hehehe enjoy...
p.s. at the very end, the weird sentence that derek says is, "my seester tahched a monkee... and she eht hees soop."
Tuesday, December 11, 2007
Monday, December 10, 2007
what it's like manning the missouri winter storm hotline
wow. this winter storm hotline business can get pretty crazy... example:
a woman called about an hour and a half ago saying her mother had many special needs, including being oxygen dependent, paralyzed on one side, has a catheter and is diabetic. she only had 2 or 3 hours of oxygen left, and was heating her home with her gas oven. she called asking for batteries for flashlights and 2 or 3 oxygen tanks. we advised her that she should try to get to a shelter that can handle special needs because it is extremely unsafe to heat your home with an oven, and at this time we had no way of getting supplies to her house. she insisted that they had one window cracked about 3 inches to let the fumes out and they did not want to leave the house.
so i called the only shelter open in that area and asked if they could handle special needs. they said no, and that they were diverting special needs patients to the hospital. the red cross people stationed at the shelter advised me to call the local police to get the woman transported out of her home asap.
i called the police and talked to the chief, who told me that "oh crap" had become a technical term in the last 24 hours. he said that the only place that could take the woman was the hospital. i gave him her contact info and he said he would call her and try to transport her to the hospital.
i then called the woman back, and explained the situation and again insisted that the oven heating the house was very dangerous. she insisted on staying in the house and said that she would not go to the hospital because she would be billed for the visit. she also said that she had been trying to get ahold of her oxygen supplier all day and had not received any calls back from them. I told her that i would call the hospital to check on the billing situation, to see if there was an exception due to the disastrous weather emergency, and get back in touch with her.
i then called the police chief back to inform him that the lady did not want to be moved from her house, but he did not answer, so i left a message. I then called back my contact at the original shelter, and was informed that a new shelter was being opened in the basement of the city hall, and they might be able to accommodate special needs. I got the number, and called city hall, only to get ahold of the answering machine.
So then I called the hospital, and talked to the ER and found out that they, indeed, are billing patients upon admission because they do not have a shelter set up at the hospital. The hospital also informed me that I could dial 0 to get past the answering machine at the city hall, and i would be able to get in touch with someone there. I called city hall back, punched in 0, and talked to another member of the police department and told him about the woman's situation. he said he already had heard about her, and that the only place she could go was the hospital, because the city hall shelter also could not handle special needs. I told him she refused to go to the hospital because she would get billed. He said they had been sending people with special needs to the hospital all day, and he thought because it was an emergency situation, that the people were not getting billed. He then put me on hold, and asked someone else at the shelter about the hospital situation. As it turns out, the hospital had been billing patients all day and would not back down because of the emergency situation.
So then i called the red cross to find out if they could deliver oxygen to the woman's house. the red cross put me through to the disaster management chapter and they told me that they cannot, under any circumstances, carry oxygen, even for a CPR class because of liability and insurance issues. The red cross told me to talk to a different hospital than the one i had called earlier, to ask them about who their oxygen supplier is. So i called freeman hospital, and talked to the administrator in charge of getting their oxygen. The woman told me that their regular line was down- which explained why the woman in her home could not get ahold of them. Then, the administrator connected me to someone at the oxygen supplier and i gave them the woman's contact info and address, and i was told that the oxygen supplier would contact her and resolve the issue.
I then followed up with the woman and told her a very brief summary of everyone i had talked to since my last call to her, and let her know that she should be hearing from the supplier. She then told me that she had already heard from the supplier, and would be receiving 10 cylinders of oxygen soon. she still had no way of getting batteries for the flashlights, but assured me that her mother had been heating the house with the oven for years and had never had a problem. she also told me that they had cracked the front door and turned on the vent above the stove to provide more ventilation for the fumes. (i just realized that the vent would not work without power, so she might have been lying, or she doesn't know how the vent works.) i informed her that the oven might also spontaneously catch fire if left on for too long, which concerned me because of the oxygen and the candles. I also told her if she gets cold, to snuggle up with her mom and to be safe.
so the lady might still blow up, or suffocate from the fumes coming from the oven, but at least she has oxygen. it took me over an hour to do all of this, but at least she is (slightly) better off than she was when she called... (aka not dead... yet.)
