Start of the summer season

By now I have been leading my summer crew for a little over a month, and for the most part it has been a positive experience. We started out with 5 days of orientation in Reno and then we've been working on a project in Ely, NV, for two 8-day tours so far. Orientation was slightly hectic because for the first few days while our new members were doing AmeriCorps orientation, wilderness first aid training, and the classroom portion of the chainsaw training, the crew leaders and supervisors were sent to the office with our returning members to get our gear and tools organized. That whole process was frustrating and overwhelming because the garage with all of the tools and things in it was very unorganized and we weren't given as much information as we needed from the office staff so we had to keep asking questions about what needed to be done and where things were while at the same time trying to make sure our members had things to do and weren't just standing around. It made me realize how unorganized certain aspects of the organization are in general and made me wish they had allowed us to do all of the sorting out of gear that needed to happen before summer season started. It was a lot of work that our members should not have had to worry about and would have made our lives so much easier to already have it done. And if we had it done already we could have been present for the classroom training which would have made it easier for me to know what they had been taught already and what things I had to make sure to cover once we got out into the field and started using the chainsaws. The field training days for the second half of the week were much more fun for me because I actually got to teach my members for the first time and observe them and give feedback. Everyone picked things up well and I was pleased with their progress even though we only had a few days. The week of orientation was also a rewarding week for me because it solidified in my mind that I really do have what it takes to be a leader and effectively get across my knowledge about chainsaw operation to teach other people. I also realized that through this process of crew lead training and leading a crew, I am much less hesitant to speak in front of groups. During orientation I had to be talking and giving instructions and feedback most of the time, and I probably talked more in that one week than I have in any other week-long period in my life. But I didn't get sick of hearing myself talk like I sometimes do when I have to talk a lot, instead it made me more confident in my ability to give directions.

Since orientation my crew of 5 (myself, Rich, Eric, Bekah and Taniel) and the other crew we are working with for the summer (crew leader James, Morgan, Ryan, Jake and Pat) have worked on a sage grouse habitat restoration project cutting juniper trees out in Ely, NV, which is about 6 hours away. That means that we have to drive to Ely on Monday mornings at the start of the week and only get about an hour of work done, and then the following Monday we have to drive back, and again only get about an hour to work, but even so we have gotten a lot done both weeks. The first week everyone was still getting the hang of the chainsaw so James and I didn't saw very much, we mostly walked around and watched people and gave feedback to help them improve. We had a lot of issues with people taking a long time to sharpen their chains and having to sharpen too often, but by the second week that had improved a lot. The second week our crews had improved so much that we got about twice the amount of area cut, which was awesome! James and I did much more cutting ourselves that week because we felt we didn't need to monitor people as much. At the end of the second week, we had finished the main area of cutting that the project partner wanted us to do so we moved on to doing quality control on an adjacent area that had been cut previously, so we had to go through and look for small saplings that were missed or stumps that had resprouted. This was nowhere near as glamorous of a task so our members weren't as into it and weren't doing as good a job at first as James and I wanted, so that created a negative work environment because morale was low and James and I were getting frustrated with having to say the same things over and over again and feeling like people weren't taking the work as seriously as we were. So those two days were not very fun ones for anyone, but after that we had discussions about how to keep people motivated and I realized just how important my attitude is and how it can affect my members so much, so the last day was much better because we worked on keeping people motivated and I made sure I was much more positive. So overall the second week of the project was not as fun as the first, but I learned a lot and I have a better idea about how I need to proceed in the future with situations like that.

Then this week, I got some surprising news that one of my members quit. I had no idea she was thinking about it and I only found out when one of the office staff called me and left me a message about it. I immediately started worrying that it was something I did or maybe she had been much more unhappy about the past week than I had realized, but I was able to talk to her today and she told me it was for personal reasons because she felt like she had a lot to do at home that she wasn't able to get done being away 8 days at a time. So I can understand why, it's just unfortunate and I wish she had told me first. Now I don't know if I will get another member or if we will continue as a 4-person crew for the rest of the summer.

