawakened my restlessness for independence. Tomorrow is our last day of work on this project and we head straight to Iowa City for our two weeks of environmental work with the Friends of Hickory Hill Park. I am greatly looking forward to the change of pace and I’m sure the sun and fresh air will do us all a world of good.

More of the Same

It has been over two weeks since I posted anything which usually means I’ve just been too busy to sit still and type. Unfortunately, this time it has way more to do with a lack of things to write about. It is close to spring break time and i think everyone has sort of hit that point in the year where days start running together and habits grate on nerves and everyone is just sort or in need of a break. Despite that, work is still going pretty well. The week before last I got to shadow one of the site supervisors. I just rode around with him to all his different sites. It was neat to get to see everything that actually goes into coordinating that many volunteers, supplies, and contractors, but it meant that I mostly rode around all day instead of doing actual building. I sort of missed dirt under my nails aspect, but this last week I was right back at it. I worked at a few different houses doing all sorts of things, but I’d have to say the highlight was ripping out and rebuilding some stairs. Part of that process required nailing into concrete which led to the introduction of my new favorite tool. Everyone, I’d like you to meet the hammer driven powder actuated concrete nailer. It’s awesome! You put the nail in the bottom, a gunpowder cartridge in the middle, then hit the top with a hammer and it shoots the nail thru the wood and into the concrete. My supervisor that day got quite a kick out of my delight and he said he’d try to request me as a volunteer for next week so I can use it on one of his other sites. Hope that works out. Other than that not much has been happening. There is something for us to do almost every day after work so we usually don’t get home til close to 7 and once everyone has eaten and showered its pretty much time to call it a day. Doesn’t leave much time for adventure. Fortunately, Thursday evening marks the beginning of our spring break and I will be flying far away to New York City. It will be a much needed break and I can hardly wait to see my dear friend Renee. It is hard to pin down which is more exciting—-all the things we’ll be doing, or the simple fact that I will have four whole days away from my team and the monotony of grey and khaki. Regardless, I know it will be fantastic and I feel certain it will result in many blog worthy happenings. I suppose the only other thing worth mentioning at this point has to do with the local landscape. I had no idea Indiana would have such lovely sights. It is only about a five minute walk from our house to the shore of Lake Michigan and from there we have a perfect view of the Chicago skyline.
On a lunch break one day, I got to go on an adventure to Mount Baldy, hike up a huge sand dune, and actually walk out on a huge iceberg type thing that lined the shore. It was beautiful. I had forgotten that sandy beaches with views of nothing but water weren’t exclusive to oceans. One of LARRI's volunteer houses is only about 500 yards from the water and I got unload some lumber there one day. Once again, breathtaking. So yeah, at least that has been a pleasant and much appreciated surprise.

Gary Idiana Gary Indiana Gary...

I have another story for you- less whimsical than the last, but with an even better ending I think. A wonderful thing happened today. We were working at this sweet old lady’s house and I started talking to her about her plants. She asked if I liked plants and I said “oh yes, and I miss mine very much.” We kept working- painting, trim work, light masonry (my favorite!)- and at the end of the day here she comes with this tin can full of clippings, hands it to me, and says “here you go, see what you can do with these.” I had to fight back my usual involuntary squealing, hands waving, leg lifted, excitment reaction, but I didn’t want to frighten her…she really was rather old. I got them home and sorted them out and found homes for them. I’d been wondering how in the world I was going to make it through spring without something to care for and now I have 7 new friends to tend to.
I know they look sad, annoyed, and perhaps even a bit disappointed that their new homes strongly resemble discarded beverage containers, but I hope that after a week or so they will realize how appreciated they are and perk up a bit. It is unlikely they will be allowed to come home in the van with me, but for the next month I plan to love them and care for them and see what happens in the time that we have- sometimes that’s the best you can do. At the very least, I get to have a hobby again for a while.
So far Indiana has been treating us quite well. We are here working with Lakeshore Area Regional Recovery of Indiana (LARRI) repairing houses that were damaged in the terrible floods of September ’08. It’s amazing how much is left to be done. It looks like we will be doing quite a variety of work and I think I’ll be enjoying most of it. The painting gets rather old, but yesterday we got to tear up some tile floor and I hear we should be doing some dry walling and carpentry jobs, so that will be fun. The housing is wonderful. We have big, beautiful, old house with 2 kitchens, a brick street out front, wireless internet, and only three people to a room. Pretty nice. The hardest part to get used to is definitely the driving. On our last project, it wasn’t uncommon to go multiple days without driving anywhere; here we spend a good 2 hours a day shuttling back and forth. Seems like such a waste.
Last weekend was quite a treat. I found out a few weeks ago that one of my favorite college roommates and her husband now live in Chicago, which happens to be about 40 minutes away from where we are staying. Friday right after work I headed to the metro station, rode into the city and got to spend the weekend with Jessica and Nathan. It was wonderful. We did some long overdue catching up and Saturday I got to spend about five hours at the Art Institute of Chicago. The last time I was there was on a family vacation in about eighth grade and the experience was rather pivotal in forming my understanding and appreciation of art. It was great to be back there again and get to stand in front of the same painting that changed my whole perspective so many years ago. Back then, my life plan was to graduate college, move to Chicago, get a job at an engineering firm, get a big dog, and go for daily runs along the waterfront. I got the college part out of the way, but the big dog is really the only part of the old plan that still has any appeal. Funny how things change like that. To top it all off, Sunday night I had the chance to hear Punch Brothers (an awesome bluegrass band with mandolin player Chris Thile) play at the Old Town School of Folk Music. It was an incredible concert and an overall wonderful night. Old friends, new friends, old places, new music- what more could you want out of a weekend?
Okay, laundry’s done, time to go.