sigh... i really hope she doesn't blow up.
p.s. my director just came in and aksed how it was going- and i told him this story and he said this was the sort of thing that needed to be written down. i then went and printed out this blog entry and he was not only surprised but impressed, and is now working on trying to get this woman out of her house. (yay!)
p.s.s. now the director is working on resolving this issue (with special needs patients getting billed by hospitals) on a state-wide level. awesome!
a woman called about an hour and a half ago saying her mother had many special needs, including being oxygen dependent, paralyzed on one side, has a catheter and is diabetic. she only had 2 or 3 hours of oxygen left, and was heating her home with her gas oven. she called asking for batteries for flashlights and 2 or 3 oxygen tanks. we advised her that she should try to get to a shelter that can handle special needs because it is extremely unsafe to heat your home with an oven, and at this time we had no way of getting supplies to her house. she insisted that they had one window cracked about 3 inches to let the fumes out and they did not want to leave the house.
so i called the only shelter open in that area and asked if they could handle special needs. they said no, and that they were diverting special needs patients to the hospital. the red cross people stationed at the shelter advised me to call the local police to get the woman transported out of her home asap.
i called the police and talked to the chief, who told me that "oh crap" had become a technical term in the last 24 hours. he said that the only place that could take the woman was the hospital. i gave him her contact info and he said he would call her and try to transport her to the hospital.
i then called the woman back, and explained the situation and again insisted that the oven heating the house was very dangerous. she insisted on staying in the house and said that she would not go to the hospital because she would be billed for the visit. she also said that she had been trying to get ahold of her oxygen supplier all day and had not received any calls back from them. I told her that i would call the hospital to check on the billing situation, to see if there was an exception due to the disastrous weather emergency, and get back in touch with her.
i then called the police chief back to inform him that the lady did not want to be moved from her house, but he did not answer, so i left a message. I then called back my contact at the original shelter, and was informed that a new shelter was being opened in the basement of the city hall, and they might be able to accommodate special needs. I got the number, and called city hall, only to get ahold of the answering machine.
So then I called the hospital, and talked to the ER and found out that they, indeed, are billing patients upon admission because they do not have a shelter set up at the hospital. The hospital also informed me that I could dial 0 to get past the answering machine at the city hall, and i would be able to get in touch with someone there. I called city hall back, punched in 0, and talked to another member of the police department and told him about the woman's situation. he said he already had heard about her, and that the only place she could go was the hospital, because the city hall shelter also could not handle special needs. I told him she refused to go to the hospital because she would get billed. He said they had been sending people with special needs to the hospital all day, and he thought because it was an emergency situation, that the people were not getting billed. He then put me on hold, and asked someone else at the shelter about the hospital situation. As it turns out, the hospital had been billing patients all day and would not back down because of the emergency situation.
So then i called the red cross to find out if they could deliver oxygen to the woman's house. the red cross put me through to the disaster management chapter and they told me that they cannot, under any circumstances, carry oxygen, even for a CPR class because of liability and insurance issues. The red cross told me to talk to a different hospital than the one i had called earlier, to ask them about who their oxygen supplier is. So i called freeman hospital, and talked to the administrator in charge of getting their oxygen. The woman told me that their regular line was down- which explained why the woman in her home could not get ahold of them. Then, the administrator connected me to someone at the oxygen supplier and i gave them the woman's contact info and address, and i was told that the oxygen supplier would contact her and resolve the issue.
I then followed up with the woman and told her a very brief summary of everyone i had talked to since my last call to her, and let her know that she should be hearing from the supplier. She then told me that she had already heard from the supplier, and would be receiving 10 cylinders of oxygen soon. she still had no way of getting batteries for the flashlights, but assured me that her mother had been heating the house with the oven for years and had never had a problem. she also told me that they had cracked the front door and turned on the vent above the stove to provide more ventilation for the fumes. (i just realized that the vent would not work without power, so she might have been lying, or she doesn't know how the vent works.) i informed her that the oven might also spontaneously catch fire if left on for too long, which concerned me because of the oxygen and the candles. I also told her if she gets cold, to snuggle up with her mom and to be safe.
so the lady might still blow up, or suffocate from the fumes coming from the oven, but at least she has oxygen. it took me over an hour to do all of this, but at least she is (slightly) better off than she was when she called... (aka not dead... yet.)
sigh... i really hope she doesn't blow up.
p.s. my director just came in and aksed how it was going- and i told him this story and he said this was the sort of thing that needed to be written down. i then went and printed out this blog entry and he was not only surprised but impressed, and is now working on trying to get this woman out of her house. (yay!)
p.s.s. now the director is working on resolving this issue (with special needs patients getting billed by hospitals) on a state-wide level. awesome!