On a more happy note, I finally got to go to Yosemite this week, which is something I've wanted to do since I first moved to Vegas. It's only about 3 hours from Reno so it worked out well that I waited until I was here to go. It was so beautiful there, and one of the days we did a 15 mile roundtrip hike in 1 day. It was exhausting but awesome. I will have some pictures from the trip to include, but my computer is so slow that I'm going to wait until I can go to the library and upload them there.

Also, since this is my first post since moving to Reno, I figured I should give you all my impression of the city so far. As soon as I moved here I liked it way better than Vegas. It's smaller, which right there is a plus for me, and there's much more of a community feel, at least downtown where I live. I enjoy that I live so close to many things that I can walk to, since in Vegas the neighborhood I lived in wasn't that nice and I never really wanted to walk anywhere except CVS right down the road. Here I can walk to almost everything I need, including an awesome food co-op that I fell in love with as soon I walked in. I love being able to buy more local and organic food, and I never really had that option in Vegas. I enjoy walking around exploring the downtown area, and there are way more cool local restaurants that I've tried and want to try (I've already gone out to eat more than I did the entire time I was in Las Vegas lol). There are still casinos and hotels when I'm in the mood for those too, which is nice. And I live right down the street from a baseball stadium so I went to a game one of the first days I was here. Overall, I really enjoy Reno!

I can't believe that a third of the summer season is already over. The time is flying and I know it will be over before I know it. I'm doing my best to enjoy every moment that I'm out here and make the most of it because I know that I will miss Nevada when I leave. I will do my best to post again soon but given my track record recently it might be several weeks.

End of crew leader training

Wow, it wasn't until I looked back at my last post just now that I realized exactly how long it has been since I last updated this blog. I thought for sure I had written at least one more post since crew leader training started, but sadly I hadn't. I guess my life has just been so exciting recently that I haven't had the time to sit down and write about it. So much has happened since the last time I wrote that all I can hope to do at this point is write a quick summary of the past 3 months.

Most of the work we did during our training was trail work, which has I've probably mentioned before isn't my favorite, but the group of awesome people I was with made it fun and we also were learning a lot of new things about leadership and teaching and other skills that we will need once we have our own crews. Also, 2 of those weeks involved shadowing another crew, so that switched up what we were doing a little bit because in addition to the trail work I was doing, during the first week of shadowing I got to observe what the supervisor was doing and be more involved in the planning and decision-making process to prepare me for the types of things I would have to be thinking about with my own crew.

The week after the first shadowing was our 8-day long chainsaw training specifically for the crew leaders in training. They gave us this training because not everyone knew how to use chainsaws or didn't have much experience, and also so that they could observe us and decide which of us were going to be leading chainsaw crews over the summer. Since I was determined that I wanted to lead a chainsaw crew and not a trail crew, I put a lot of pressure on myself that week to do well and stand out in the crowd so that the staff would see me as a good candidate for that. That meant that often during downtime, I would start to worry about whether I was doing enough to impress the trainers and how my skills were comparing to the others in the group. I did get some very positive comments from one of the trainers that implied that I was making a good impression on them, so after that week I knew that I had a good chance of getting the summer placement I wanted.

After that week was the second week of shadowing, and this time it was my responsibility to take over leading the crew completely for the whole week. This is the week of the training that I was initially the most nervous about, but when the time actually came I felt like I was ready. All of the things I had learned and the confidence I had gained up to that point in the process really helped me with that week, and it turned out to be a really good week. The crew I was leading was really fun to be with and it was not as scary to be in that position of authority having to make all the decisions as I expected. I came away from the experience feeling like yeah, I really can do this!

Then came the time to find out what project I would be working on for the summer...and I get to lead a chainsaw crew just like I wanted!!! I was super excited when I found that out and I'll be working alongside another one of the crew leaders, James, and his crew, which is going to be lots of fun. I think we will work well together and he's an awesome guy to hang out with so I think it's going to be a great summer!

