Snoopin’ with the Snoop

Hey, I’m trying to compile a photo book and don’t remember our schedule exactly. I have 4 missing tours. Anyone remember where they go? Or any corrections if needed?

sometime was moapa/corncreek (weeding/decommissioning)
a (fourth or fifth) ash meadows
a second athel
??

1 orientation
2 12 days of planting (4 days and then 8 days)
3 trash with marco (11/19-11/21: thanksgiving)
4 rainbow gardens (11/26-11/29: nvum training)
5 rainbow gardens (12/3-12/6)
6 athel (12/10-12/17)

*christmas break*

7 mormon mountains (1/2-1/9)
8 sahara mustard arizona (1/14-1/17)
9 MLK, Hiko Wash, Rainbow (MLK(21), 1/22-1/25)
10 Corn Creek fencing (1/28-1/31)
11 Ash Meadows fencing (2/4-2/7)

12 (2/11-2/14)
13 AM f?(2/18-2/21)
14 (2/25-2/28)
15 (3/3-3/6)

16 pahranaget (3/10-3/17) (six days off)
17 trash with nccc (3/24-3/27)
18 ash meadows cattails (3/31-4/3)
19 sahara mustard weeding (4/7-4/11)
20 eglington preserve (4/14-4/18)
21 ash meadows cattails (4/21-4/25)
22 Lovell Canyon (4/28-5/1)

Up on the roof today, while cleaning the hundreds of maple seeds out the gutters after having noticed waterfalls coming over the eaves yesterday during our 1.5 inches of rain, I realized, one, just how high I had climbed on various hills when in the NCC, and two, how natural it felt to be at a higher elevation, looking down. My head felt much more at ease up there than it has down on the ground. For a flatlander, I used to think that the roof, one and a half stories high, was tall. Up there today, though I had my usual vertigo near the edge, I didn’t feel as if I were high at all. I felt I wanted to go up another one or one and a half times the height I was already at, and then i’d start to be at the difference in elevations when I used to climb in the desert.

While clearing out the house a few days ago, the continual process that it is, I found one of my journals from when I was in college. In perusing it, I could tell that during those years I continually wrote (as a writer for my college newspaper, The Argus). My writing voice was punchy, and I didn’t continually depend on a handful of words and constructions. This post and my previous posts on this blog lack the voice I had as a writer. They lack ME as a writer. And I lack the discipline with which I used to expand and expound on a subject in an entertaining way. The paragraph above can be a creative non-fiction piece, or any other form, and could flow better, and tell itself better. Such is the challenge to me. Where I used to take liberties with my writing, and succeeded as an established writer in my niche, now I stand-by for the short, monotonous exposition.

I’m so used to hours upon hours of hard manual labor that I don’t know what to do with all my excess energy. Sure, I work non-stop for 7-10 hours a day, but traveling up and down the stairs, and back and forth down the hallway, digging through boxes, making piles for recycling and trash, and lugging boxes around just doesn’t match what I became used to while working with the NCC; that is, 10 hours of digging three and a half feet down through rocky desert soil, or hauling old fence posts and barbed wire out to a road, or kneeling down in a foot of water to cut cattails out of a stream channel, or any of the other labor-intensive projects we finished.

I just pulled my ankle out of socket leaping down the hallway. Yeowch. I need to look into kickboxing, or some sort of kicky-swingy-concentrative activity. That’s sure to both keep me in the shape I’m in, and provide a constructive outlet for my energy. If I’m not careful, I may decide to leap over a park bench or some other construct. That’d go well.

The carpets get cleaned tomorrow. I must return to hauling breakable junk out of and off of furniture, and temporarily moving the boxes downstairs. Junk, junk, junk. I’m ready to sell it all! Well, most of it anyway…

My contract with the NCC ended on May 2. While I wait for my Americorps education award to arrive so that I can enroll to get a math education degree, I’m focused on cleaning my parents’ house. They are helping me by offering me the job so that I can not pay rent while working towards my degree, and I’m doing a lot of dejunking/painting/organizing for them. For wanting to be outside all the time, I’ve spent most of my time inside the last few days since getting back from Vegas. Playing Guitar Hero III. Re-leveling up to expert. I’m not sure if I’m having such difficulty because the only TV in the house is from the early 80s and does not even have composite jacks, or if I’m really the out of practice. I have the PS2 system hooked up to my computer via a PCMCIA card that has a jack that converts the composite to a digital. The card inserts where it is supposed to and relies on a program that would allow me to watch TV and VCRs on my computer. Thankfully, it also allows one to play games via game systems on one’s laptop. In addition to only being at Medium at the moment, I’m really good at covering up the IR wireless connection on the guitar as I’m playing, and usually only realize why I failed after I fail the song. Grrr.