Monday, November 12, 2007
totally stalling before going back into the woods...
but i just had to make note of some wierd things people have been saying lately!
the following are (mis)perceptions people have had about me lately, haha
"But I don't want to have the dinner party at Kim's* house. It's dirty. I want to have it at yours!" -Carmen
"Brynn, how do you get your teeth so white?" -Roice
"You look like you're up to no good." -some drunk guy at a piano bar
"You can fix my pants, right?" -several boys... on separate occasions... with pants that need to be donated to a dumpster
"So what you're saying is, that if I stop saying obscene things about your mom, you'll make me dinner?" -Drew
*name was changed to protect the innocent
the following are (mis)perceptions people have had about me lately, haha
"But I don't want to have the dinner party at Kim's* house. It's dirty. I want to have it at yours!" -Carmen
"Brynn, how do you get your teeth so white?" -Roice
"You look like you're up to no good." -some drunk guy at a piano bar
"You can fix my pants, right?" -several boys... on separate occasions... with pants that need to be donated to a dumpster
"So what you're saying is, that if I stop saying obscene things about your mom, you'll make me dinner?" -Drew
*name was changed to protect the innocent
Saturday, November 10, 2007
Thursday, November 8, 2007
long time, no write!
So I'm sure you guys have been starving for an update, but before this week, there really wasn't much going on. We spent two weeks at Peck Ranch, located in the beautiful Ozarks, raking fire line in preparation for a prescribed burn coming up. It was a lot of hard, repetitive work, but it felt good, and at the end of last week, we finished the 2 and a half mile stretch through the woods. The fire line we made was about 6 feet wide, and raked down to the mineral soil, so that the fire wouldn't jump across the line. we had to do a lot of lopping (using loppers to trim/cut away small branches and thick undergrowth) and blowing (usuing huge industrial strength backpack leaf blowers to blast away the soggy leaves), in addition to the regular ol' raking.
with all the hard work, came a nearly insatiable stomach. My tummy definitely can tell time when we are in the field. Here's the routine:
6:30 wake up, get dressed
6:45 eat oatmeal and/or bagel with cream cheese and jelly
make two peanut butter, jelly and apple sandwiches for lunch
7:00 load the trucks with tools and gear
7:15 drive to eminence forest service office (sleep the whole way there)
8:00 load the rest of the tools there and check in
8:15 arrive on work site and begin service project
10:30 eat an apple and/or a cliff bar
12:00 eat two sandwiches and the other apple
4:00 load up trucks and head out, (sleep the whole way back)
stop for groceries or gas or duct tape on the way
5:15 arrive back at Peck Ranch and start making dinner
6:00 serve dinner for 10
7:30 clean the kitchen
8:00 finally sit down to read or watch boys play video games or just zone out with hot cocoa
9:00 fall asleep in the middle of whatever I'm doing
10:00 shuffle my feet to bed
This week, my team stayed in St. Louis to do some maintenance around the office and help the education team with an after school program at a nearby elementary school. The kids have been fantastic. I taught a kindergartener to do double digit addition in columns today and he got every problem i put on the board right, even though he still counts on his fingers and writes most of his numbers backwards. I also worked with a girl in second grade who came in with almost all of her homework complete, and then proceeded to write all of the word puzzles on the board for me and had me solve them before checking her paper... which was flawless. I also was given hoola hoop lessons and a jump-rope reminder crash-course, as well as many emphatic high fives.
