Adventures with Ama

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I am back in Grand Rapids, MI, my last semester at GVSU starts tomorrow, and I am wishing I had scheduled myself some readjustment time. Alas, I have not so why not jump into life and love it with all I have.

This last week was as loverly as the rest. We installed sediment catching coir logs in the nickpoint at Needle Creek, installed pipe to divert water flow from running so harshly over the nickpoint, and we enjoyed each other’s company. We had a movie night at Abel’s and made him dinner for a change. We played on the beach and watched the tide come in. We spent our last breakfast at the Monkey Tree. We danced and sang and hugged for the first time. We left the small island we called home for the last three months without tears to shed and with hurried goodbyes looking forward to our separate futures knowing the high likelihood that we will never see one another again.

This summer as a land stewardship intern at the Vashon Maury Island Land Trust, I accomplished and learned many things. In the words of fellow intern Eli’s father, I have paid my debt to the environment and am now set for life. I worked physically harder than I ever have before. I learned a lot about very large number of native and non-native plants but did not learn their Latin names. I have learned about the natural flow of streams and rivers and that water is an untamable force. I have learned how to attempt to harness that flow as well as deter it by putting in dams. I have learned how to go about restoring a habitat to its most glorified state. I have learned how to use new tools. I have killed American bullfrogs, destroyed Himalayan blackberry, pulled scotch broom, Canadian, bull, and sow thistle, common and tansy ragwort, and perennial pepper weed, and chanted, “we must destroy to restore!” I have fernicated. I have built trail. I have mowed, deer sprayed, and watered reforestation projects. I have preserved and restored what makes this planet such a wonderful place to be.

In the scheme of my life the exact tasks I performed this summer are unimportant. That is not to say environmental conservation and restoration is not important, but that the tasks have molded themselves into something larger than they could be on their own. Tasks are but material things in this material world and day by day, I am becoming less and less of a material girl. Through the people I have met this summer and the time I have had to personally reflect and process my life, I have found a beautiful inner peace. I have a slight but tight grasp on a culture that I have made for myself. These are the things I have learned through a summer as a land stewardship intern in the great north west:
1. Voids in people’s lives are never filled by consumerism. Only real human connection will. Consumerism will not make your life better.
2. I have no idea why a “9-5 job” is viewed in high esteem when the majority of the US population cannot wait for the weekends. I do not want to be constantly wishing it were the weekend.
3. Lighten up.
4. No matter where I go or what I do I will find family and friends there waiting for me.
5. I do not want to settle. For a paycheck. For companionship. For any job title that does not include “Professional Adventurer”.
6. Learning is an incredibly beautiful thing when it is about something in which you are truly interested.
7. Age may help to define a person but it should not define or deter friendship.
8. Being idealistic is not a waste of energy.
9. EVERYTHING you do affects EVERYTHING else in this world and beyond. Everything is connected.
10. Waste is disgusting.
11. Slow down.
12. Love life!

Click HERE for pictures and videos!

Last week on Vashon Island! Wowie zowie how time does fly!

Last week we finished the trail around Fisher Pond by installing some spectacular stairs, had a day of bull thistle pulling with volunteers, and took the first steps of erosion control at Needle Creek. Needle Creek has turned into a miniature grand canyon because of poorly controlled drainage on the rest of the property. The sediment falling into the creek because of the erosion kills salmon eggs downstream. Our goal with our current project is to catch as much sediment as possible and temporarily prevent further erosion at the nickpoint. Last week we built 120ft suspended tarp slides down the sides of the ravine in order to get coir logs, sand bags, pipe, and other supplies down into the nickpoint with as little damage to ourselves and the land as possible. Needless to say the slides were awesome and very tempting to jump onto, but I managed to resist.

Friday we got a call from Beth, the Land Trust office manager, asking us if we wanted to go on an overnight sailing trip with her and her husband. We sailed from north Seattle in their 48ft sailboat to Blake Island. Christine and I slept on the deck under the full moon. In the morning, we explored Blake Island and headed back to Seattle sailing into the wind. Afterward, Beth and her husband Rob took us out for Thai. It was a beautiful trip, and I was reminded of how much I love being on the water.

On Sunday, I woke up early and headed over to my boss Abel’s house. I offered physical labor as his and Kim’s wedding present so we spent the morning and early afternoon working on the tree house where they will spend their wedding night. At 3 we had to get over to Beth’s house for a Land Trust board meeting potluck. I would have rather stayed at Abel’s and worked on the tree house.

I leave this lovely little island on Saturday morning to go back to Grand Rapids and finish my last semester of college. I am a mixture of excited and a little sad. I have grown attached to those I have met here and the land itself. I have found a piece of myself here I would have never found otherwise. I am also excited to hug my family and friends at “home” and to ‘hang with my girls’. But I have a week here left!

Click here for pictures!

Once again, another week has passed in the Pacific Northwest.

Last week we started the great detour of trail around Fisher Pond. This trail will keep people from having to walk along Bank Road. We are making half of the trail while a boy scout working on his eagle project will make the other half. We also had a much needed tool love day where we cleaned up our workshop, sharpened and cleaned all of our tools, and reorganized. Abel finally showed us “the grand canyon” on the island that he was going to show us the first day we were here. The island’s grand canyon was created just like the real grand canyon, by a stream, but the island’s grand canyon happened because of logging and the diversion of many streams into one. It was another rainless week so we spent Thursday watering the Singer Farm reforestation project.