Once we found out our summer placements, the past month has been advanced training in groups based on which type of project we are each one, saw or trail. Our trainings for chainsaw were near Lake Tahoe, so we drove to the office in Reno that we will be working out of during the summer and camped near Reno. It was the first time I had seen Lake Tahoe, and it is beautiful! I can't wait to spend time there during the summer.

Today was the last day of our crew leader training, which was a little bittersweet. I'll miss spending time with all of the other crew leaders every week, but I'm excited for the next chapter in the leadership process. I know there will be challenges, but the past 3 months of training I believe have given me the tools I need to succeed at leading a crew. I have learned so much and grown in many ways, and I'm so thankful that I was given this opportunity to expand my experiences and become a more confident leader and a more confident and assertive person in general. Those were some of my goals coming into the training and the time and effort I put into this process have really paid off.

So the next few days will involve packing up and cleaning my apartment in preparation to move to Reno on Thursday, and then I will have a few days to settle in there before jumping right into the summer and leading my very own crew! I hope I will do a better job of keeping this blog updated once that happens because I want to keep you all up to date on what is going on in my life. I also will try to post some pictures to show what I have been working on for the past few months, because sometimes pictures can say much more than my words can.

California trip and beginning of crew leader training

As promised, here are some of the highlights from the trip I took to California a few weeks ago with my coworkers, Sondra, KV, Harold and Justin.

The first day consisted of driving to San Francisco, which took over 9 hours. Justin stayed with his brother, Sondra stayed with her aunt, and the first night the rest of us stayed at a little inn in Berkeley just down the road from the UC Berkeley campus. It was called the Rose Garden Inn, and it was really cute. Here are some pictures.

 We stayed in San Francisco the next two days after that and mostly we just hung out around the pier area and in Berkeley, but the thing I was most excited about was going to Alcatraz. I had never been there before and I really enjoyed it. We took the ferry across to the island and then took the self-guided audio tour of the main building that housed all the cells. The tour was very informative and fun and definitely exceeded my expectations. Here are some pictures of that as well.

The view from the ferry approaching the island

One of several rows of cells. One thing I learned on the tour that surprised me was that even though there are so many cells, at any given time when the prison was operational the prisoner population was only around 200. 

One of the cells that was furnished as they would have looked when prisoners were there.

Some cells in the higher area where the less well-behaved prisoners were held.

One of the solitary confinement cells. I walked inside it, it was pretty creepy.

The view of the city from the island. It's less than 2 miles away.

After San Francisco we drove to Monterey and camped there for one night and explored the town a little. After that we drove down the coast on Route 1 and stopped to admire the ocean a few times, including one beach with elephant seals. It made me miss living on Cape Cod near the ocean!

The last 2 days of the trip we spent at Joshua Tree National Park. It was a really cool landscape there, obviously with lots of Joshua trees in many areas, and there were also lots of neat rock formations and things that we climbed around on. Another spot we stopped at was a cholla garden, an area where the vegetation suddenly changed from mostly Joshua trees to mostly cholla.

Cool rocks!

Cholla! Even though it's not very friendly if you touch it or accidentally brush against it, I like cholla. 

More cool rocks!

Scrambling around amongst the rocks

Climbing down from the top of a tall rock we climbed. 

Since that trip, we have had two weeks of leadership training that have been pretty awesome. This past week was basically just a normal project for us so that the new hires could get used to how a normal week usually goes, and it was that exciting because our only task was picking an invasive weed, but the first week was different. That week we talked a lot about what leadership is, did a lot of self-reflection and discussions about our goals, expectations, strengths and weaknesses, and other things like that, as well as doing team-building exercises and getting to know each other. All of the new people who got hired are really cool and it seems like we all get along really well and it's going to be an awesome group of people to work with and get to know for the next few months. I'm really excited about all of the opportunities and experiences were going to have, even though some of what we're going to do makes me nervous because it will require me to be more out of my shell than I am used to, but even that I'm excited about because I know I'm going to learn a lot.

