#verdeuno

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First off, I would like to apologize for this week’s content. I forgot my SD card or DSLR or battery practically everyday this week so this is what I could rummage up from the team. 

Week 8 in Redding was surprisingly more eventful when looking back on it. 

I forgot to mention that last Saturday night (2/27/2016) the team had a team activity planned for the evening after returning from Lassen Volcanic National Park. We all gathered around our fire pit, started a fire and roasted some marshmallows for a bucket-list teamtivity. There was no real itinerary but to enjoy each other’s company as we had some nostalgic memories from when we were in college and grade school to the shocking flammability of our marshmallows. After the flames dwindled down to ashes, we returned to the RVs to play Catan, a board game some members have taken a liking to. 

Jumping into Monday, the team returned back to its regular work flow by returning to the Homestake Trail or Trail 58 to finish up the remaining sections of unfinished tread. A unique trail feature that was built was a rock wall to help restore the trail’s edge which was at a low point. Then the trail was in-sloped as a trail feature for future mountain bikers.  

 While the majority of Verde uno worked on the trail, corps members Katheryne and Clara had the opportunity to work with Laura, BLM Redding’s forest ecologist intern on reassessing biomass sales.  BLM contracts local logging companies to harvest timber generally, but can also contract these companies to harvest biomass, which is organic matter that can’t be sold for pulp and furniture, but still utilized for burning. The team members worked with Laura to identify the types of trees on public land plots, the trees density of area and if said trees would be accessible to machinery. 

The following day, Verde uno continued their trail work with the goal of clearing any unwanted obstacles to future users trail safety. Within the last week our project supervisor flagged the remaining unwanted trees that were obstructing the trail. Team members Edison and Clara spearheaded this project. They spent the morning felling and bucking these trees. Then the cut up pieces were spread down the slope to disperse showing chainsaw work had been recently done.  The afternoon quickly changed pace as a rain system blew in causing the team to switch gears into trail maintenance work on the Miner’s Loop.

Wednesday was Katheryne’s Silver anniversary! We celebrated her birthday by going into Redding and having dinner at Kahuna’s Mongolian grill, a local eats spot with amazing food options! The meal was well deserved as we had spent the majority of it hauling parts in for a second bridge. Another cause for celebration was Dana was accepted to a program to teach english in Taiwan after her AmeriCorps NCCC term was complete!

Thursday, Max and Edison rode with the BLM Redding’s Recreation Technician, Nikhil to install a kiosk off a scenic byway in Siskiyou County next to the Klamath river. The kiosk weighed close to 1,000 pounds and needed to be dug in 3.5 feet into the ground and cemented in. The small project a lot of brain and some brawn to finalize the construction, transportation and placement of said kiosk. At the end of the day, the kiosk found its way to the public land spot and will hopefully survive the strong winds and storms that occasionally pass through the area.

Rolling into our weekend the team didn't take too much of the weekend off for ourselves. Edison and Clara shadowed Dave, the GIS Technician. They were able to get a brief intro to ArcGIS, GIS uses in BLM and data management.

Afterwards, the team held a Linkedin workshop that was hosted by our team’s Life After AmeriCorps rep, Dana. She used a recorded webinar from the AmeriCorps Alumni resources which discussed the importance of crafting your Linkedin and some tips and tricks to catch more traction professionally on the web. 

Lastly, Saturday the team held its Community day event with BLM Redding and the wildland fire community. Our service project consisted of clearing, leveling, weed blocking and filling gravel for 1,600 square feet of land to be the foundation of a fitness park dedicated to Luke Sheehy who lost his life in the line of duty while responding to a wild fire in Shasta county. It was amazing to see people rally in the midst of heavy winds and rain to get work done to help begin this memorial fitness park. Hopefully the park gets completed in the coming months and we can visit the completed site.