I love my job.
with all the hard work, came a nearly insatiable stomach. My tummy definitely can tell time when we are in the field. Here's the routine:
6:30 wake up, get dressed
6:45 eat oatmeal and/or bagel with cream cheese and jelly
make two peanut butter, jelly and apple sandwiches for lunch
7:00 load the trucks with tools and gear
7:15 drive to eminence forest service office (sleep the whole way there)
8:00 load the rest of the tools there and check in
8:15 arrive on work site and begin service project
10:30 eat an apple and/or a cliff bar
12:00 eat two sandwiches and the other apple
4:00 load up trucks and head out, (sleep the whole way back)
stop for groceries or gas or duct tape on the way
5:15 arrive back at Peck Ranch and start making dinner
6:00 serve dinner for 10
7:30 clean the kitchen
8:00 finally sit down to read or watch boys play video games or just zone out with hot cocoa
9:00 fall asleep in the middle of whatever I'm doing
10:00 shuffle my feet to bed
This week, my team stayed in St. Louis to do some maintenance around the office and help the education team with an after school program at a nearby elementary school. The kids have been fantastic. I taught a kindergartener to do double digit addition in columns today and he got every problem i put on the board right, even though he still counts on his fingers and writes most of his numbers backwards. I also worked with a girl in second grade who came in with almost all of her homework complete, and then proceeded to write all of the word puzzles on the board for me and had me solve them before checking her paper... which was flawless. I also was given hoola hoop lessons and a jump-rope reminder crash-course, as well as many emphatic high fives.
I love my job.
Friday, October 19, 2007
chainsaw training at peck ranch
Last night we got back from 4 days on a 21,000 acre ranch where we learned how to use chainsaws and the basics of fighting wildfires. It was pretty exciting, except that I had a cold for the first 3 days (a really quick one!), so I was nervous about bucking limbs with chainsaws when I knew that my ears were so clogged up that I'd missed part of the instruction... But it turned out fine. My tidbits of ballet training helped me a lot with my posture while handling the chainsaw, so I was able to make my small amount of energy last a bit longer.
We spent several hours in the classroom with our chainsaw books learning proper terminology for different things we would encounter in the woods and different types of cuts we would be making. Thanks to my photographic memory, I could remember the pictures in the books, but not necessarily the words for them, haha. So bucking limbs went fine. I knew to be careful with the tip of the saw bar so that it wouldn't kick back, and I learned how to sharpen the chain and clean the air filter and put fresh oil and gas in the saw.
The next day we spent a while in the classroom but then we went out to cut down trees. Snags are dead trees that are hazardous because they are going to fall down eventually. Our main purpose in cutting down snags was in preparation for a controlled burn that was coming up. We didn't want snags falling across the fire line, which would carry the fire outside the controlled area. The snag I chose was the biggest of the day, and my leader let me do it because I was patient and waited for all of my other group members to cut down their snags before me. The tree was about 2 feet DBH (diameter at breast height) and about 60 feet tall (we measured it by walking it's length once it was felled). We also attempted counting its rings and figured it was about 100 years old.
My face cut was pretty good, although tough on my wrists; and then my leader, Evan, bore cut the center out, and then I did the back strap. It fell exactly where I aimed it and didn't get caught up in any other trees. Success!
Sunday, September 30, 2007
back home from chadwick, mo (yay for manual labor and chainsaws!)
Okay, so I know that my last couple of posts have been (painfully) lengthy, and I will try to remedy that from here on out. (lord knows how many more disclaimers like this i'll write in the next year)
We just returned from a national forest in the Ozarks, near Ava, Missouri. We spent the week doing lots of manual labor in a national forest-- mostly to repair the ATV trails to make them safer and sturdier. The forest we went to is one of the few in the country that allows ATVs, and as a result, the trails get quite a lot of traffic over the years; but the problem is that the ATVers aren't just driving all over the trails, but the forest floor as well.
Most of the people that go to this forest have been going for many years and know the trails better than some of the rangers do. The ATVers come not only for the pleasure of driving their vehicles all over the beautiful forest, but also for the thrill of going as fast as they can, wherever they can. Consequently, the trails that the park service has tried to improve by installing con-lock blocks, interlocking concrete blocks which help reduce erosion and discourage speed, have only encouraged more erosion where the ATVers zip around the blocks.
On the first day of service, we were split up into 3 teams: one for each work site on a particular trail that needed to be patched up and protected from further damage. Fresh, clean con-lock blocks were delivered to us and all we had to do was dig up the rocky soil and install the blocks. The areas that had been damaged by ATVers driving around the blocks were subsequently covered up with large dead trees and sticks which I helped weave together so that they wouldn't just roll away if someone stubborn enough decided to try driving over them.
