An Introduction to St. Dorothy's

It's been a week since I've arrived at St. Dorothy's Rest, and I'm waiting for the other shoe to drop. Since we've been here, things have just gotten better and better, and I hardly know where to begin. The camp is only a three-hour drive from Sacramento, but in the solitude of the redwoods, it feels like a world away. I absolutely love it here.



Our sponsors, Katie and Ben Evenbeck and their adorable 9-month old daughter Lucie, have been simply delightful. They are the perfect hosts for our team. Coming from a camp background, they are very well-attuned to team dynamics and morale and have been so patient an gracious in the way they interact with us. They are also very attentive and responsive to our physical needs, rushing to provide us with whatever shortcomings we may identify. On our second day here, they found out we didn't have a television and brought one up to the house along with a DVD/VHS player. Ben has given us access to his library of really great reading, and we have an account at the hardware store in case we run short of supplies during our work day.

Food is definitely not an issue. On the first night we arrived, we were treated to an amazing dinner of lasagna, ravioli, salad, bread, and for dessert, chocolate cake and the best apple pie I've ever had, no exaggeration. On Sundays after the weekend's retreat guests have left the camp, we have unlimited access to the leftovers in the refrigerator, and what tasty food it is! As a result, instead of turkey and ham sandwiches, I've lunched on chicken mirabella, beef chili, spinach ravioli, vegetables teriyaki, and apple cake with homemade whipped cream. It's been quite the luxury.



When we arrived on the first day, we were greeted in the rustically elegant Main House with coffee, tea, and fancy trappings for lunch sandwiches. The first couple of days of our project were simply orientation, starting with the Main House, and got a rundown of the history of St. Dorothy's, the oldest continually operating summer camp in California. Ben took us for a quick stroll around the property to look at the various cabins and get us situated in our new home (more on that in a future post).















The next day, we began our orientation in the morning with a nice, long discussion on hope, faith, love, and luck, the four key values on which St. Dorothy's operates. We also did a corny little activity where we each drew out our own personal newspaper and what the headlines would look like by the end of our project. It was a little cheesy, but I know a lot of my team members appreciated the exercise and opportunity for reflection. We also had an intensive planning session in which we hammered out our weekly routine, like the whos and whens of cooking, cleaning, and laundry. I was very proud of the way our team pulled together and got organized. It boded well for the rest of the project.









In the afternoon of the second day, Ben brought us on a hike deep into the redwood forests behind St. Dorothy's. The camp is hoping to acquire more land soon, and it was exciting to hear Ben's ideas on how to expand the camp programs with a ropes course, outdoor kitchen, water sports, and other activities. The woods were absolutely gorgeous. It was truly postcard-perfect with hidden waterfalls and a burbling creek tucked between the towering redwoods. It was like Ferngully.















Once we thought it couldn't get any better, Ben took us on a tour of the community the following day. We started the morning at Howard Station Cafe, which is hands down the most delicious breakfast I've had in memory. I had eggs benedict, perfectly cooked, and the best potatoes I've ever had in my life (again, no exaggeration intended).





We then headed down to the Sonoma Coast by way of Highway 1, a winding ribbon of concrete and twists and turns through vineyards and hills until it reaches the Pacific Ocean. We drove through the town of Bodega Bay, where Alfred Hitchcock's The Birds was filmed. By way of film references, the closing scenes of the The Goonies was also shot in Bodega Bay.





We ended up at Goat Rock Beach at the mouth of the Russian River as it feeds into the Pacific Ocean. The coast here is no white-sand paradise; it is cold, craggy, and treacherous but also breathtakingly beautiful. It is an intimidating and intriguing vista that forces viewers to reflect on the power of the boundless oceans. Waves crash on land with astounding force, throwing up massive white fans of ocean spray against the salt-blown bluffs and leaving a carpet of fluffy sea foam on the sand in their wake. Giant rocky monoliths rise from the rolling waters, enduing centuries of pummeling with staid perseverance. We spent way too much time wandering the glossy sands and basking in the therapeutic sights, sounds, and salty smells of the ocean.













We looped along the Russian River through Monte Rio and up to Guerneville, where we visited the Armstrong Redwoods State Natural Reserve. Ben brought us here so we could see what we would be working toward. The park features redwoods literally thousands of years old. One display showed a cross section of a fallen redwood that germinated in 948 A.D. and marked off important historical events, starting from the landing of the Vikings in North America all the way to the 1906 San Francisco earthquake. You couldn't help but feel reverent as you walked through this living canopy so steadfastly flourishing over the centuries. The place had a serene yet majestic beauty, unassuming yet awesome.















With an orientation this good, I only hope the rest of the project lives up to the hype. It's undoubtedly gorgeous, and I wake up every morning feeling so incredibly blessed to not only live, but also make a difference in such a beautiful environment. I'll have to keep reminding myself of this truth even in hard times ahead. But now if you'll excuse me, it's sunny outside, and I think I'll find a nice shady spot to curl up with a good book and some tea.

I'm rooting for trees

You may be curious as to what I've been doing for the past four weeks since I've returned to Sacramento, and now that my time on this project is finally coming to an end, I'm ready with a mega-update. You've heard very briefly about my wildland firefighter training, so I'll save that for another day. Half of our time since winter break has been with the Sacramento Tree Foundation, an amazing organization "dedicated to building the best urban forest for the Sacramento region." You can download our portfolio for this project here.


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.