Murphy - Environment

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This morning we met up with Tony at Clay's Corner, a convenience store where the owner has a possum drop (think the ball drop) every New Year's Eve. This event was even featured on CBS Sunday Morning! Then, we were off to work at the Oland project. We crossed a 100 year-old bridge as we entered the property. This crossing was a little easier than forging the river as we did yesterday, an event that brought Tony to us in a truck today instead of his normal Jeep (apparently it didn't quite survive the river crossing). 

We got a lot more work done today due to our full-day schedule and experience from yesterday. We worked really hard trying to get through a 200 yard range covered in Japanese Honeysuckle, Multi-Floral Rose, and Oriental Bittersweet. A lot of the time it felt like a tug-of-war battle with the plants. We all came back with some scratches from the thorns and some of us even came back with a little bit of a sunburn. We had another delicious lunch provided by a volunteer from the Hiwassee River Watershed Coalition. We finished strong and were surprised at how clear the land was after we had taken out all of the invasive plant species. We put in some live stakes, sections of Dogwood trees that would grow into trees to shadow the water and provide fortification on the bank. Tony documented much of our work; hopefully we will be able to get the pictures up later! We were proud of ourselves and Tony seemed to be happy with our work, too.

We headed back to the house after work to shower and rest a bit. Some of us headed off to visit the Goldhagen Art Glass Studio and Gallery where Larry showed us some of the pieces he and the other artist had created. He was very friendly and even explained some of the process to us and invited us to watch them blow glass tomorrow. We returned home to a home-cooked meal from the rest of our group of hot dogs and macaroni and cheese. The family-style meal is a wonderful part of the day!

After dinner we rushed off to the John C. Campbell Folk School to join the local community for a night of contra dancing. All of the locals were very welcoming and kept pulling us onto the dance floor. Even Andy got his groove on!  The live music, spinning, and promenading were a great way to wind down after a hard day of work. Now, we are getting ready for another night filled with our new favorite game, Mafia.