Well I guess that's it for now. I'll keep you all updated as exciting things happen, which hopefully there will be a lot of in the near future.

Updates from the past month...

It's been about a month since I've posted so I'm just going to go over some of the highlights of what I've been up to. Since my last post I've had 3 projects. The first was invasive removal and re-vegetation on the Virgin River about an hour or so north of Las Vegas. This was an interesting project because we were camped on one side of the river but our work site was on the other, so we had to wade across the freezing water twice a day, once to get there and once to get back. The first time we went across was terrible for me because my feet have always been way more sensitive to cold water than other people's seem to be, so even though I was wearing a pair of old sneakers to help keep my feet slightly warmer and other people went barefoot, I was still in a lot of pain when I got to the other side and had to sit there for a few minutes taking deep breaths and waiting for the pain to subside. Then after we made the crossing we had a short walk to the edge of a seemingly endless forest of tamarisk (aka salt cedar, an invasive tree) that crews before us had cut paths and clearings into. The first day we used chainsaws to cut some more of the tamarisk, mostly cutting stumps that other crews had left behind, and then rest of the time our task was to cut willow saplings from other areas and stick them at least 3 feet into the ground in the clearings. To add another level of excitement to all of this, most of the area we were working was filled with mud and puddles of water, so the first day our feet were completely soaked from walking through the puddles. The other days weren't as bad because we started wearing rubber boots that one of the supervisors had thought to bring, and the boots also helped on the river crossing luckily, so none of the other days were as torturous as that first crossing. Here are a few pictures from that week.

My crewmate, Daisy, crossing the river

A group of us working in one of the clearings

One of the muddy pathways through the trees

The week after that my crew had a local desert clean-up project, so we went home every night instead of camping and we spent 4 days picking up trash in the desert right outside the city. It was an interesting week and sometimes picking up trash could be fun, but at the same time it was discouraging seeing how much people take the desert for granted and just think they can use it was their own personal dumping ground. There were also several areas where people had come out to the desert to shoot things, so in those places everything was riddled with bullet holes or shattered into little pieces that were impossible to pick up because it would have taken way too much time to pick up every little piece. So the places looked better when we were done but I couldn't help thinking it would only be a matter of time before people trashed it again with their garbage and shooting targets. Here's a few pictures from that week as well.

My supervisor Corey carrying an old camper shell

Definitely the cutest piece of trash I found: a tiny birdhouse!

Me, Corey and the project partner, Melissa, rolling a water heater filled with bullet holes up a hill

Afele's solution to the wind blowing our hard hats off: a trash bag bonnet. 

Our most recent project was an 8-day project working with the Bureau of Reclamation. We worked half of the time in Laughlin, NV, and half the time in Bullhead City, AZ, which was a little confusing because the two states are in different time zones, but we just tried to stick to Pacific time even when we were in AZ. The beginning of the week we worked at Davis Dam, which is a dam on the Colorado River downstream of the Hoover Dam. Our task was to remove vegetation from the dam because it is an earthen dam and having plants growing on it could weaken the structural integrity. While we were working there the project partner gave us a tour of the power plant section of the dam, which was really cool! Then the second half of the week we worked at a county park on the Nevada side of the river doing more vegetation removal, but this time it was mostly an invasive plant called brassica and we had to hand pull each plant that we saw. We did 3 full days of this, which basically is the same as weeding, so it got pretty dull at times, but overall it wasn't so bad. For one of the days we also did some trash pick up at a site where groups of people had been camping long-term, essentially making their homes there, for years and then the Bureau finally got around to telling them they weren't allowed to be there so they had to leave. For the most part they did a really good job of cleaning up after themselves but there was still a good amount of trash left over, so we did the best we could to make it look clean. There were some interesting finds, and it was a little weird at times, but also fun. This project also marked the last week of work with the crews we've worked with since the beginning of the year. It was a little sad knowing we were going to be working as closely anymore with the people we've spent the most time with up until this point, but it's also exciting because we'll get to spend time with different people and there are several new members joining the corps for the remaining 6 months. Again, here are some pictures from that week.

