Peck Ranch - 2/27

No fire.  The weather turned out to be too dry for a prescribed burn.  It was a sad day putting in more fire line as we were intercepting radio calls updating us about other burns that were being done nearby.  Even in a slump we successfully completed two more fire lines—one of which we met up with team orange to complete.  We did a little cutting here and there, but we’ve been so thorough that for most of the day we were dragging around large pieces of fuel.  Oh, and I broke a chainsaw.  Not my fault!  You know for a lawnmower there is that cord you have to yank on to get it to start?  Well chainsaws have those too.  One time when I was pulling it the line just decided to snap.  I guess Husky was just as tired as we all are and decided to end its month of service on its own terms—by trying to get me in trouble.  Thanks Husky.

Hmm, other than that the day went by swimmingly.  There was a very curious elk that wanted to play chicken with us on our way back to the office (we won), but that’s about it.  I’m very tired.  I know Mardi Gras is just around the corner, but I am exhausted!  Have to survive danger day and then muster some inner strength to at least witness if not partake in the craziness that is going to unfold this weekend.  I most likely will not be putting up an entry tomorrow in preparation for the festivities—mainly getting my sleep on.  Hope you all are staying healthy!  Until the next adventure!

Yeah... we've been out here a little too long.

Peck Ranch - 2/26

We have teams blue and orange… staying at a research facility… coincidence that these are the very colors that appear when using the Aperture Science Handheld Portal Device!?  I think not!  GLaDOS is probably housed over in the lab—I mean, our host has never explained what goes on in there… only that we are not allowed in.  Of course human nature is once we are told not to do something we are often times overcome with an urge to do it.  Seeing as how these next couple of days may be our last at Peck Ranch, I don’t see the harm in trying to sneak a peek.  If this turns out to be my last entry assume that curiosity has killed the cat.

Speaking of cats, we saw one the other day.  It was black and white, well groomed, and it did not appear to be having any trouble locating food.  Perhaps it is a researcher’s pet.  We also saw an owl on the way back from our project! 

Anyway, tomorrow we’re going to be performing a prescribed burn at the Thorny Mountain Burn Unit in Peck Ranch.  It is kind of a big deal.  AmeriCorps teams blue and orange are going to be there and we’re even calling in purple to help us and the local MDC staff out.  So long as the wind stays down and the humidity is above 25% everything is a go.  This is one of several fire lines my group has been working on for the past couple of weeks so I’m really hoping the weather cooperates.  It would be like the cherry on top of a very successful month if we could see this particular project through to completion.  Keep your fingers crossed!

In the event that we are burning tomorrow, I think it is best that I turn in for the night.  We work 10 hour days, but depending on the situation fires can take more than that—not usually for prescribed burns, but you never know!  Today we completed our section of a fire line on the Bowman Flatts Burn Unit, the one that required us to move stuff some 40 feet into the unit.  I am having a hard time keeping my eyes open.  Uh, so, yeah, I was heading off to go sleep.  Night all!

Peck Ranch - 2/25

I am le tired.  We returned to continue where we left off yesterday—felling and swamping snags that have no right being as heavy as they are.  I even took down a couple of nasty ones!  I was concerned with how sloppy my cuts had become since returning from my self-imposed break from felling, but it turns out I just had a bad chain.  The thing kept J-cutting.  I was putting in my first quarter cut to fell a nicely sized snag when the saw decided to start creeping down toward my face cut.  Instead of completing the quarter cut on the other side, I performed my favorite technique, the ladder step.  After securing the first quarter cut with a wedge, I put in the second cut half an inch higher to make room for the saw’s error.  It worked like a charm.  The snag came down with a crash right where I told Dalton it would.

