Murphy- Environment

3/28/11

This morning, we groggily woke up to rain, and were extremely pleased when Cole announced that we  would be starting later than scheduled. Rather than rushing out the door, most of us enjoyed a leisurely breakfast while some others (Max) went right back to bed. The rest of us eventually headed down to the basement for a communal nap, which involved much more laughing and talking than sleeping, although some people did catch a few winks. By 11am, we headed to the HRWC office to begin our first day of work. On the way there, we jammed out to Celene Dione, Journey, and Queen. We arrived at the office and were treated to a delicious pizza lunch provided by the gracious volunteers at HRWC. We were especially amused with the dessert pizza. We also met a retired from Atlanta who was excited to meet future journalists in our group and enjoyed talking to all of us. After we were full of pizza, we were finally ready to get to work.

            When we got to our sight, we parked our white van and then waded through a field of cow pies (and real cows!) towards the river. Tony, our project director, informed us that we had to cross to the other side. We were stuck with a predicament: how to cross the river. Even Tony was puzzeled with the correct way to cross. The water was cold and rushing quickly, and we estimated that it was about 5 ft. deep and 15 ft. wide. Tony decided to drive his jeep across. We were skeptical of his plan, but to our surprise, he made it safely to the other side. But, the rest of us were still stuck on the opposite side of the bank. Andy manned up and decided to roll up his pants, take off his shoes and walk across. Soon, the rest of us followed, but Laura and Teddy decided to venture further down the bank to find an easier way to cross. Before long, Laura decided to wade through in her boots. In shear panic, she proceeded to scream "Teddy! Where are you?!" Adriana and Sarah were quite amused at this to say the least. But, they figured that since they didn't see Teddy floating downstream, she must be safe. Max and Laura came to the rescue, and Teddy waded across.

Now that we were all across the river, we went to work on the far side of the bank, pulling out invasive plants. It didn't take long for us to identify our challenge: Japanese Honeysuckle, a long vine-y plant that wraps itself around trees, girdling them and essentially suffocating. Eventually, this kills the trees, and prevents their roots from stabilizing the bank. Without trees along the bank, it will erode, bringing an excess of sediment which throws of the balance of the eco-system and clogs treatment plants. We worked aggressively for several hours, attempting to battle the honeysuckle. (As benign as this sounds, honeysuckle is extremely monstrous!) A lot of the honeysuckle was tangled within trees and thorny bushes, and we had to attempt to remove it without killing the native plants. We also sprayed the roots of the honeysuckle and other invasive plants with a chemical that keeps them from growing back. We were appalled to see that the vines had left giant imprinted scars on the trees, and we felt victorious for saving the trees from near suffocation.  We also had a little scare with dried, dormant poison-ivy, but luckily, no one has developed a rash (YET…) Although the work was tedious, we kept ourselves amused by singing Cee Lo Green. We had fun talking to Tony, and he taught us more about the invasive plants as we worked. As we were leaving, Cole and some trouble taking the E-break off, which was frustrating to Max—"It's like you've never driven a car before!!!!"

When we got back to "The Lake House" after working, we were tired but ready to relax and enjoy the beautiful evening. We spent some time outside playing Frisbee, skipping rocks, taking a walk around the lake, enjoying the gorgeous landscape, and walking the labrinth that we found. Half of us cooked dinner, and we all sat down at the round "conference table" and enjoyed a cute little dinner of chicken, grilled cheese, salad, and lemonade. At dinner, Sarah and Laura had a competition to see how long they could hold their hands above their heads. (although they are denying it now.) That's about it for today! We are eating some delicious ice cream and plan to play some games before hitting the hay for tonight.