A Silly Story About an Unseasonably Sunny Day

I think this morning the sky found a box of crayons. I think he opened it up and found one that shared his name. He got excited at the lovely shade of blue he saw and wondered if perhaps he looked like that too. He hovered over a pond but found the mushy ice made for a disappointing mirror so he convinced the sun to beat down on it to wear away the ice. Sun made quick work of the stale ice, but Sky then found Wind, still bitter though no one could even remember why, pacing forcefully across the water's surface in a hopelessly distracting manner. Sky politely asked wind to hold off a while to give water a chance to rest. As everything settled and his reflection came into view, instead of the vibrant color of his namesake crayon, all Sky saw was a pallid, grayish blue. He wasn’t prepared for this. He was angry; he was sad; he was ugly. Before he could stop himself the tears had filled his eyes and began to streak his face. The big, warm tears rained down on the earth and as the last patches of dirty snow began to melt away, he seemed to feel a bit better, perhaps even a bit brighter. He began to ask himself what sky blue crayon had that he didn’t and wondered if he tried a little harder, if he couldn’t just learn to look the same. So he wiped his eyes and pushed away the negative thoughts. He shrugged off winter’s melancholy and tried to remember a more lively time when earth’s inhabitants weren’t afraid of him and splashes of color burst right up through the ground. The happy memories made him smile and when he did, the final gritty layer sloughed off and there underneath was the vibrant, cheerful color Sky had forgotten he knew how to be. The clouds clustered together in little groups to talk about how happy they were for Sky and the sun gathered behind them like little fans so the clouds edges shone all silvery gold. The wind no longer felt so angry and remembered how fun it was to take more circuitous routes and add little flips and twists along the way. The grass woke up and began the arduous process off stretching it's tangled limbs and reorienting itself. The sun, happy to no longer be the only one awake, found the strength to beam brighter and warmer than is had for the last several months.
I think what I’m trying to say, is that today it was spring. I know the calendar says we have another couple weeks to go, but today I lifted my face to the sky, I felt the sun, I smelled the earth, I heard the birds and all of them were saying the same thing—“we are tired of this colorless monotony. It is time to wake up and remember how beautiful we can be!”

The End

(this is what happens when you run out of work on a construction site and have no option but to stretch out in the first truly gorgeous day of the year and look for shapes in the clouds while you wait for more caulk to show up)

Leaps and Bounds

My team and I left Sherman Lake last Thursday. Our formal debrief was today. By all definitions the project is over, but I have yet to feel that sense of finality that tends to come when things draw to a close. The best explanation I’ve come up with is that whenever the difference that happened inside you is greater than the difference you feel you made around you, it gets to remain an ongoing chapter until you are finished with its lessons, if ever. It happens with people in our lives, it happens with places, it happens with random sentences we hear that stick with us for decades. Perhaps all I’m trying to say is that I’m not finished sorting out and applying my newly learned lessons, and thus the project seems far from over. So, instead of talking about the facts and statistics of my time as a camp counselor, I find myself wanting to talk about the less tangible things because those are the parts that will stick with me. It has been hard for me to comprehend exactly what happened over the last month. Did I learn, did I grow, expand my world, metamorphose? I would assume anyone who has been forced to confront an irrational fear struggles to really explain the experience. I mean, I spent a few weeks around kids and didn’t die. Big deal, right? Right, except that for me, it was a rather large deal. I am leaving with an odd mix of gratitude, chagrin, and empowerment. All these years I have blatantly refused to make room in my comfort zone for children, citing a broad range of excuses from don’t like, to don’t know how, to not capable of. Now that I can see how grossly blown out of proportion the whole kids thing was, it makes me wonder what other things I may have ignorantly categorized as impossibilities. I mean, perhaps the color pink isn’t inherently weak and vapid. Maybe Chihuahua’s do have a valid spot in the food chain and aren’t just a disgrace to the species. Maybe if I tried it for more than a minute, I could actually appreciate the merits of being organized. Maybe public speaking wouldn’t be so bad if I tried it more often and were better prepared. Perhaps I do have what it takes to be a leader, a teacher, an entrepreneur. I have no clue what other doors I have faultily assumed to be locked, but it would be wasteful and incredibly short sighted if I failed to use this experience as a reminder that just because something seems closed, or always has been in the past, doesn’t mean it is unchangeably so. Sometimes it just takes a few people helping you push. Sometimes it may even take a professional locksmith, and that is okay too. I always feel a bit cheap when I write something for one thing and then use it for another, but I was responsible for writing the closure for our debrief today and I think what I came up with captures the project pretty well and I wanted to share it. I realize my verbose nature has once again taken over, but here it is anyway:

