Planting, planting and more planting

Planting, the most important thing we do, but by the end, the crews least favorite thing to do. That may be a generalization, but by the time planting season was over I was beyond happy to not have to plant any more trees! Our schedule got a little screwed up because of our trip to New York for Sandy Relief. We didn't start planting until the end of January. Our first few sites were tucked away on the Big Quilcene River, mostly under plantings in easy to dig soil. We had to plant a lot of potted stock, especially when planting for the Hood Canal Salmon Enhancement Group, which adds an extra bit of work in depotting the plants. Planting did, however provide an opportunity for us to talk while working. We were no longer using brush cutters and DR mowers so there was no need for ear plugs. We would play a few verbal games to help the time go by faster.
February was dedicated to our biggest planting site of the year, Donovan Creek. We filled in some plants at Lower Donovan Creek for a week. During that week we really got into the swing of things. We even managed to talk Jason into bringing us some augers to help increase production! With those augers we were tree planting machines! Once we finished planting lower Donovan creek we moved on to Upper Donovan Creek and planted both sides of the creek that week. Unfortunately we forgot to save some plants for one corner of the site and had to dig up some of the conifers we planted. Regardless, we had both banks planted and ready for tubing.

best stay away!

liking the rain

auger, best tool ever

After Donovan Creek we had a few plantings here and there that were small CREP sites or properties next to important watersheds. We did some underplanting for Hood Canal along the Big Quil and replaced some dead trees at snow creek and some filler plantings with Deborah for DNR.
There were 2 other major planting sites on our calendar: Rivers End with Jamestown Sklallam Tribe and Morse Creek for NOSC. The Rivers End planting was prepped by us in the beginning of the year. We had scalped the sod and their field guys had sprayed those holes. With the two augers running full time we managed to get that entire site planted in 1 day, tubed the next day and spent the next couple days filling in dead trees.

Morse Creek was on of those never ending projects. It began as an underplanting/fill in planting of about 500 plants and turned into a few thousand (okay, maybe only 1500). Regardless, the digging was not easy (it was super rocky) and there was a lot of rain. Part of what made this project unending is plants kept showing up at this site that weren't on the planting list. It was confusing and annoying, but we just kept planting. We finally finished planting and tubing this site a few days ago.

MLK week

Every year AmeriCorps puts on a Martin Luther King Jr week of service. It's a week that all AmeriCorps members must plan a community service project. We decided to do our project with The Adventuress, an educational schooner from the Puget Sounds and at Irondale Beach. On Saturday and Sunday we met at the Port Townsend Boat Haven with two crews from Port Angeles and helped get the boat in sailing shape. We did everything from take apart pulleys to scraping bottom paint to treating ropes. It was a fun experience, and being able to work with the two other crews from Port Angeles was fun. On Monday we met at Irondale beach to prep the site for volunteers. The task was to get together with the volunteers and remove blackberry and ivy from the beach. We did a great job and had a good time working with all sorts of people.

Working hard with the volunteers

free food!

working on The Adventuress

working with volunteers

Building a trail, We are pumped

After a few weeks of site maintenance we were able to catch a break and build a trail for the Jefferson Land Trust. Our crew was pumped about being able to do this. Because we are a restoration crew we don't get many trail building opportunities. On Monday morning we met with Carrie, a corps member IP and from last years crew. The trail was already marked for us, all we had to do was put in the tread (easier said than done). Carrie also wanted us to build a split rail fence to keep cars out of the property. After our safety meeting we set to work building the fence. After we got the hang of it Owen, Evan and Zach went to begin cutting the tread for the trail. Colin and I stayed to finish up the fence. I was having a great time building the fence. The post hole digger and tamping bar were giving my arms a pretty good workout. By the end of the day we had finished the fence and were waiting for the concrete to dry before hanging the gates.
Zach and Evan did a good job putting a rough bench, and cutting tread and were at least halfway to the end of the trail. Come Tuesday we were all working on the trail. Zach and Evan were still roughing it out down to the creek while Colin and I were smoothing and tamping the beginning of the trail. We made good progress that day, but were slowed down due to some trail features that needed to be constructed.
Wednesday and Thursday were all about the finishing touches. We finished the trail all the way to the bottom and began a last round of tamping and leveling. We also had to move a lot of dirt to some of the corners to help decrease the slope and protect some large tree roots. We dug a giant hole in the woods off trail to get this dirt. 20-30 wheelbarrow loads later the trail was finished. We had a few things here and there to do, but it was time to add the finishing touch, and arrow pointing the direction of the trail at the trailhead. We made the arrow out of a tree root that we dug up. It made a perfect end to an awesome week of work.