Shortly after cleaning up my mess we got a call to get in contact with the orange team, who arrived last night and will be staying with us for the remainder of the week.  We tried reaching them on the radio, but they were blowing around snags so they couldn’t hear us.  Undeterred, we packed up our gear and started driving through Peck Ranch to find them.  Upon doing so we had to relay a couple of messages, then we all got new orders from the office, and we lost a few people… to sum up, after we found team orange we helped them prepare the Thorny Mountain Burn Unit for our planned fire this upcoming Thursday.  It was a solid 3 hours of having that blower on my back.  The thing seemed to be gaining in mass as time wore on, but I just imagined that the device was Yoda constantly reminding me “do or do not, there is no try,” and that was enough for me to diligently push on.

Yoda is gone now… as are my team leaders… annnd my indulgence from our Taco Tuesday feast at Las Margaritas is settling nicely, so I think I will take this opportunity to go and crash.  Good night all.  I hope you have the best of dreams.

Peck Ranch - 2/24

After 2 days of rest I felt ready to take on the world again.  I started off by joining my teammates on our route to the Peck Ranch office to talk with Marshall.  He had nothing but praise for us.  Marshall told us he was very appreciative of the work AmeriCorps has been doing and was he is hoping to treat us to lunch in the near future.   Not only that, Marshall told us he is going to try and get us on fire detail before this week is through for all the hard work we have done.  I guess he knows we are itching to put our new Red Cards to use (of the wildfire variety—we aren’t a bunch of ruffians…most days)! The thing about Marshall is he doesn’t give compliments often, so when he does you appreciate them so much more.  Here’s hoping that the weather for the remainder of the week works out in our favor!

As for our project, we went out and worked on fire line for the day again.  Due to the fire line being on a ridge we needed to cut down snags further back than usual and drag fuels another 15 to 20 feet into the burn unit.  That little bit of extra effort left me exhausted by the time lunch rolled around.  I am ridiculously out of shape for a man who spends 10 hours a day completing physically challenging tasks.  I admit I keep some energy in reserve due to the excessive amount of sweating that occurs when I go full force, but I intend to only hold back a bit longer.  I hate sweating when the temperature is cool enough to make my body regret perspiring.  Hopefully this winter will end soon and the Starks can begin their doom saying anew.  Miss you warm weather… those 60 degree days were a horrible, horrible tease.

I saw my first armadillo in the wild today!  I don’t know why… but I was expecting to see them in more of a desert setting as opposed to the floors of a coniferous forest.  Shows what I know!  My team also saw a large number of elk, including two bulls that were play fighting with their antlers as we drove by.  It was pretty awesome—this whole day has been awesome.  I think I am going to quit while I’m ahead and go get some shut eye.  Night all!

Peck Ranch - 2/23

Today marks my first official sick day of the year.  I stayed in at our lodging in Peck Ranch while the rest of the team mobilized and set out to put in some more fire line.  Do you think dreams can influence us?  I'm not just speaking about being motivated or inspired, but more about our actual well-being.  I had a terrible nightmare 2 nights ago and my health has gone to hell ever since.  I think I may be needing to enlist the services of a Dreamwalker to come and help me out.  Well, nothing overly exciting about me being sick, so I think I will just head back to bed and concentrate on getting better.  Later all.

Peck Ranch - 2/21

Slight change of plans.  We’re going to be staying at Peck Ranch this weekend and serve full days today and on Sunday.  By serving this extra time we are being granted the following Sunday off—meaning we can enjoy the full Mardi Gras experience if we so choose.  Not going to lie, I’ve been looking forward to this event as it is said to be second only to the Mardi Gras down in New Orleans.  I just need to be sure to watch my health as I’ve been tackling this project with a 6 day mentality, not a practical 12 day.  Wish me luck!

We worked on a fire line for the entire duration of the sun’s domination in the sky.  It was awesome.  My wrist is doing better—better enough for me to fell snags again.  I took down 12 and handled a gigantic spring pole.  The trick is making several partial cuts on the pole to release the tension.  This one was so huge though that the bending point was at least 15 feet in the air so it was impossible to completely neutralize nature’s catapult.  After several cuts to make it safer, I severed the tree as high as I could and watched it fly.  I wonder if someone did something similar back in ancient times with a cruder tool and got the idea for the siege weapon.

