Envirocorps Annie

AArrr…I finally gave into the peer pressure and started a web log. Not because I’m sick of steve and scott harassing me, but because I have ulterior motives. HAHA.

For those of you who don’t interact with people face to face, I am the infamous Scott’s girlfriend. which means if you’ve ever read his comic, you know I’d rather pull ivy and teach kids to read than spend an afternoon cluing others in on my life. :)

But as I said, my ulterior motive is that I get hours for my job for journaling. If you don’t care to hear about me saving the world one tree at a time, I suggest you not read this, as that’s what I’ll be espousing on. If you would like to hear about the magical musical adventures of Envirocorps Annie then please proceed as planned.

First of all, what is envirocorps? basically I am on a team of ten people that does the grunt work on environmental projects. I am going to do the involved breakdown so I don’t have to answer “now what are you doing again?” anymore.

bear with me, this is the flow chart. :)

Corporation for National Service (WA. D.C.)
National Direct Americorps Programs
ESD 112 (vancouver WA)
Children, Youth and Family Services
NAtional Service Programs
Northwest Service Academy (WA, OR)
Portland Metro Center (Portland, OR)
Envirocorps Team (Me!)

So people in offices at all these levels set up environmental & education projects and my team way at the bottom is responsible for the actual labor…planting, removing invasives, trail work etc…It’s awesome.

I’ve found it’s very hard to say exactly what I do, because we have different projects or trainings everyday. My team began on Sept.5th, and we went through two weeks of trainings and workshops before we actually got to go out in the field. there are 5 guys and 5 girls on my team, and a lot of them just came out here from the east coast or the mid west to do this so it’s pretty cool hearing about other parts of the country. It’s funny, here in Portland, we’re all excited about the sunny fall weather and the girls from the east coast just moan about the lack of color.

We’ve been able to go to some amazing places so far, on the 17th and 18th, we took a team retreat out to Mt. Hood. we camped overnight and went hiking. On our hike I experienced for the first time in a long time, what it means to be floored by a sight. We came up to this ridge and when I turned and looked the way we came, I could see down into the columbia gorge, and we were high enough up that I could see where western WA ended and Eastern WA began. It was incredible, there’s actually a discernible line where the trees stop growing and the rolling brown hills began. The most amazing thing though, was that I could see FOUR Mts. from where I stood! The peak of MT. Hood on my immediate left, and out in front, St. Helens, Rainer and Adams. So incredible. When I went to the south side of the ridge I was standing on this enormous outcropping of rock, and looking out onto a sea of mts. again, I could see the east-west split, but this time on the OR side. I think we even saw the three sisters off in the distance. I never thought mts. could look like waves, the view was so different than up on Rainer.

Since then, we’ve spent most of our time in forest park which is this huge wild city park, pulling ivy and doing trail work, and doing water quality monitoring and scotchbroom removal along the columbia and sandy rivers. I had NO idea how gnarly ivy and scotchbroom could be. oh my. It was surprisingly easy to use the water quality instruments, but also pretty mundane. oh well, not all days can be chock full of excitement, besides, I got some really nice naps in at luchtime in the sun on the riverbanks….life’s rough. :)

Our team is in the interesting position where we never quite get a grasp of the big picture of our projects. It’s not that we don’t know why we’re doing stuff, it’s just that I feel like we’re constantly coming in to things at the last minute. like on thurs. we were planting trees and stuff on this guys property and when we get there we find out it’s this fairly large event. which is awesome, we got 700 things planted on this hillside ravine where only ivy had been before, I just kind of feel like it’s dig here, pull that, all day. I don’t know, I’d rather have the variety though, and that’s the way it goes. I know people on the planning end, who wish they could just show up and work sometimes. :)

so all in all this year is going to be really interesting. Right now I’m going through the fun process of food stamps and trying to find a good place to volunteer the rest of the year. I’m also going to start belly dancing soon to help keep my back strong and in shape.

off to more restoration work in the morning!