Wednesday was a super special day. It was “evict the squatters day!” There is no camping on Land Trust land and the people who tend to camp on our land tend to also have a drug habit. For this reason, we almost always carry machetes for just in case reasons. All summer we have been putting notice of eviction signs on squatters’ tents that we have found on Land Trust properties. Usually when we come back a couple days later, the squatters have moved on and taken all of their belongings. This time when we found a squatters’ village on the Scarsella property (where we usually have the biggest problem) not all of their belongings were gone a few days after the notice, but thankfully the squatters themselves were. It took all morning to wheelbarrow odds and ends out of the woods. Findings included two tents, a mattress, women’s clothing, a table and chairs set, blankets, a tupperware of food (some rotten some fresh), a cooler of food (some rotten some fresh), a lot of books about airplanes (the Scarsella property is next to the Vashon airport), a box of trinkets, makeup, a picture of a clown, a very large wall mirror, broken fishing poles, a scythe, and a lot of other things we left in the tents to take to the dump. The smell was incredible. It was very interesting to see up close and personal how some people choose to live. As a side note, the squatters had taken a lot with them from that spot. They took everything of artistic value (except for the box of trinkets and the clown painting) and left everything that might be needed to survive.

We figured out if we take every Friday off, we will still have enough hours to receive our Americorps Education Award scholarships so of course we are taking Fridays off. This allowed Christine and me to travel to Portland over the weekend. We took the Friday morning Amtrak from Tacoma. Once in Portland, we walked to the visitor center for a map and were please to have the grandma-esq woman working the counter to tell us exactly what she thought we would love. (She was dead on. We loved everything she said we would.) Although we could have easily taken the streetcar, we decided to walk to the zoo, which was all fine and dandy until there was a giant hill and we realized we were on the opposite side of the zoo entrance. So we had a lovely stroll through the rose gardens and a romp on some teeter totters and found the zoo train, which took us to the zoo. The Portland zoo was very nice and had a lot of variety. We took the streetcar back to downtown afterward to meet up with the girl we were staying with through couchsurfing. Friday night we went out with our new couchsurfing friends to Roxys, a dive of a diner downtown, and rented Wet Hot American Summer. Saturday we explored Portland’s Saturday Market, Powell’s Bookstore (which is incredible and makes me wish I had a jillion dollars and a bajillion hours to just sit and read), and the Hawthorne district where we had lunch at a super delish Lebanese restaurant. Saturday night we met up with Christine’s friend for dinner and hot cocoa. Sunday we slept in a little and then rode the bus into town so we could catch our 12:15pm. On the way to the train station we walked through the only part of Portland we hadn’t seen, china town. We had a loverly trip and found Portland to be a thoroughly delightful town.

To my mother’s disappointment, I did not take many pictures but CLICK HERE!

This last week was the best to date. Monday and Tuesday were spent deconstructing a the bridge over Shinglemill Creek and installing woody debris in order to slow the flow and prevent erosion. We rented an excavator and its operator for this project, which was a really good choice. We were really lucky to have Matt, the excavator operator now known as a 'golden god' by some and someone to follow into battle (as long as he is operating an excavator) by others, and his black retriever puppy, Samson, helping us with this project. For a few hours the second day we had a different excavator operator and when Matt and Samson came back we had to have them redo a lot of what the last guy did. Although I did not get to operate the excavator, which was a bummer, I did get to help chain and unchain the ecology blocks as they were loaded into the back of the dump truck. I must say dump trucks are quite far off the ground and quite tricky to jump into, don't let any construction person fool you. I have some pretty substantial bruises from jumping in and out of the dump truck nine times.

Originally we had planned on leaving for our "work" camping trip on the coast on Wednesday night but after a few trips to the dump Wednesday morning to take care of non-recyclable debris from the bridge project and the construction in the Land Trust office, we decided to just leave after lunch. This camping trip was proposed to the board as an educational field trip on old growth forest ecology and forestry practices. Abel did a good job of getting us all a nice vacation. On the look out for a campsite, Abel pulled a U-turn claiming he saw an elk... it ended up being an elk colored horse and was the beginning of many a helk jokes. Wednesday night we camped along the Hoh River. It was incredible to hear the raging river all night. Thursday we packed up camp and headed into the Hoh Rain Forest. We hiked and played in the rain forest a majority of the day admiring the mosses and the elk. At some point it started raining and it did not stop. Next we drove out to the coast, stopping at "the world's largest western red cedar" (not true). We ended up at Ruby Beach and played the "throw rocks and destroy things" game for a few hours while we explored the Pacific Coast. We ended up camping Thursday night at a regular camp grounds in one of the last available spaces. Friday (still raining) we packed up camp, checked out another big red cedar, and headed toward Oil City (which isn't a city at all). We hiked out along the Hoh River to where it meets the Pacific Ocean and played on the beach for hours running away from dangerous drift wood. Before we left, I talked everyone but Abel into swimming (mostly jumping around in the waves and screaming) in the ocean in their underoos. Next we went to Port Townsend and met up with Kim and Teo (Abel's fiance and four year old son) for some pizza. Then back to Vashon it was, of course with a stop at Dairy Queen.

Click here for pictures! (and some videos!)

Christine and Eli took most of these... my camera was out of batteries once again because I am never prepared.