But back to the title. Stumping.

Last summer, I tried to eliminate a stubborn tree from the wildflower garden, by cutting off all the shoots and leaving it under a black plastic garbage bag all summer. Guess who’s back. Well, this year, after learning everything that I learned while with the NCC, I took out the gosh darn stump. Not the stubborn one yet, but the stump of the same kind of tree that WAS in the front of the garden. That was a nice little work out last evening. Though the climate is humid here, I barely broke a sweat. And I had so much fun with the pick mattock, half axe, axe, saw, spade, and clippers. I did realize though, this morning, that from May 2 – May 14, when I was getting a lot of cardiovascular exercise and using my legs a lot, that my upper back strength waned a bit. But between gardening and painting, the muscles will stick around.

Speaking of the (vegetable) garden, I’m dumbfounded at the amount of lambs quarters aka pigweed (Chenopodium album L) that has taken root. A green carpet of lambs quarters. At least the stuff is edible (and in the same family as spinach). I don’t really have to buy any salad greens at the grocery store. The entire garden is covered with the green fuzzies. Although I usually let a patch grow, I have a huge task in front of me. The garden is about 30′ x 50′. I am surprised that the mustard didn’t come back though. A few onions came back, but that’s about it. I’m waiting to see if the buckwheat crossed with the bindweed, and what sort of disaster that will be…

Republic trash services. =(

We’ve completed four trash, or partial trash, tours now, and the consistent factor is that whenever we need a dumpster, and Republic says they’ll have it there by X o’clock, it usually arrives at X+3 or more o’clock. Picking up trash and piling it on the ground next to where you want the dumpster placed becomes annoying by your fourth time. Instead of picking up once and finishing your job, we get to do it twice or more, depending on the availability and proximity of our trucks to where we’re working. This tour, cleaning out the area that is the Eglington Preserve on the N side of Vegas in Aliente, Republic managed to lose the work order on Tuesday, delaying the arrival of the dumpster until Wednesday. The preserve is currently surrounded by a construction zone and will eventually be a nature area for blind and uneducated Vegas suburbians. We grumbled much about cleaning up an area to make it nice for those who destroy the desert landscape and participate in the trashing of it in the first place. We decided it’d be much more educational to leave the trash and let them do the dirty work of cleaning it up.

Since a survey of the trash in the Preserve had not been completed before we arrived to work, we weren’t sure on the volume of trash in the 300 acres, and Adam guestimated it at coming close to filling a 20-cubic-foot dumpster. We definitely could have filled a 28-cubic-foot dumpster. Adam and Melody, and Tommy and Hillary found a truck bed that someone left in the area before it became a preserve, and since the desert wildlife had converted it into nice habitat, they left it. Excusing the truck bed, some items we found that did not fit into the small dumpster were a refrigerator and multiple rolls of old carpet.

Also on Wednesday, Jon, Tommy, and I saw one of the elusive desert tortoises.

Tuesday:

The Mojave Green (Crotalus scutulatus) is the most poisonous rattlesnake in the Mojave, and as with all young rattlesnakes, the young one is the most dangerous. Adults have learned to control the release of venom on a strike to conserve it for hunting, but the youth have not realized this, so when they attack, they release it all. Adam showed us a young mojave green he came quite close to—he had been weeding on the other side of the bush for a half hour before he noticed it—and once again reminded us not to wear both of our headphones if we choose to listen to IPods, Zunes, or other music devices while working. (Note: Adam doesn’t, but many of use do.) Later, Melody saw a 2nd (huge this time) rattler. (Perhaps the small rattler was not quite as young as we assumed; apparently the young are born in July and August…)