I also got a little more experience with the blower, which is a plus.  I really enjoy using the blower even though I haven’t yet mastered all of the fundamentals like making a solid line with an even width, but given a little more practice I think I will have it down.  So all in all it was a very productive evening!

Tomorrow we are planning on going to go meet up with team purple in Eminence and watch some rally racing.  Definitely going to make sure to get some rest on our one day weekend—starting now.  Talk to you all soon!

Peck Ranch - 2/20

We were pleasantly surprised to have Marshall tell us to get our blowers ready when we showed up at the shop.  No fence?  No snags?  This was a completely new task.  Today we were told to go back over the fire line we had cleared of debris and blow in some line where the MDC crew left off.  Marshall told us to park at the bottom and work our way in so we would have a mental image of how big he wanted the line to be.  So we did.  They got a lot done the day before.  By the time we came up to the very steep incline that indicated we were nearing the fire line’s end, we realized that the whole line had already been blown.  Thinking back on how Marshall was insisting that we bring our canteens of gas as well as a 5 gallon of gas when we didn’t have to refuel at all, we realized we had been had.  Well played Marshall.  Your revenge for the smelly cookie is complete.  Just to be safe we extended the line a couple more feet on our way out.  We all got a good laugh out of it.

The winds were crazy today!  Snags further back in the forests were being blown over by the huge gusts and when my feet weren’t planted they even threw me off balance a time or two.  Kinda wish I brought my camera.  It was supposed to rain so I didn’t want to put the poor thing through that ordeal, but Dalton had his smartphone with him and I think we got a couple of fun shots that I will try to steal and upload later.  The temperamental weather and the updates on our project sites every other hour today made for an interesting and entertaining day.  We’re going to head back over to Flossie’s as it has become somewhat of a tradition for the Peck Ranch and Eminence teams on Thursdays.  Tonight the Baker family band is playing.  Supposedly none of the musicians are over 14 years old and they are all ridiculously talented.  Hope you are all doing well.  Talk to you tomorrow!

Photos taken by Dalton.

Peck Ranch - 2/19

Hey all, I just looked over some of my more recent entries and noticed that I’ve been trending on woes.  Car troubles, wrist problems, sorry about all that!  Why is it so much easier to remember the negative than to recollect the positive?  I have been having a blast at Peck Ranch and this week in particular has been fantastic!  There are so many little things that add up to an incredible experience here—the majority of which is supplied by my team mates.  For instance, the other day Liana was telling us about a three year old who was hitting on two lifeguards.  Then there is Sebastian, our German friend, who we all think would make an excellent commentator at the Olympic Games.  He is also a riot out in the field with his quirky remarks about our progress and our lives.  Our team is constantly coming up with things to make each other laugh and I love it.  Life is good.

Marshall was astounded that we got as much done as we did yesterday.  He was expecting that portion of the fire line to take us at least 2 days of work.  Well after today, he is just going to be flabbergasted as we completed the other half of the fire line with an hour to spare.  The extra hour meant another hour spent breaking down that darn fence, but hey, we are getting stuff done and Marshall loves it!  Seeing that tough guy crack a smile was definitely a highlight of the week.

Going to go be social and hang out with everyone.  We’re having brinner tonight and have plans to watch USA play the Czech Republic in men’s ice hockey.  Pretty sure it has already happened… so no spoilers!  Later all!

Peck Ranch - 2/18

Flying squirrels man.  We saw a small gang of them today when we were felling snags on a fire line.  Sadly they didn’t make an appearance before one of our crew was a quarter cut deep into the snag that turned out to be their home.  At that point it was too dangerous to leave standing so we had to bring it down.  Kelly hit the tree a number of times and made her second quarter cut slowly to give them ample time to escape and escape they did.  One jumped onto a tree adjacent to the snag, but the other leaped and glided right over our heads.  Cute little buggers—sorry we had to take down your home!