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As we travelled back to our home at the OHV area, the team was feeling re-energized and rested after a weekend off spent in the Sacramento area. Some members travelled to nearby locations such as Lake Tahoe, San Francisco and Napa Valley for their time off while others stayed in and took advantage of some much needed time off.  

Upon the return of the team to the OHV area, Verde Uno unpacked the vehicle, had lunch and prepared for a half-day of work. Earlier this round the team spent some time clearing the corridor and establishing a trail for a River Access Trail at the Chappie-Shasta OHV area. Monday’s half-day of work consisted of extending the trail over a treacherous patch of blackberry bushes and making it clear as to where the trail will go. In a little under 4 hours, the team cut and finished over 100 feet of trail easily and naturalized unwanted paths coming from the access trail.

Tuesday provided the opportunity for the team to open a dialogue with their full-time staff supervisor during their mid-site visit. A mid-site visit consists of our supervisor driving up from the Sacramento Office to an AmeriCorps teams work site and hold meetings with the project sponsor, team leader and the team. The mid-site serves as an opportunity for team members to voice the pros, cons and even-better-ifs for their current project at hand.

The rest of the week ran its course with the team spending the bulk of its time working on the Homestake Trail (Trail 58) finally connecting the second creek crossing to the third. Our project sponsor was ecstatic and surprised to hear the amount of progress we made last week. They were not expecting us to finish the hand-dug trail portion from Middle Creek road to Iron Mountain road, but the previous skill and hard work overall has led to very productive trail days!

The end of the work week did not yield an end to the team’s plans for week 7 in Redding. Friday was packed with team activities ranging from a mock physical training baseline to a team meeting and debriefing to a community service event at Turtle Bay and finally ending with dinner back at camp.

At the community service event at Turtle Bay, we were greeted with a bus of about 50 chatty middle school students. We split the students up into 2 groups with the team also being split to help with each group. One group was given the task of directing the kids to help remove leaves from the Turtle Bay arboretum. The other group talked to the kids about AmeriCorps and the opportunities it has to offer.

 Lassen Volcano National Park has been on the teams “to-go” list since before coming to Redding, CA. At this time of the year, the park is completely covered in snow with its roads within the park being impassable. The team had to travel to the south-west terminus to enter the park and enjoy its natural beauty. Verde Uno took advantaged of their time by visiting the mud pots that were just a half mile up the road through the snow and partake in the ranger led hike on snow-shoes through a California Red Fir forest. The experience was unique and definitely warrants a secondary visit during the non-snow covered season.

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The first week of February brought with it several things to celebrate for the month. We first started off with Black History Month, simultaneously the start of February’s leap year, Groundhog’s day with Phil Punxsutawney, and lastly a new moon cycle.

The team began the week with the interesting news that our project on hand, the construction of Trail 58, had been suspended until further notice. We handled the news fairly well, but knew we were responsible for making up our direct service hours to America some where else. Our alternative projects consisted of cleaning out the work yard, sharpening tools, organizing items in the BLM warehouse, the practice assembly of our trail bridge, routine maintenance of BLM campgrounds, trail maintenance around the Chappie-Shasta OHV campground and servicing a greenhouse at a local elementary school (not shown).

One highlight of the week was we had an AmeriCorps alumni join us to serve. After completing a term abroad, Sam has returned back to the states momentarily to spend time with family before returning abroad again for international service. The team held a fireside chat with Sam to discuss his experiences and learn about all the opportunities corps members have for themselves outside of NCCC.

Aside from all of the work we do as corps members, we still maintain our natural habits of fun and curiosity. Often we find ourselves reading, relaxing and playing trail games. A game we most often play is what we’ve taken to calling the “Celebrity Game”. The objective of the game is to guess the identity you have been given by only asking yes or no questions. The name you are given is taped to your forehead so everyone around can answer questions about you’re unknown identity. The assigned person can be fictional, non-fictional, personal acquaintance or even a popular figure!

