back to school.

70 steps in 7 days.

i felt like i went back in time a few months to education season with this hitch. the first part of the project involved building steps at rowe school (a school that a few people taught at this winter). long story short, we built A LOT of steps. 70 to be exact. it was wild. i did a lot of saw work with the circular saw. i actually got tired of it at some points...which i didn't think was possible.

food time on the playground.

we were able to cook our meals in the school kitchen, which was awesome! we ate dinner out on the playground. our contact brought us delicious snacks every day (blueberry muffins, cookies, chocolate zucchini cake). i really felt like a kid again.

all corps!

in the middle of the hitch, we packed up and drove to bear brook state forest in new hampshire for the all corps - a gathering of all the conservation corps in the northeast. i won't lie. i was overwhelmed with all of the new people when we arrived...to go from seeing the same 6 people all of the time to being surrounded by over 100 people...a bit of a change. on friday night, there was a talent show and boy, did sca massachusetts represent! i sang bridge over troubled water with a bunch of folks, but i was astounded with the great talent (justin, danny and kya's circus performance, sean's songs, caleb's playing, dave's singing...and so much more!).

the next morning, we all loaded up into our respective vans to head to a 4-h community garden for the day. there were lots of tasks, but i spent the day weeding and restaking some plants. i had fun meeting new people and learning about the different programs in the northeast. eventually we ran out of weeding to do, so i learned some african work songs (that i have since forgotten...but will remember again).

hanging out on saturday afternoon.

in the afternoon, we played some ridiculous games like LITM (leaves in the mouth...) and sticking blades up grass up our noses in order to see who could stand it longer (i won. lasted over a minute. another guy actually sneezed. it was hilarious!). then we all had a cookout dinner and contra danced! yay! after the long day, i played a rousing game of apples to apples back at camp and enjoyed a campfire by the beach.

on sunday morning, we had the all corps competition for the coveted horns and a year of bragging rights. it was one of those moments where you just had to be there, but i don't know if i've ever had that much of a flood of spirit for anything ever. there were some typical relay games (log tossing, hammering nails, piggyback races), a few rounds of tug-o-war (we won!), but the competition came down to a game of rock paper scissors. we won, but it was rock paper scissors...still quite exciting.

my boots.

being at all corps made me really appreciate the focus on community that we have here. it's not that the other programs don't focus on it, but it was there that i realized how great a community we have. i'm going to miss this so much!

after all corps, we returned to rowe to finish the steps. it was a grumpy few days on my part...i was really tired. but, hey. that's our work! when we finished, we packed up for hawley and enjoyed a delicious dinner made by jessica. cari and i took a dip in the pond which felt great : )

the trailhead at mlk.

the next two days we spent building a trail at the mlk charter school for excellence in springfield, ma. it was great, and my only experience doing new trail work, but i think i was too tired to really feel involved there. we still did a great job! but, i was pooped!

i'm feeling a bit refreshed after a 3 day weekend...but it's strange that this program is quickly coming to a close. i'm not going to be ready to leave....

let's go to the beach.

i'm posting this from the gate house at waquoit bay national estuarine research reservation on the south side of cape cod. it's kind of strange to have internet access on hitch, but hey! i'll take what i can get.

for this project, we built 350 feet of boardwalk (more like glorified bog bridges...made with dimensional lumber) in a marsh near the south cape beach.

it was about a 4 hour drive from hawley, but it wasn't really too bad. when we arrived, the weather was HOT. i'm not just talking about sweating a little bit too much hot, i'm talking heat exhaustion potential hot. we spent the afternoon looking at our project sites and setting up camp. some of the details of our time here were still up in the air, but everything got worked out in time.

we spent the morning of the first day removing russian olive plants from a field of grass. it was really hot and dragging, but hey, the work needs to be done! we then moved over to a side road near the headquarters to cut back the corridor in order to please the neighbors. the project wouldn't have been that bad except for the poison ivy everywhere...

i found out, though, that i might not be allergic to poison ivy! we ended up working in it quite a bit, but i never had any reaction.

the next day we started the boardwalk project. we ran into some difficulties along the way--figuring out an effective system, accidentally locking ourselves out of our lumber access, having to haul really heavy lumber quite a ways on the trail--but we were able to work through everything and complete the project. the heat and humidity were a bit much at times, but luckily the beach was within about 100 feet of our worksite, so everyday after work we went swimming in the ocean. i'm really going to miss being able to swim on hitch. we lucked out with the extremely hot days causing the water to also be quite warm. ideal conditions for swimming!

we ate dinner every night at a house near waquoit bay. the picnic table was right near the beach. it was quite fun! my friend kristin even came out to visit from where she's teaching in andover.

today (tuesday), we finished the project in the morning and spent the rest of the afternoon on a secluded island beach only accessible by private boat or kayak. it was glorious! later on, we went out to dinner in mashpee at this really odd strip mall/downtown area. i ate some yummy mac 'n cheese and some delicious mud pie ice cream.

: ) we leave tomorrow morning back to hawley...on thursday i'm headed down south to visit amanda shrom! should be a great adventure.

kids like a challenge.

this was the halfway hitch. 4 hitches down, 4 more to go! for this project, we headed to york lake in sandisfield, ma. if you want to know where it is, take your finger and point it to the southwest corner of MA and that's where we were working.

for me, this was a hitch of firsts. it was the first time i was camping at the work site. it was the first time i was in a tent by myself. it was the first time we didn't have access to a refrigerator. and it was the first time i didn't have a shower.

luckily...the campsite rocked (it's so great not to commute!), having a tent to myself was awesome, we went to town enough that the fridge situation was fine, and there was a lake that we swam in every day!

our project was huge. we were doing maintenance on muddy spots of a pond loop trail (the trail goes aaround a lake, is it a pond or a lake, who knows??). the work involved setting stepping stones and building rustic timber bog bridges. hooray!

when we arrived at the site, we met the park employees and set to work getting camp set up. before we even had the tents unloaded from the van, though, 3 people hopped out of a land rover that miraculously appeared right next to our van. one of them said (in a british accent), "hello, my name is simon winchester. who is your leader?". we all pointed to zach, the crew leader, who introduced himself. simon continued to say, "those blokes by the car will be writing a story about your project. that one with the camera is (i didn't catch her name, but we found out later it was simon's wife) and the other chap is nick who will be writing the story". we proceeded to awkwardly introduce ourselves and figure out what these people wanted from us.

i think they wanted some great action shots of us using tools and being bad asses, but our tools were still at the bottom of the trunk in the van, and we hadn't even looked at the trail yet. so...simon left the camera person and the reporter with us and we set out to walk around the lake. it was quite the adventure. one of those where you just might have had to be there.

once they left, we ate lunch, set up camp and hiked out some tools. then we jumped into the lake! man did that feel good.

our days mostly consisted of setting lots of rocks, doing bridging work and swimming the lake after the work day. the only notable day was my birthday!! (june 24!). we all decided to drive into great barrington to going out to dinner. we ended up at a restaurant called baba louie's where we ate some fabulous pasta and pizza. the server even put a candle in my pasta! then i got some ice cream. great barrington is a really cool progressive town full of what appear to be former new yorkers and other rich people. cool to visit...perhaps not very fun to live in. either way, we went back another night later in the hitch to get ice cream again and more groceries.

in the end, we set 32 stepping stones and built 14 and 16 foot rustic timber bog bridges. it was awesome! love, love, loved it.

now i'm enjoying a relaxing 4th of july weekend in western mass!

until next time...