For the first time while we’ve been at Peck Ranch we spent the entire day working on fire line.  It was wonderful and the temperature bumping up to 60 made it infinitely better.  I’d wager we got close to 2 miles done.  My wrist is becoming something of an annoyance though.  I had thought that it was back to normal after our last weekend, but while I was utilizing the wire cutters yesterday I felt a pop.  It’s odd.  There is no discoloration, touching it brings about no pain, only when I lift anything heavier than a gallon of milk does it start to hurt.  I suspect a combination of years of gaming and overexertion on my part in AmeriCorps has led to some Carpel tunnel.  I could be wrong.  I’m hoping to see a doctor soon to get a professional’s opinion, but it is a tad bit difficult when we only have a day off every week.  Ah well.  What doesn’t kill us makes us stronger.  This may well push my power level over 9000 when all is said and done!

I’m going to go watch some O Brother Where Art Thou with my team while we enjoy Taco Tuesday.  Talk to you later!

Peck Ranch - 2/17

We unintentionally pranked Marshall.  As the MDC staff at Peck Ranch don’t work Friday through Sunday we left a stump cookie in the shop with every intention of removing it when we came back.  Marshall ended up coming in to meet up with us yesterday and told us that we could just take the equipment to our lodging for the night so we completely forgot.  When we went to check in today Marshall had his staff together and they were about to start moving things to see what had died in the shop… we decided to tell them that it was the cookie.  They didn’t believe us at first, but one whiff of the stump piece and they changed their minds.  Woops.  Sorry guys!

Whether it was an act of penance or the supposed rain that was on its way, we were put back on barb wire duty.  Good news is that the prophesized steady rain never came to pass!  It made for a very warm and fun day.  As of today, we are just short of having cleared 2 miles of barb wire fencing.  Not too shabby!

The weather is only supposed to get better from here so I cannot wait to see what the rest of the week has in store for us.  The sun really makes a difference in my mood I’ve found.  I should probably start taking vitamins again, or at least a strong dose of Vitamin D.  Fun fact, did you know East Lansing, the city I lived in for the past 7 years, is the city that receives the least amount of sunlight in the United States?  Not sure if that has changed since I heard it over a year ago, but yeah, I’m practically a vampire.

Good night all.  Talk to you later!

Peck Ranch - 2/16

Best Valentine’s Day weekend ever.  I got to spend it with my lovely fiancée, Haley, and while our time together was short it was ever so sweet.  You know your significant other loves you when he or she watches a zombie movie with you on a romantic getaway.  Anywho, I had so much fun and I can only hope that with both of our unpredictable schedules that this weekend will not be our last until the ever-so-distant summer.

Short on sleep, I made my way back to St. Louis where I had just enough time to throw my things and myself in a truck heading out to Peck Ranch.  It looks like we will be here at least until the end of the month—it also means that we will continue to only have one day weekends for the duration of February.  Good news is my wrist is feeling better!  I’m just hoping that it stays that way with the extended hours.

Upon arriving at the ranch we met up with Marshall, our contact, who was in a much better mood than he was last week.  If you ever saw the Parks and Rec episode with the Snake Juice, he was on the verge of being that sort of Ron Swanson.  He took us to a new project site to work on fire line, where we promptly started felling snags and dragging away larger fuels because we only had a couple hours.  Beautiful and peaceful is the best way to describe today… except for one thing: my car.  Right when I was pulling out of the hotel where Haley and I stayed the service engine light came on.  I popped the hood to check my oil, as that is one of the few things I know how to do, and to my horror the cap to my oil compartment was missing.  After a little investigating I found it tucked in the corner of my engine… but I can only surmise that it has been off for some time, possibly since I last checked the oil 3 or so weeks ago.  I think something may have contaminated the oil and thereby done some damage to the engine.  I put in another quart, triple checked to make sure the cap was secured, and drove to St. Louis without any hiccups.  Hopefully I can get either Dathan or Will to take a peek at it in the near future to see if my suspicion is correct.

