My team absolutely loved this project, especially after the cold, harrowing experience we had in Wyoming. It had everything we wanted in a project; we got to work outdoors, the sponsors were so fun and understanding, and the work was challenging and varied. For me, the latter part was biggest perk; even though the work was sometimes tedious, there was always plenty of new tasks lined up to keep me from getting bored. We worked at multiple sites through the city, including the Stone Lakes National Wildlife Refuge, Mather Regional Park, and a greenbelt in the Laguna Creek neighborhood. Sacramento is in fact nicknamed "the City of Trees" and claims to have more trees per capita than another city in the world — even Paris, France.
Our first day we began at the Sacramento Tree Foundation yard, a huge fenced-off lot where the organization maintains a nursery of young seedlings. Our very first task was shoveling fresh soil into individual planters, which are used in one of the organization's many educational programs.
We also did a lot of cleaning up the yard: raking, pulling weeds, reorganizing the rows of plants. Though the nursery didn't seem all that dirty, this process took us the full two weeks to complete. Mud piled up in the most random places, and the job of cleaning out stray leaves and weeds was a never-ending duty.
The next day, we were sent to a regional park to dig up damaged irrigation lines along a cycling trail. They were having a serious overpopulation problem with the voles, who were chewing through the newly laid pipes. Our job was to dig up the old lines and dig trenches for new pipes. The day was rather cold and damp, but I enjoyed the hauntingly atmospheric fog, which made for gorgeous photos.
It wasn't until the third day that we actually got to go out and plant some trees at different locations throughout the city. We enjoyed traveling to various sites and learning about the many facets to the issue of building an urban canopy. A lot of the work we did was mitigation, which entailed planting trees to replace ones that had been cut down for new construction. It was encouraging to hear how these plantings were being supported by the development and government communities, however politically motivated they may be. We planted valley oaks, a native tree found only in California. Sacramento was once home to an abundance of elm trees, but due to a recent bout of Dutch elm disease, there has been a renewed focus on planting oaks. Most of the seedlings looked like nothing more than a twig in the ground, so it was amazing to ponder how such a fragile thing could grow into something so grand and majestic. One of the things I admire about the Sacramento Tree Foundation is, unlike many other tree-planting organizations, they perform maintenance on their trees and have a 98 percent success rate with their plantings.
Before the day ended, our team visited another planting site overlooking a creek, and our task there was to clear out invasive weeds that might threaten the young trees.
Aside from tree planting, we also laid irrigation pipes, which was actually quite an ordeal. The pipe came in huge rolls, and it tended to kink up when we stretched it out.
The second week we worked was extremely rainy, so we stayed in the office for most of the time helping them clean out their storage areas, put together some planting kits, and sort through files, which will help them input their forms into an electronic database.
Even though we were inside, it turned out to be more fun than I expected. The break room where we worked had nice, comfy couches, and we had unlimited access to tea and hot cocoa. What made the day, however, was our introduction Barkley, the Sacramento Tree Foundation mascot. It started when we found a box of random props and hats, which were used for some children's program many years ago. We were having so much fun with those that one of our sponsors decided to introduce us to the Barkley costume. This all culminated with a team performance of "In the Jungle", which agreed to sing in exchange for free T-shirts.
We attempted briefly to work outside, but the rain proved to be too intense, at least early on in the week. I do have to give credit to the wonderful rain gear that AmeriCorps issued us. It did just what it was supposed to do; it was a cool feeling to peel off those layers after a day in the pouring rain and still be completely dry. Even though the week ended gray and drizzly, we stuck it out in the yard disposing of rotted stakes and broken irrigation pipe and cleaning out the nooks and crannies of the nursery.
This was a very satisfying project for our team and a refreshing change of pace from our experience in Wyoming. It helped a lot that we were living back on campus and had our own rooms, Internet access, and a full kitchen. I actually learned a lot about trees and about the really ambitious and admirable initiatives the city and the Sacramento Tree Foundation has started to build the urban forest. You can read about the benefits of trees to the city at this Web page.
Haha.. at first I thought your link for "In the Jungle" was an actual recording of ya'll's performance! .. how disappointing :-P
ReplyDeleteJosh, were you taught about the different types of soils while you were planting? How many days did you all do this work? How many places did you go to do this? Did you do this from morning till evening?
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