Field Trips!

We had our first field day on Friday. We divided both teams up into smaller groups and each went off with an instructor to start applying what we learned over the previous two days. My group went with Emily, who happens to be Ervin’s older sister. She felled a tree and then we practiced limbing and bucking. Felling or falling a tree is essentially cutting it down. Limbing is when you remove the braches and bucking is when you cut the trunk into smaller pieces that can be carried away. So we did that for one tree, and Emily had us size up another tree. Then she hung a tree by accident, so we had to get some extra help from some other instructors to try and bring it down. It was a mistake and miscalculation on Emily’s part, but it was also a really good learning experience to see how to deal with situations like that. So it wasn’t really a problem. It did take up a little of our field time. Adrienne was the only one who got to fall a tree with the time that we had left. But that’s okay. It was cool to see her in action. The rest of us at least had a chance to practice our cuts on stumps. Mine was pretty awful. Well, Emily said it wasn’t that bad. My face cut was decent for a first try, but when I came in with my back cut, I was way too low and I ended up cutting underneath my face cut. Whoops. Oh well. Now I know what not to do.

On Saturday, the team joined Earth 4 at UC Boulder to help out with an MS walk for an ISP. After that, some of us stayed in Boulder and walked around for a bit, got lunch, etc. I wandered into a leftist co-op bookstore at one point and it was pretty cool. I want to go back and get a few things that looked like they would make interesting reads.

On Sunday, the team gathered up and drove back to Denver. We spent Monday at Red Rocks to help kick off AmeriCorps Week with the other wildfire teams, the local team and some AmeriCorps VISTA and state/local members. We spent the day pulling out two invasive species from the fields around Red Rocks and getting sunburned. After lunch, there was a ceremony to honor some CCC alumni, as well as some AmeriCorps alumni and members. Keenan, the one wildfire TL, was among the group. They had the comedian Josh Blue as entertainment.

After all that, we went grocery shopping and then headed back to the bunkhouse. This week was better food-wise, but we also went about $120 over budget. Apparently, though, we’re not the only wildfire team having an issue with the cost of food. So I guess we’ll see what happens.

On Tuesday morning, we awoke to six inches of snow on the ground and more falling. We did PT in the weight room that day, something called House of Pain. You take a deck of cards and flip through them, each card representing a different exercise. So all Jacks were twenty crunches, all 2s were wall-sits for 30 seconds, etc. It was interesting. Because there was snow everywhere, we couldn’t work outside. So we spent the whole day doing JHAs – Job Hazard Analysis paperwork. It was really boring. JHAs are basically forms that you have to read and sign concerning any and every little job hazard that could possibly exist. Working for the Forest Service presents a few obvious ones that wouldn’t ordinarily exist in normal jobs. However, there was one JHA that explained hazards of office work and how to remedy or prevent things like paper cuts, strained eyes and sitting too long. Really terrible.

Today was a little different. Apparently for this round, on Wednesdays we’ll be working with Open Spaces in Boulder. They’re an organization that preserves … well … open space in Boulder. Today, we went to an area near a park and cleared brush that was obscuring a fence, pulled old fence posts and cleaned up garbage.

Tomorrow, it’s back to the work center. Not sure if we’ll have another field day. The snow has melted some. We’ll see.