End of November Already!!

Wow, I can't believe it is the end of November and I have been living in Cape Cod for three months. Sometimes it seems like I have only been here for a few weeks and sometimes it feel like much longer. I was home at my parents for the Thanksgiving break. I car pooled with four other people. Yep, there was five of us and all our stuff in my little Jeep. Just trying to do our part to save the planet. LOL More like trying to save money. My next break is December 24th until January 3rd. So, please let me know if you have any time that we could get together. I would love to see people when I come home. I have not done any new activities over the last couple weeks. We constructed a trail in the woods, did another WET Fest, trimmed back some overgrowth around a cranberry blog, and did some invasive species removal. I currently have my own room. My roommate decided that the program was not for her and that she needed to explore other options and left the program. She was a great roommate and we got along well. We may be getting a new member after the holiday break but not sure yet. I hope that we will get along also and it will work out as well as it did with my last roomie. I hope that I will be see some of you over the Christmas break. Leave me a comment and let me know how life is going with you.

The Yurt we camped in.

Bundled up - Maria, Ashleigh, and Me

Water Quality Testing - It's clean. Placing an Opitcal Brightener Collector - Let's see if my design works.

AmeriCorps Making a Difference

Well, lots of exciting things have been happening in Bourne. Our last two service projects have been really cool. We worked at a tree farm and were able to plant some trees. A lot of the time, I feel like we are killing a lot of plant life but not putting much back. Which I do understand has to be done in order for newer plant life to grow in, but it was nice to actually physically add back some life to the planet. The other project that we did that was cool was building and installing benches for a park. We were able to go through the whole process. We built the benches from plans, dug holes to place them in, and cemented the benches to the ground. It was hard work, but a lot of fun. This past Saturday, I worked at a Drop and Swapping Recycle Event. People would drop off stuff they did not want any more to the Recycling Center and then 'shop' for new stuff. It was very interesting to see what people dropped off and even more interesting to see what people wanted to take home. "One person's junk, really is another's treasure." People dropped off toys, clothes, household stuff, Christmas stuff, dishes, everything you can think of.

The beginning of the bench



Next step in bench building

Drilling in screws, almost done


Megan and I sitting on the bench we made


The bench installed in the ground
My IPs continue to go well. The Ways to Water projects is really moving forward quickly. I feel like I have so much stuff to do and not enough time to complete it all. Within the last week, I have taken on two big projects which I am excited to be able to work on. Both involve cleaning up public access points to ponds. For the one project, I will be helping to landscape the area near a boat landing. I am learning how to draw landscape plans, determine costs, and find the correct people to do the actual work. The ultimate goal for the other project is to increase the accessibility to a pond located near a high school and seniors' center. I have to talked to people to see what their visions are for the pond, do a conditions assessment, determine what can actually be done, put together a packet for the Conservation Committee asking permission to do work (Whenever you want to do work within 100 feet of water, Cape Cod requires that you get permission), do a presentation in front of the committee, and than once I have permission make arrangements for the work to get done. It is going to be a huge learning process, but I am looking forward to it.

Hmm, what else has been going on. I am learning to crochet and teaching the seniors who live next door to us to use computers. I am currently sharing my car with another girl in the house because her car is in the shop. Can be tricky at times, but we both work right near each other so it has been pretty easy to share. Well, I am going to head to bed. I'll try to be better about writing. Sorry I don't have pictures of me at the tree farm or at my IPs, I lost them some how trying to put them onto a CD. :(

Voting Day

So, did you vote today? I hope so. I sent in my absentee ballot about a week along. Things have been going well here. Not much has changed with my IPs (individual placements), I am doing the same stuff as I was before. Group projects continue to provide me with a ton of new experiences and skills. It is never dull around here. I have developed skills in pruning apple trees, river and swamp restoration, and lots of patience. This past Monday I felt very much like a five year old. I played in the mud, climbed a tree, and jumped in a pile of leaves. I have a very tough life, don't I?? LOL But seriously, I did work really hard on Monday. I helped save a swamp from being taking over by wild grape vines. We had to stand in the swamp and pull off vines from buttonbush trees. It was very difficult to move because it was so muddy. So we had to form a line and pass the vines out. I fell down once. It was very gross. But I had on my waders, so the only thing that got wet and muddy were my hands. Recently, I also worked in a river building bends to increase the length of the river so more organisms can live there. In order to do this we had to move 3 tons of rocks. My arms were a little tried at the end of the day. I am having a hard time writing this because I am too focused on watching the votes come in. So, instead of writing I'll just give you a few pictures to check out. Pictures are so much better anyhow.

1) Climbing an apple tree

2) What the swamp looked like after we finished clearing it. Before you could not even see the trees.

3) Passing vines in the swamp.
4) Moving rocks. They were a little heavy.