After a long days work

bring on the dirt, we nee to fill this hole

planting some ferns along the trail

this is were all our dirt came from

our magnificent arrow!

tamping the trail

Tube Removal and Maintenance

Our return from New York came as a huge relief to the crew. We were all exhausted and ready for an actual weekend, and we were going stir crazy from being coped up in that truck for so long! The weeks between December 1st and 20th consisted of site maintenance and tube removal. The low key, low stress work was a welcome change from the work we were doing in New York. The tube removal became especially tedious. We would walk many planting cites looking for trees that were tall enough to have their protective tubes removed. After the first week we were ready to be done with tube removal, unfortunately we still had 2 weeks left! The monotony of that job, coupled with the short days was enough to get on everyones nerves. Fortunately the last week before our Winter Break was spent in Sequim doing some site maintenance. This turned out to be an eventful week. I was bonked in the nose by a tree that spring boarded by the DR mower and we managed to get the truck stuck in the mud. Come Thursday at 5:30 we were definitely ready begin our break.

New York, New York

Our View of Manhattan from our ship

Shortly before Superstorm Sandy made landfall Owen informed us that we are on the list to be shipped over to assist in disaster response. The Next day we received confirmation that we would be leaving on October 31st for a long truck ride east. We were up early, had the truck packed and on our way to Ellensburg to have a meeting with Roland and all the other crews going to New York. Adrenaline was high, and we were stoked to be given such a great opportunity to help in the recovery.

The WCC caravan

We made the 3000 mile trip in 5 days, with stops in Missoula MT, Wall SD, Madison WI, Sharon PA and finally New York. We didn't get our assignment until we reached Madison, and our final confirmation of the assignment came as we all met a final time in New Jersey. We began seeing signs of the disaster once we neared New Jersey. We filled up on gas right before we crossed into New Jersey, as soon as we crossed the border there were signs that the gas stations had no gas.

No Gas Signs

After meeting in New Jersey and getting our assignment to Queens College we drove into the city. There were many areas that were blacked out. While owen was driving I was the navigator. Trying to make our way through the city was insanely stressful, but, we did finally make it to Queens College. Our initial and primary task was shelter operations. It was considered a life sustaining task, and therefore the most important. We ended up running a shelter for 3 weeks. Our crew was responsible for the family and pet shelter operations between the hours of 8am-4pm. After we got of work we would hang around the shelter with the other AmeriCorps groups that were there or head to one of the restaurants for dinner (either this deli or pizza place both were really good!). When we finally got our first day off (14 days or so after leaving) we went to Manhattan and explored the city. I went to the American Museum of Natural History, some of the guys went and walked around the city. It was a great day off! 7 days later we got another day off and went into the city again. We closed the shelter and finally managed to get some real field work in. But, the real treat was moving onto a navy vessel of some kind to live in for the next week. The food was awesome, the bunks tiny, but definitely worth it. Our field work consisted of mold mitigation. After 6 days of that we were called home, and our 3000 mile journey home began.

The navy ship that we stayed in while in New York 

We all really enjoyed the food on the ship

Getting work done for America

Off day in Manhattan

Our sleeping situation in the Shelter.

Our sleeping situation on the ship

Snow Creek Fish Weir

One day during work, we met up with our best  friend Cheri Scalf, a Washington Department of Fish and Wildlife Technician.  She showed us the fish weir at Snow Creek.  The fish weir is a sort of trap that stalls salmon as they are swimming upstream to spawn.

It basically stops them in a 10x10 steel cage so that we can count them on their way upstream.  We drop a person down into the cage.  That person nets a few of them and passes them up .

The fish are then sedated. measured, counted and sex is identified. They are then released upstream by sending them down a large pipe back into the river.  This allows WDFW to gather info on how many and what type of fish are running up the creek.

We all got help Cheri that day working at the fish weir.  At that time it was coho salmon running, I believe it was a good year for the number of fish running in Snow Creek.  It was an overall awesome experience.  I hope we get to help with the out migrating smolts in Spring!

