We are being housed in a research facility at Peck Ranch,
Missouri. No companion cubes or cake,
but the accommodations are quite nice! The best way to describe it would be dorm
rooms meet science lab—without all the cool and dangerous trinkets. They also have a wide selection of movies and
access to the internet! No cell service,
but I think I will take advantage of the unexpected luxury of WiFi on our next
visit. For the time being, we will stick
to the old school way of blogging.
This week we will be focusing on cleaning up the fire line in the
forests that compose Peck Ranch. It
looks like we will have a much easier time here than we did at Taum Sauk
because all of the fire lines are roads.
This means little to no raking and blowing; our efforts are focused on
felling snags and moving larger pieces of debris deeper into the prescribed
burn area. It was a longer drive than
expected to get out here so we only served a couple of hours, but if our time
spent today is any indication as to how this week is going to go, we are in for
a pleasant stay!
A quick shout out to Dan, Justin, and Ben who run the Warming
Shelter back in St. Louis. You guys are
incredible. I was assigned to team
silver, the Winter Outreach group, and got to work with them Wednesday through
Saturday. I loved the opportunity to see
what my winter would have looked like if things had played out a little
differently, but this late in the season I just wasn’t a good fit for the
shelter. It was fun interacting with the
guests… that 17 hour shift I did though, a shift that these gentlemen tend to
do at least once every weekend, was rough.
I commend you all for mustering the mental fortitude to manage the long
hours. The Warming Shelter has become
more inviting and functional since I first volunteered there so kudos on
playing a part in making something good into something great!
I’m going to
bed. The one downside of this project is
that it starts and ends earlier and later than the others. It’s around 10pm now and my body still hasn’t
recovered from the erratic shelter schedule, so I bid you all adieu. Good night!
Pictures were taken by me. Except that last one, which was taken by a teammate on my camera.
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