Greetings

Welcome to my little corner of the inter-webs! I just wanted to take this space to warn you that my posts will rarely be up to date. Due to the spontaneity of natural disasters and the unpredictability of when AmeriCorps' services will be requested I will be digitizing my journal entries whenever we return to St. Louis. Oh, and most of the pictures you see here were taken by myself. If ever I do use someone else's material I make a point to give them due credit though! That said, come, leave comments and be merry! I hope you enjoy your stay!

Monday, December 16, 2013

Forest Park - 12/16

Well ain’t this something?  I’m posting on my blog the day of an entry!  This is weird.  Huh.  Well as the title may suggest, the crew I’m in is staying in St. Louis this week and working in Forest Park.  I have driven through this park before, but only after today have I even begun to grasp how large the place is.  I do not have the stamina to attempt describing the park today—let’s just say that it was aptly named and come back to it another time.  As for what we are doing in the area, we are removing invasive species and putting in a trail.  In addition to the Honeysuckle we cut out, we were also told to take out Maple saplings as there is no shortage of them in the park.  There is one thing I’m curious about, however.  While Josh, our contact, told us to leave the Black Locusts alone because without the proper herbicide it will just grow back—he still had us cut Honeysuckle and some Winter Creeper, which also come back in a Hydra like fashion.  I feel like it would be rude to question his tactics, but I think I will ask Chelsea about it tomorrow.

Making trails is a lot harder than I thought.  Instinctually I want to cut into the soil to sever the roots, but if you go too deep then you have to fill the hole and the whole process takes even longer.  The proper form requires skimming the surface of the ground with a bladed instrument.  I’m still working on it.

In other news, I really like things that fit.  Today I was carrying around a handsaw in a leather sheath and I had a little too much fun unsheathing and re-sheathing the serrated blade.  It just felt cool… and kind of natural.  Another favorite of mine is sliding batteries into a 360 controller, but really anything that fits nicely will undoubtedly garner my attention.  With that, I’m going to go watch some Monday night football as such opportunities will be a rarity this year.  Later!


No comments:

Post a Comment