The 2012-2013 Port Hadlock/NOSC Washington Conservation Corps Crew and the NOSC WCC Individual Placement

Owen French, Zach Bollheimer, Mitch Gritts, Anna Lund, Rick Humphrey, Collin Cabe, Evan Runquist 

Here we are into December already without a single blog post.  The new crew is pictured above along with the NOSC individual placement.Welll, allot has happened since our start date of October 1st.  The crew has been through a great deal already and is approaching the 1/4 way through the service year (December 31st.)  We spent our 1st month getting oriented and doing restoration planting site maintenance. Suddenly we were off to NYC to assist with Super Storm Sandy relief efforts.  Having been back 2 weeks now, we are getting back into the groove of more site maintenance and look forward to doing some native tree plantings after a short holiday break.  But first let me introduce you to the crew!

Hello, I am Owen French the Crew Supervisor.  I enjoy leading this group of fine young men.  This is the 6th WCC team I have supervised.  I have been working in various natural resource management positions since adventuring out of my home state of Pennsylvania 16 years ago.  I have bachelors degrees in both Communication and Natural Resource Management.  I have worked for a plethora of government entities and non-profits in OR, WA, and VT helping manage riparian areas and salmon habitat, maintaining parks, and building trails.  I enjoy fishing, hunting, picking the old guitar, and spending time with my family.

Mitchell Gritts

In From Reno Nevada (via Las Vegas and the Bay Area) I graduated in December 2011. with a degree in Wildlife Ecology & Conservation with a focus on evolution.  I applied to the WCC to help me decide what to do with my life while working in my field of study.  Working outside has always been a prerequisite for jobs I've enjoyed. Working outside in the Washington landscape will especially be enjoyable compared to the barren Nevada dessert/ great basin.  In my spare time I enjoy hiking, skiing, and exploring the state of Washington.  I  also pretend like I am a landscape and sports photographer.

Who am I... My name is Evan Runquist.  I am 23 years old and I was born in Bemidji, Minnesota.  I was raised nearby in Aveley and Walker, MN. which were very small towns.  I grew up doing a lot of fishing, especially ice fishing,  popular north country past time.  I also enjoyed riding bikes and playing soccer.  In 2007 I graduated from Washington Highschool and moved to Minneapolis for a short while before traveling the US extensively by various modes of transportation and residing in Portland OR and Richmond VA. before winding back up in Minneapolis. I headed back out West last year living in rural California then at last coming up to Washington in July to live in a trailer on a piece of land south of Port Townsend and joining the WCC.  I enjoy travel, hiking, backpacking, exploring, fishing, and DIY music and culture.

Hey all,
I'm Zach Bollheimer- I am from a small town in western Ohio called Fort Laramie. I graduated from Ohio University in Athens, OH. (not Ohio State) this past June with a B.S. in Environmental Geography and a minor in English. I worked for the Ohio EPA last summer with the division of surface water doing permit follow ups at mitigated wetland sites.  I moved out to the Peninsula this past September specifically to work in the WCC.  I enjoy playing and listening to music, meeting new people, trying new beers, being outside and reading a good book.  I am happy to be hired by the WCC and feel really good about being here.

Hi, my name is Richard Humphrey.  I am going to tell you a little bit about myself.  I was born in Port Townsend in the year 1993.  I am 19 years old. In my spare time I enjoy fishing, short hikes, working out, camping, watching movies, and just about anything on the water such as kayaking, boat rides etc.  After I complete Americorps I plan to use my scholarship to go to a lineman training school.  Lineman do electrical power line work. Thanks for reading my short story about me.

This is Collin Cabe he is from Washington, he was residing in Port Townsend when hired on to the crew.  He wasn't here to write a bio today.  Collin enjoyed doing a season with a trail crew  in the Olympic Mountains this last summer and prior to that served as employee then on the Board of Directors at The Boiler Room in Port Townsend.  The Boiler Room is a non-profit drop in Cafe for young adults fostering a positive creative environment.  Collin is a musician, artist, and friend to those in need, man or beast. He enjoys long walks on the beach, watching sunsets, collecting napkins, and puppetry.

Anna is proud to be a born and raised Washingtonian. She grew up on her grandparents farm and was always playing in the creek across the street.  In her youth she volunteered to be a stream steward, planting trees and removing invasive species. She is happy to be back in her home state after spending the summer as an organic farmer in Alaska. She studied at Pacific University and has a BA in Sustainable Design. For her Senior Capstone Project, she designed and implemented a living willow structure for an outdoor learning center. Anna also studied abroad in the Peruvian Amazon and worked with “Monkey Island” to protect and preserve the native flora and fauna.  In her free time she enjoys  hiking to hot springs, reading, whitewater rafting, cooking and eating delicious food!