While the work was hard and the sweat was plentiful, it was a good day's work and we walked back to our campsite famished and fulfilled. We cooked 16 pounds of spaghetti, with venison sausage in the sauce, and had plenty for everyone to have seconds and more. We also had salad, and a surprise from the team that had gone grocery shopping: fancy cheesecake. Some slices had caramel and some were marbled and some had chocolate chips on top. We reveled in our new motto: work hard, eat hard.
After chatting around the campfire and showers and a very encouraging debriefing from our group leader, Evan, we finally settled down and went to bed in our massive tents under the gorgeous stars. The next morning, we got up at 7:15 to make our lunches and eat our oatmeal, and were at the new work sites by 8. There was a new team in charge of sawing and swamping. Swampers have a very important task: they pull limbs and brush away from the sawyer after having been felled, so that the sawyer doesn't trip while operating his chainsaw. The sawyers and swampers mostly cut down dead trees that ran the risk of falling on the trails, or cutting down live trees so as to block off dangerous or eroded trails.
The first time I watched a tree fall, I was speechless. There is so much power and energy in a tree that you never encounter by just walking by it; but the sounds and movement and vibrations you experience as this massive, solemn thing bends and creaks and slams into the ground are phenomenal. The death of a tree by the hand of man is sad, but the tree's last words are awe-inspiring.
_to be continued_
We just returned from a national forest in the Ozarks, near Ava, Missouri. We spent the week doing lots of manual labor in a national forest-- mostly to repair the ATV trails to make them safer and sturdier. The forest we went to is one of the few in the country that allows ATVs, and as a result, the trails get quite a lot of traffic over the years; but the problem is that the ATVers aren't just driving all over the trails, but the forest floor as well.
Most of the people that go to this forest have been going for many years and know the trails better than some of the rangers do. The ATVers come not only for the pleasure of driving their vehicles all over the beautiful forest, but also for the thrill of going as fast as they can, wherever they can. Consequently, the trails that the park service has tried to improve by installing con-lock blocks, interlocking concrete blocks which help reduce erosion and discourage speed, have only encouraged more erosion where the ATVers zip around the blocks.
On the first day of service, we were split up into 3 teams: one for each work site on a particular trail that needed to be patched up and protected from further damage. Fresh, clean con-lock blocks were delivered to us and all we had to do was dig up the rocky soil and install the blocks. The areas that had been damaged by ATVers driving around the blocks were subsequently covered up with large dead trees and sticks which I helped weave together so that they wouldn't just roll away if someone stubborn enough decided to try driving over them.
While the work was hard and the sweat was plentiful, it was a good day's work and we walked back to our campsite famished and fulfilled. We cooked 16 pounds of spaghetti, with venison sausage in the sauce, and had plenty for everyone to have seconds and more. We also had salad, and a surprise from the team that had gone grocery shopping: fancy cheesecake. Some slices had caramel and some were marbled and some had chocolate chips on top. We reveled in our new motto: work hard, eat hard.
After chatting around the campfire and showers and a very encouraging debriefing from our group leader, Evan, we finally settled down and went to bed in our massive tents under the gorgeous stars. The next morning, we got up at 7:15 to make our lunches and eat our oatmeal, and were at the new work sites by 8. There was a new team in charge of sawing and swamping. Swampers have a very important task: they pull limbs and brush away from the sawyer after having been felled, so that the sawyer doesn't trip while operating his chainsaw. The sawyers and swampers mostly cut down dead trees that ran the risk of falling on the trails, or cutting down live trees so as to block off dangerous or eroded trails.
The first time I watched a tree fall, I was speechless. There is so much power and energy in a tree that you never encounter by just walking by it; but the sounds and movement and vibrations you experience as this massive, solemn thing bends and creaks and slams into the ground are phenomenal. The death of a tree by the hand of man is sad, but the tree's last words are awe-inspiring.
_to be continued_
Sunday, September 23, 2007
"Boat Access," pirate pranks, and orienteering in the dark
okay, okay, I'm aware that I need to work on being more concise. I'll try.