Our team entered into this project with an incredibly broad range of emotions and expectations. Some of us with dread, some with excitement, some with apathy. I think everyone assumed that some sort of learning would take place, but I don’t think anyone was really prepared for the growth and attachment that happened. We were on completely different pages when we arrived but I think we left with at least this one thing in agreement: Sherman Lake is an amazing place where powerful things can happen if you allow them to. We were taught so much about being positive role models, and about the far reaching power of our words and actions. We can all leave proud of the work we did, but what only time will tell is this: to what extent will we let these lessons permeate our own lives? Will Honesty, Caring, Respect, and Responsibility become a new standard for us to measure our own actions against or will they be shoved to the inconsequential corners of our memories along side the terms “broken zipper” and “truddy.” Will we remember how important unconditional positive reinforcement is and the uncanny power of the simple question “tell me more”? Or will we just remember the beauty of heated floors or the pungent stench of cleaning supplies? I know that I for one am leaving a different person. I hope the hole that was blasted thru the borders of my comfort zone is a permanent one and that I remember that even when we are certain that conquering a fear will take more than we have inside of us, it is still a worthwhile endeavor and more often than not we’ll end up surprising ourselves. I hope I remember how important it is to have a good support system and how beautiful it is to see people doing what they are truly good at. What we each take away from this project is completely up to the individual-- we did the work that we came to do, but ultimately, the question is, what will we allow that work to do to us in return?

On a lighter note, Thursday morning we head out for Gary, Indiana. We will once again be doing construction work, but this time it will be on homes damaged during last years flooding. So, for any of you bogged down by my two months of panic driven emoting, take heart- I feel I am returning to solid ground and the existential crisis should be over for a time. No guarantees, but I expect future posts to be much more upbeat and entertaining!

Too Good To Be True

I have approximately one and a half hours away from the kids today, but there are a couple of awesome updates that I really wanted to post. First and foremost, I have now been in charge of a cabin of ten girls all by myself for approximately 6 hours now and everything is going great! I got them and their luggage back to the cabin, spent half an hour helping them create their “community commitment” (basically the set expectations that they want to set for themselves for the their time here. Things like have fun, learn, be safe, make new friends, etc.), got them and everything they needed to lunch on time (and it is truly impressive when they actually remember all they need), got them to the high ropes activity early and helped all but one complete the entire course (my last cabin only had about half complete it, and the one that didn’t this time gave it a great effort but is just really scared of heights), and then got them all bundled up sent out for some sledding and archery. I think its going to be a great couple of days- they seem like really good kids. So whew, and wow, and yikes how much longer til I get to sleep?
Ok, now for the other quite exciting news. Yesterday we found out what our next project will be. I didn’t know this was even an option, but our team will be having a “split project” and will actually be doing two separate projects during round three. For the first month or so, we will be in Gary, Indiana. I can’t remember the name of the organization, but we will be working on rehabilitating damaged houses. Yay, more construction!!! On any other blog that would more than likely be a sarcastic statement, but nope, I’m am genuinely excited about reuniting with tools and getting some dirt back under these all too clean fingernails. Also very exciting is the close proximity to Chicago and all the wonderful opportunities that opens up. After that we will head straight to Iowa City, Iowa and spend the next couple of weeks working with some other organization whose name I have also forgotten doing environmental work. It sounds like there will be some invasive species mitigation and…drum roll please…if the weather conditions are good we should be doing some prescribed burns!!!!!!! Woohoo! I for one am super excited about both projects, but I was a bit surprised by the lack of enthusiasm from the rest of my team. Perhaps they will warm up to them once we finally get a decent night’s sleep and are able to stop obsessively counting our small but constantly moving wards. Speaking of which, it’s about time I head back, get them fed, play some dodge ball, wear them out in the pool, and then hopefully read them to sleep before any homesickness disasters arise. I’ve come a long way, but the tears still totally freak me out.