Dusk is falling, and the wind is strong. Given the two rattlers spotted today, I think any nighttime wanderings of mine will fall off for a bit. I have only my small LED light with me, because the one that Brendan lent me is a power-sucker. For the first time, I brought no tent on a tour but just my sleeping bag. The weather is colder than I expected, because of the chill from the wind and our elevation, but at least I brought both layers of my City Year coat. When I get home to Illinois, I want to rebuild the firepit in the garden, especially now that I know what I’m doing. The “campsite” I chose has a fire ring. I had decided to sleep next to it, but the wind is so stiff that I created a lean-to from a pallett I found next to the fire, leaning it against the cedar I’m sleeping under, and braced by a close-by yucca. Gotta watch that I don’t impale my head on a branch of the yucca when I lay my head on my pillow.

… All tucked in now. I forgot my hat, but the NCC sweatshirt is hooded. I think I’m facing NE, so I should get some good sun in the morning. Regardless, I’m setting my alarm. Now, the wind is changing directions a bit from my left to from the open area at my feet. Oh well, my bag is rated to 0 degrees.

Wednesday:

My sleeping pad blew away. I don’t want to buy another one this late in the six months and have to lug or ship it home when I go. Maybe I’ll just use the Big Timber (Slumberjack) as a pad though it is much heavier and bulkier to bring on a tour. I want to bring both my fleece blankets next tour—one to drape if need be for a wind block and one to sleep with. The ground isn’t as cold at night anymore, so sleeping without a pad may not be too uncomfortable, but the rocks would make it so.

I will miss the Nevada night sky and the lack of humidity to grey out the stars. Night falls, peace fills.

Thursday:

Melody figured out she is strong enough to lift me, and when we stopped to wash the trucks on the way back to the field station on Thursday, she and Megan attempted to throw me in a dumpster. I wriggled free. Later she said she wasn’t really going to toss me in, but I’m sure Megan would have. Ha, ha.

Atypical. Hilarious. My truck forgot me on Monday morning. I was hurriedly jotting some e-mails related to job searching in the office the morning we left for our 8-day near Alamo, NV, and Adam stuck his head into the office, saw me, and told me that my truck just left without me. When I grabbed my stuff and signed out of the e-mail program and walked out to Adam’s truck, he said he noticed my truck waiting around the corner. So he drove the truck around the corner. I thanked them for the ride and went to get in my truck, and noticed Josh sitting shotgun and pointing rapidly and repetitively in the direction of the windshield. Therefore, I wasn’t one bit surprised when the truck zipped forward out of my reach as I reached for the handle.

When I situated myself in the truck after a fair amount of chasing, Josh said he very quietly – sort of under-his-breath-like – had told Jon that I wasn’t in the truck. Humph.

Most of our tour was decommissioned road maintenance, instead of full-blown disgusing of tire tracks in the desert.

I didn’t do a good job of dating the entries in my journal for posting here.

One of the first four days of our tour, we plowed through a lot of snow. Our truck got stuck at first. When we broke for lunch, I played in the snow. I was coming down the side of a hill and tripped, landing elbow, knee, and face first. And laughed. All the snow that somehow found its way into my boots dried within 15 minutes after I decided that I needed to let my clothing dry before heading out.

On the 15th (Saturday), we caught the weather forecast at the Shell station that lives near the intersection of highways 375 (Extraterrestial Highway), 318, and 93 (Great Basin Highway). It said a storm system was going to invade, bringing snow down to 3500 feet. With our campsite at 5500 feet, we moved the kitchen when we got back to camp. And wrapped up the tools in one of the tarps. When I woke up the 15th, after I punched up on my tent roof to knock off the snow, I looked out and we got about two inches. Wheeeee. I had camped nestled in some pine covered boulders, and after putting on the snow pants I brought on a whim, slid down to camp.

Ok, so I didn’t get to slide that far, but there was ice on the final rocks before getting to the kitchen, and I did decide to slide down those six-foot tall rocks.

This tour was awesome, as per usual. The forecasters warned of the strong and moist Pacific storm system, so I packed for freezing, snowy weather. We got wind. I’m not talking a 5-10 mph breeze, but 25-30 sustained, with higher gusts.

10. If our supe says one mile, it’ll take an hour walking at about 3 miles an hour. If he says 2 miles, it will be a wild goose chase that takes 4 hours.