Crew pictures inside the dam

Floodgates on the dam

This is what's holding all that water back! 

A hallway inside the dam

The spinning shafts that produce the electricity

Outside of the power plant

Maintenance workers ride these awesome trikes around the hallways with all their gear on them

Pretty picture of the dam from a hill where we were picking brassica

Group photo after the powerplant tour

Another shot inside the powerplant during our tour

They gave us pizza before our tour!

Beautiful Lake Mohave, which is the lake that the dam created. 

A great find from the trash pick up

Another great one. If you can't tell, that's a pair of shorts attached to a piece of wood. Very strange. 

Then in my spare time I've done some cool things too. A few weekends ago I went to see Zumanity, a Cirque du Soleil show. It was awesome, and really made me want to go see more Cirque shows. Then this past week, we had 7 days off because of our 6 days off after our 8 day project plus President's Day today, so I went on a road trip to California with 4 of my coworkers. I want to write about that but it's getting late and I have to go back to work tomorrow, so I will save that for my next post. This week begins the 3 months of leadership training for all of us who were selected as crew leads, so I'm really excited! It should be a great week of getting used to working with a new group of people, including 4 crew leaders who were hired from outside the program, and getting used to a new set up of our weekly schedule since we'll be focused more on learning new leadership skills than on physical skills and just working to get projects done like we're used to. So I will write about that in my next post too! But now it's time for me to get some sleep. Goodnight!

Red Rock Canyon, Death Valley, and Snowboarding

The last several weeks have been a whirlwind of activity as I went from one place to another for various reasons, so I will catch you all up on my travels recently. As I mentioned the last time I wrote, the week before Christmas break my crew spent 6 days at Red Rock Canyon National Conservation Area with 3 other crews doing trail maintenance. The trail we were working on was already a well established multi-use trail that is mostly used by mountain bikers, and we were adding drainages at intervals along the trail in places where water could pool up or cause erosion on steeper areas so that instead of staying on the trail the water would be diverted off. Here are a few pictures courtesy of my crew's work camera to give you an idea of what we were doing:

I'm in the foreground working on one drain and the 2 guys in the back are working on another one, which you can see to the right of them.

Me and Sondra working on a drain. We are standing in the drain and the trail is behind us.

It could get monotonous at times, especially one day when my partner and I got stuck on one drainage for almost a whole day, so at times motivation was in short supply but for the most part I was able to keep a positive attitude, and it helped knowing I would be going on break as soon as the week was over. The same night that I got back from the project I flew out of Vegas on an overnight flight to Florida to visit my mom, where I spent 5 days seeing some sights (including Epcot, my favorite Disney park!) and getting some much-awaited relaxation time with my mom and her dog, Jake. Then I flew to Massachusetts, where I stayed for about a week with my dad and got to see family and friends around the area, which was a lot of fun, as well as a good amount of relaxing on the couch and watching tv which I don't do much of normally. Then I flew back to Vegas on the last day of break on a flight that was supposed to get back to Vegas at 10pm, which I realized after I booked it was a really bad idea because it didn't give me any time to relax from traveling before going back to work the next day. My flight ended up being delayed by about an hour, so including getting my bags, getting back to my apartment, unpacking and repacking for work the next day I didn't get to sleep until after midnight (which felt like 3am eastern time to me) and then had to wake up at 4:30 to get ready for work. So needless to say I was very tired the next day, but luckily we had several hours of driving that day so I got to take a good nap, and I don't usually get bad jet lag so I didn't have to worry about my sleep schedule being thrown off.