So we unloaded at "Boat Access" and then stood around for a while, for reasons somewhat unknown to us. We saw Kathleen, the leader of the blue team, which was also dropped off at Boat Access, talking to our leader, Russel, and Bruce, the big boss-- who mostly wandered from group to group stealthily through the woods. Anyway, we waited for a little while and stood around next to a pile of old life jackets on the ground while still examining our weird maps.
I was so excited to be out of those vans and ready to start our adventure that waiting was just about the last thing that I wanted to do. I was practically bouncing up and down like a little kid wondering why we haven't gone into the candy store yet. C'mon, c'mon, the door is riiight there! let's go in! let's go in! candy candy candy!!! So, waiting for instruction was obviously not on my agenda.
Finally, Russel came back over to us and led us up the road a little bit so we could sit in a "raccoon circle" and start learning how we would make group decisions. A raccoon circle happens when the whole group sits, or stands, in a tight circle while all holding a rope tied in a big loop. As long as we are all holding the rope, we are all involved in the decision-making process, and we don't break the circle until the group has reached a unanimous consensus.
This was also a bit of a struggle for me, since there are some rather passive, submissive people in the group, and I did not want to wait around for them to hesitantly voice their opinions. I bit my tongue, though, reminding myself that this is not a youth group or a summer camp. This is my job, and I have to live and work with these people for the next year. I have to treat these people with respect and patience, because they are my coworkers first; friendships will come later.
Russel showed us his much more detailed map which had our prescribed route drawn on it in Sharpie. He said we would only get to look at it for about 20 minutes and then he would put it away for the rest of the trip, so we had better commit it to memory. It was hard to compare it to our maps, which did not have nearly as many "topo" lines or trails on them because of how Xerox machines break down the quality of images a little bit after each copy; but we did sort it out, and were eager to set out in the canoes.
Then we waited some more.
Then we finally got the canoes unloaded, the packs tied inside heavy duty trash bags, in case any of us were to tip over, and the canoe teams divided up among our 4 canoes. The tricky thing about navigating Devil's Kitchen Lake is that it is "filled with underwater snags, the stumps of dead trees from the valley forest that once lived where the lake is today. Fishermen are advised to be aware of these snags. Swimming is forbidden in Devils Kitchen Lake." --Good thing we didn't have Wikipedia with us when we were ready to set off on our journey. Maybe, in some cases, ignorance really can be (slightly) blissful.
I ended up being on point in my canoe, so I was in charge of telling the person steering in the back which way to go in order to dodge upcoming stumps and branches, and also how to get to our docking point. Since we were usually the last canoe in the line of 4, I could watch what the other canoes did, and plan the best route based on who had to row backward out of a clump of dangerous stumps, and who was able to successfully glide around them.
At one point, Russel called all four of the boats together and we floated, rafted by holding onto each other with our oars. He said we could either tie our canoes together with rope and try to navigate the lake in pairs, or we could tie the canoes up in trees once we docked, in order to play a prank on the next group that needed to use them. We opted for the prank.
No one ran aground (well, technically "atree") and we docked safely, with nearly an hour of sunlight left to aid in our pirate pranking. I say "pirate" because by this point, we were already excited that the next day would be National Talk Like a Pirate Day, and were celebrating early. Malcom, my canoe's steer-er, was most enthused about being a pirate. While the rest of the group helped hide oars high in trees, string them out over the lake by tying them off to a stump about 20 feet off shore, and hide the last pair of oars underneath a canoe in the grass; he and I planned out our walking route to get to the campsite, and composed a pirate riddle, which we subsequently tied to a tall plant for the next group to find. The riddle read something like this:
"Heeeear yee!
He who seeks ye oars strung above the salty seas, like ye brethren, must first be findin' hidden treasures aground.
-The mullet scalping, viking dueling, pirate espionage squaaaarrrd"
As it turned out, the group that ended up finding these oars dangling overhead never saw the amusing note, because they were busy tending to their leader, who was having an asthma attack upon seeing this new challenge. They had been the most lost out of any other group, never found their campsite to sleep at, which meant they also never got to replenish their water for day 2. So basically, the pirates made a new enemy, instead of entertaining friends. They also didn't find the two oars we left for them on land, so one of them tried to wade out into the lake to get the oars strung out over the water; then they returned to the land and used a big stick to gondola out to the stump and untie the oars. Sucks to be them.