I’m going to go try and catch up on some sleep.  Talk to you all tomorrow!

The first composition was put together by Haley.  The last three photos were taken by me.

Peck Ranch - 2/13

Oh dear, there’s a deer… and there—and there!  There are deer everywhere at Peck Ranch.  I’ve seen them in the forests, in the fields, outside our lodging, and by our cars.  They are definitely braver than any I have seen to date and that is what makes them dangerous.  There was a herd of some 20 white tail deer in a field that we needed to pass and they loved to move in front of the vehicle.  No casualties thankfully, for us or for them.  I just think it is worth noting that if you love deer, you should come visit this ranch as it is impossible to travel anywhere without seeing them.

In addition to the deer there are elk and bald eagles.  Yesterday there was an eagle perched in a tree directly in front of our truck.  It stayed there the entire time we were eating lunch.  Maybe there is something in the water here that makes these creatures curious.  Speaking of water… Peck Ranch has some natural defenses in place.  Every couple of minutes when you’re driving in the area you will go through a stream bed.  This means whenever there is some steady precipitation the Ranch closes itself off.  I thought that was pretty neat.

Going to call it early tonight everybody, but remind me to tell you about Flossie’s later. Also, as this is an AmeriCorps blog I suppose I should mention what we did today!  Charlie came back and made short work of most of the buried trouble makers.  Then, after lunch, we actually got to work on some fire line!  I think Liana took down the widest tree this year as it took two face cuts to fell the beast.  Way to go!  Now I bid you all farewell.  Good night!

Photos taken by me.

Peck Ranch - 2/12

I’ve been contemplating decking myself out in geek gear to match my persona.  Here’s what I’m thinking so far.

A sonic screwdriver for a flashlight.

A State Alchemist pocketwatch as my time keeping device.

Jayne’s hat from Firefly (have a similar one, but mine is black).

A LonLon Milk water bottle (an unbreakable one).

I’m open to further suggestions, but these are some of the things I need… perhaps not in a nerdy form, but that would make it more fun!  The one thing I don’t have and actually need to purchase is a leather belt.  I was thinking a utility belt would be awesome, but I need to find something without any metal… as I am fairly certain I am allergic to whatever cheap metals or paint they use for belt buckles.

Another day, another tango with the jagged strands of pain.  Much like the other two days we took care of barb wire fencing that had been absorbed into trees and large branches, if not trees themselves, that had fallen on the fence.  Somebody cranked up the difficulty level today because, in addition to these obstacles, it appeared that the ground had come up and swallowed the barb wire.  The only hint that the ground was the perpetrator was the taut wires shooting sharply into the mounds.  With the soil being frozen and Charlie off elsewhere we were left with no choice but to leave some of the buried barbed wire to rust a bit longer.

Did I mention our contact acts like Ron Swanson?  He even talks like him.  He let us stay in the shop and do some tool maintenance during the colder portion of the morning, which was nice, but man that guy is intimidating.  Our interactions might be viewed as comical if they were televised, but in person it was downright scary.  We’re trying to work up the nerve to point out that most of us have tree felling experience and that we have worked on fire lines in worse conditions than this, but we got to make sure we work it right.  Liana and Dalton seem to have a plan though so we’ll see what tomorrow brings.  If it is more barb wire, so be it!

Just did laundry.  Yeah, they have laundry machines here, it’s awesome.  Beats those laundry mats that charge $3.25 a wash back in St. Louis!  We also are staying with some researchers.  One of them, Jean, was kind enough to tell me the dryer needs to be stopped manually otherwise it goes on for eternity.  I’m adorning freshly laundered clothes now and it is making me sleepy.  Think I’m going to heed dream land’s call.  Good night all.  Sweet dreams.

Sometimes when the going gets tough it's good to have a little fun.  Photos taken by me.