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The week started off very strong with us completing our last field day of S-212 Chainsaw training. Our field site offered some quick, amazing views of the mountain ranges and snow covered peaks out in the distance. Most of the day focused on felling trees between 20-40 feet tall and 4-8 inches in diameter at breast height (DBH). Other things practiced during the day were chainsaw refueling, chain tightening and sharpening, swamping (clearing recently cut items from sawyers work area) and carrying the saw properly. It is with great pride to state that Verde Uno is now    

The next two days were filled with the work members of the team had signed up to do. The main trail that we’ll be assigned to work on is known as Trail 58, named after the nearby Wildland Firefighting station. Trail 58 has plans to run along the Middle Creek, a seasonal creek that runs from October to June. Because of the length and strength of the water flow in this creek, several bridges will be built for the trail to go over the creek a couple times. We helped bring cement down from up the trail to the cement mixer for the abutments for our first bridge. Along with the movement of the cement, Verde Uno began cutting new trail from the first bridge to the second proposed site for a bridge. Generally, the BLM cuts new trail with the Swaco, a small backhoe bull dozer that can’t always fit in some areas of the trail.

Our last work day was met by a rainy day. We were relegated to combing/raking rocks off the main trail and naturalizing edges of the trail that were tracked with ATV tires (to move cement). Once we completed that, we drove to the Upper Ditch trailhead by Shasta Dam to complete some maintenance that we started last week. Trail maintenance is easily accomplishable during rainy days because we are able to cut back encroaching bushes and trees while staying dry in our rain suits. When building trail, you can not dig into the dirt when it’s wet because it’ll either be too muddy or clumpy due to moisture.

Fun things we did this week, visited the Sundial Bridge in Redding. It is apparently the world’s largest, working sundial.

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Greetings from Verde uno! We have just finished up another wonderful week here in Redding, CA and are doing well despite all the rain we have been having. 

We started off our week with some classroom training for the s-212 certification, commonly known as the “chainsaw certification”.  Essentially, this certification designates members of Verde uno as beginner sawyers, capable of felling (or cutting down) trees of simple complexity.  Our in class time was about 12 hours with 10 other classmates. Our classmates ranged from being employees at the BLM office to volunteer wild land firefighters, and mountain biking club members. Our in class training discussed topics concerning technique, mechanics of a chainsaw and safety!

This upcoming Monday will be the teams final day of chainsaw training. This day will include members being observed by sawyers on our initial ability to fell trees. Since the staff handling the training wanted to split up the felling observations, Verde uno performed some routine trail maintenance on the Upper Ditch Trail just outside of the Shasta Dam.

For the day of trail maintenance, the crew split up into two teams; one team at the bottom and the other from the top. Initially the crew planned to meet up half way and resume work until the day was over, but maintenance proved to be more time consuming than previously thought. Each group completed about 2 miles of trimming plants invading the trail space, hazards (such as roots, flooded parts of the trail and rocks) and overall soundness of the trail. 

The team then finished the day off with Dana instructing members on how to sharpen tools. Tool maintenance will soon become a staple into the teams routine as we delve into trail work in the coming weeks. 

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AmeriCorps NCCC             əmɛrɪkɔr nccc 1. A national service program for youth 18-24 years old funded by the U.S. federal government. Participants, known as corps members, serve in a variety of non-profits and agencies of state, federal, and local governments for a period of 10 months.

2. A service corps often joined for the purposes of career advancement or the fulfillment of a “gap year.”

Gap Year                           gæp jɪr 1. A period of time in which people, often young, dare to deviate from the singular career path trajectory that is their society’s norm in the attempt to “find themselves,” seek out new opportunities, or have fun.

To Find Oneself                tu fajnd wənsɛlf 1. Definition unknown.

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“Guys, the next project is inside California.”

The team finds out their next project is in Redding, CA from a note tucked away in a book Ryan was reading.

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A day in the life of verde uno, as told through iphone-tography!