So given all of the traveling and not having much sleep or time to ease into my regular schedule again, I thought the first week back would be really hard to get through because I would be tired and missing home and my family, and it was also an 8-day project instead of a 4-day. But it actually turned out to be a great week! It was in Death Valley National Park, which is one of the places I really wanted to visit while I'm out west, and we were using chainsaws to remove invasive tamarisk trees, so it was a type of project I enjoy a lot more than the trail work we were doing the week before break. I also ended up being very refreshed after break and ready to jump back into work, so it wasn't hard to motivate myself or readjust to working and camping like I thought it might be. The week was a lot of fun and went by pretty quickly, and on the last day we got to go to the visitor center and see Badwater Basin, the lowest point in the park which is also the lowest point in North America at 282 feet below sea level. Unfortunately I don't have any pictures of that spot, but I do have some other pictures from the week from the crew camera:

Crew picture in front of the visitor center...I ruined it by not being able to see in the sun haha.

Crew working picture: Justin is in the foreground and Corey and Afele are in the background. This is what the area that we spent most of the week in looked like. We had to cut down the tamarisk while fighting with the phragmites to be able to get close enough to the tamarisk. 

Me carrying a chainsaw. 

Me making a snow angel! Not really, it's actually salt not snow, but it looked surprisingly similar so I had to. 

When seen from a distance, it really did look like snow, which was especially strange because it was 70 degrees. It was disconcerting to come back from Massachusetts, where it got down to below zero while I was there, and go directly to a project where it was so warm. 

Now it is the last day of my 6 days off that I had after the 8 day project, and I did lots of fun stuff this week, including taking a ballet class for the first time in probably a year and a half. It was tons of fun, and I really want to try to take dance classes as often as I can, although with my schedule it is very hard to consistently do things outside of work that happen on a weekly basis. I also went back to Red Rock Canyon, this time to hike. We hiked Turtle Head Peak, one of the most difficult hikes at Red Rock, but it was so worth it because the view from the top was amazing! Pictures never do things like this justice, but here they are anyway:

View of Vegas from the top.

Panoramic!

I also went snowboarding yesterday, which I hadn't done for over 10 years! We went to Brian Head in Utah, about 3 hours from Vegas. It was a little scary when I first started because it was a feeling I wasn't used to anymore and I was pretty wobbly, but after  few runs it came back pretty well and I wouldn't say I was back to the same level I was at when I was younger, but I got pretty comfortable and didn't fall too often. It was lots of fun and I definitely want to try to go again this winter. I also want to try skiing too, which I also haven't done in a long time, even longer than snowboarding, but I remember being better at skiing than I was at boarding, so I want to try both and compare to see which one I like better. I was not used to how much snowboarding works your legs and the stress it puts on your ankles and knees to push yourself along and hold the board up on the chairlift, so I was pretty sore by the time we left, but in a good way, and I'm actually not sore today like I thought I would be. I took a few pictures at the top of the mountain with my new iPhone (I finally was able to replace my stolen iPhone since I was eligible for an upgrade in January!! So I will now be able to take pictures of all of my adventures again):

The view was amazing, with the snowcapped peaks and red moutains. 

The view to this direction wasn't quite as spectacular but I wanted to get the chairlift in the picture too. 

The other important news in my life at this point is that I got the crew leader position I applied for! I'm so excited! That means that in February I will start 3 months of crew leader training and then for the summer I will actually lead my own crew. I will still be an AmeriCorps member and it doesn't change my contract or how long I will be out here for, but it means that I will have more responsibility, learn a lot, get great leadership experience, and also get paid more for the summer months, which I'm not complaining about! I will of course keep you all updated on all of that once training begins. Until then, we have 3 more weeks left with out current crews, which is a little sad because I've really enjoyed being with my crew members these past 5 months. But we'll still get to see each other once crews get mixed around and I'm really excited for crew leader training and getting to know all of the other crew leaders better.