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!

Tuesday, February 25, 2014

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.





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