9. Wild horses in the desert are no longer a myth made up by the BLM to protect land. We actually saw some, and Burke and Megan walked with them, kinda. I’ll add pictures when I upload them.

8. If I don’t bring my prosumer zoom camera, I’ll want it. If I do bring it, I won’t use it. Solution: keep it in the truck (per Bryan).

7. Even if you’re getting back to the field station from a long, hard 8-day tour, Chad will put you to work, with a mischievous smile, at any chance, and you can’t complain because he spread 26 tons of gravel on our parking lot by himself…

6. A “few rolls of barbed wire and a couple of T-posts” one mile out in the wilderness equals 11 rolls of barbed wire and about the same number of grouped-by-four T-posts. For a 9-person conservation crew, that adds up to bruises all along the hip and shoulder area, a few moments (or a half hour) of frustration, and extrememly sore shoulders. And for me, an extremely sore right bicep. One T-post weighs approximately 8-10 pounds. Lugging 40 pounds a mile through the wilderness is easy when the weight is on your lower back hips, like as with a pack. Having to carry 40+ pounds a mile through the wilderness in your arms (twice)…builds muscle. Yay!

5. If it’s cold and windy when it’s time to make dinner, dinner will be a scavenge-for-yourself affair.

4. If you (like me) are of a slight build and are on a 9-person conservation work crew of 6 guys, then at some point or another, you will probably be bench pressed. Dave’s video forthcoming when I get a copy. I never got a copy from Dave; here’s Jon’s:
I got a copy of the video from Jon.

3. If you (like me) have been bench pressed by your co-workers, they will begin volunteering you and your body type for other adventures, such as you climbing into 8 rolls of barbed wire in order to roll them a mile out of the BLM wilderness and back to the truck. Axels are not allowed in the wilderness, but the reasoning was that since the rolls would not be rotating around me, and I would be moving at the same speed and direction as them, I would not be an axel and the process would not be illegal.

2. My Eureka AlpineLite 2XT 4-season tent stood up to the wind and cold. I did have it guy-lined to the wilderness border fence, but it didn’t move and it didn’t look like the fence stopped it from moving (since it had survived strong winds before I guy-lined it). Other tents were upside-down, moved 6-feet or so, or damaged by a pole through a fly.

1. Don’t EVER squat downwind of a folding table on a windy day. See, I was securing the empty water coolers and the wind kicked up some dust in my face. I turned away from the wind and the next thing, I heard a big thud on my head, and I was lying in the dirt no longer holding the water coolers I had tied to the table that hit me in the head and blew almost into the wash when the wind picked it up. Where was Dave and his movie camera?

The End of All Things Athel, for us, for now.

Last night four of us from Brian’s truck zonked out in the truck to music from Josh’s Zune when we got back to the campsite. Megan must be some kind of super hero or something, as she hopped out of the truck as soon as we got back. (Brian drives one truck and Adam drives the other. Brian’s truck usually contains him, Josh, Megan, Jay, and me, with Adam’s usually being him, Melody, Burke, Dave, and Jon.) We had stopped in town before coming back to the campsite, and many ate at McDonalds. I only got ice cream and cherry pie, thinking I would eat back at camp. But I fell asleep. I roused around 10pm only to haul my sleeping bag into the truck. I think I may have woken Jay, as he left shortly after I got settled, and by 10:30 I was the only one in the truck.

Today before heading back to the NCC field office in Vegas, we helped Adam’s half get rid of as much of the Athel along the road as we could accomplish before we left. Yesterday, his half traveled one 1/2 mile, dealing with thick Athel stands and crazy, twisted, and thick single Athel monsters. Given the choice between the two, I’m glad I made the 11 mile hike yesterday. At least my scenery changed. And, we saw the port-a-potty we had hiked by last week (the one on Map 3 ») across the lake, when we stopped to lunch on top of one of the hills at the edge of Lake Mead.

Christmas party at the NCC field office: Eric’s crew made an awesome rap. Wish I had a video recording.

Our next tour is from 2 Jan to 9 Jan, and then my sister is coming to visit! Yay! I’m not quite sure the details of the next tour, but I believe I heard that we will be road decomissioning somewhere south of Ely, NV, which last time I checked, had a low of 3 below. Brrrrrr.

Zzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz. 11 miles. Zzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz

Pics from earlier in the week: