Nick Sterritt
Port Townsend High School Student
4-H Stewardship Program Member
2010 Fall Season Work Crew
We pulled noxious weeds and we put them in the back of a truck. We actually filled 5 truck loads that day. There wasn't that much litter and trash, but we picked up all that we could find. The noxious weed crew didn't do all that much besides pulling Herb Robert, hemlock, Canadian Thistle and some invasive ivy. After we finished we had about 5 loads of trash and noxious weeds.
Trail Maintenance:
This was the funniest day because Ben, Corey, Zac and I pretty much rebuilt a trail. This is the day that I had the least a mount of complaining and procrastination. We went to Notch Pass Trail and we rebuilt about a half mile of the trail, but we couldn't continue because it was getting late and we had to drive another hour and a half to get back. We used some cool tools like a half ax and a half de-rooter.
Forest Service Maintenance:
On this day we hauled heavy lumber to the Quilcene Ranger Station and then we proceeded to put water proofing on the lumber. We did this because we wanted to repair picnic tables that people had vandalized or that had rotted away. Then we proceeded to take the moss on the parking lot off the Ranger Station and then took care of the Ranger Station by brushing and clearing the hedges and all the access bushes. We also took out Herb Robert.
On this day we walked about three feet from the van from our last destination at the elk habitat restoration. We got some cool tools like the Montana Sharpshooter shovel and we softened the road by stepping on the Montana Sharpshooter - thus breaking the hard roads and making it easier to plant trees.
Campground Maintenance:
On this day we cleaned up all the trash and and we swept all the leaves off the tables and cleaned out all of the fireplaces. We found some weird stuff in the camp ground like a muffler. We split into groups so we could get the job done faster.
Elk Habitat Restoration:
We went to Sequim to set up a couple of trees. The trees were snow berry, hemlock, elder berry and some other shrubs. We used short and long-nosed shovels for digging the holes for which we put the shrubs and trees in. Almost all of the places we put the trees in were bare and nothing was growing there. Every year the elk habitat is dwindling because of new houses in the area.
Skykomish Fish Fling: On this day we drove about 2-4 hrs on the way over and 2-4 hrs on the way back. On the way up we noticed that the place we were going to was across an Indian Reservation that is in a flood plain.
We also noticed that there were a lot of salmon piles up along the road and we wondered why they couldn't do it themselves, but we ended up having fun throwing them off a 50-70 ft cliff. It wasn't pleasant seeing them hitting the bottom though. I am glad I brought some vapor-rub for my nose.
Current Issue I Care About: One of the current problems is xenophobia. If we are more open to other cultures it would cancel a lot of political and world problems. It also would also reduce terrorism. It would make people shake hands and accept their differences.