_more later_
p.s. here's a topo map of the area we hiked.
http://cewalter.tripod.com/id128.htm
So we unloaded at "Boat Access" and then stood around for a while, for reasons somewhat unknown to us. We saw Kathleen, the leader of the blue team, which was also dropped off at Boat Access, talking to our leader, Russel, and Bruce, the big boss-- who mostly wandered from group to group stealthily through the woods. Anyway, we waited for a little while and stood around next to a pile of old life jackets on the ground while still examining our weird maps.
I was so excited to be out of those vans and ready to start our adventure that waiting was just about the last thing that I wanted to do. I was practically bouncing up and down like a little kid wondering why we haven't gone into the candy store yet. C'mon, c'mon, the door is riiight there! let's go in! let's go in! candy candy candy!!! So, waiting for instruction was obviously not on my agenda.
Finally, Russel came back over to us and led us up the road a little bit so we could sit in a "raccoon circle" and start learning how we would make group decisions. A raccoon circle happens when the whole group sits, or stands, in a tight circle while all holding a rope tied in a big loop. As long as we are all holding the rope, we are all involved in the decision-making process, and we don't break the circle until the group has reached a unanimous consensus.
This was also a bit of a struggle for me, since there are some rather passive, submissive people in the group, and I did not want to wait around for them to hesitantly voice their opinions. I bit my tongue, though, reminding myself that this is not a youth group or a summer camp. This is my job, and I have to live and work with these people for the next year. I have to treat these people with respect and patience, because they are my coworkers first; friendships will come later.
Russel showed us his much more detailed map which had our prescribed route drawn on it in Sharpie. He said we would only get to look at it for about 20 minutes and then he would put it away for the rest of the trip, so we had better commit it to memory. It was hard to compare it to our maps, which did not have nearly as many "topo" lines or trails on them because of how Xerox machines break down the quality of images a little bit after each copy; but we did sort it out, and were eager to set out in the canoes.
Then we waited some more.
Then we finally got the canoes unloaded, the packs tied inside heavy duty trash bags, in case any of us were to tip over, and the canoe teams divided up among our 4 canoes. The tricky thing about navigating Devil's Kitchen Lake is that it is "filled with underwater snags, the stumps of dead trees from the valley forest that once lived where the lake is today. Fishermen are advised to be aware of these snags. Swimming is forbidden in Devils Kitchen Lake." --Good thing we didn't have Wikipedia with us when we were ready to set off on our journey. Maybe, in some cases, ignorance really can be (slightly) blissful.
I ended up being on point in my canoe, so I was in charge of telling the person steering in the back which way to go in order to dodge upcoming stumps and branches, and also how to get to our docking point. Since we were usually the last canoe in the line of 4, I could watch what the other canoes did, and plan the best route based on who had to row backward out of a clump of dangerous stumps, and who was able to successfully glide around them.
At one point, Russel called all four of the boats together and we floated, rafted by holding onto each other with our oars. He said we could either tie our canoes together with rope and try to navigate the lake in pairs, or we could tie the canoes up in trees once we docked, in order to play a prank on the next group that needed to use them. We opted for the prank.
No one ran aground (well, technically "atree") and we docked safely, with nearly an hour of sunlight left to aid in our pirate pranking. I say "pirate" because by this point, we were already excited that the next day would be National Talk Like a Pirate Day, and were celebrating early. Malcom, my canoe's steer-er, was most enthused about being a pirate. While the rest of the group helped hide oars high in trees, string them out over the lake by tying them off to a stump about 20 feet off shore, and hide the last pair of oars underneath a canoe in the grass; he and I planned out our walking route to get to the campsite, and composed a pirate riddle, which we subsequently tied to a tall plant for the next group to find. The riddle read something like this:
"Heeeear yee!
He who seeks ye oars strung above the salty seas, like ye brethren, must first be findin' hidden treasures aground.
-The mullet scalping, viking dueling, pirate espionage squaaaarrrd"
As it turned out, the group that ended up finding these oars dangling overhead never saw the amusing note, because they were busy tending to their leader, who was having an asthma attack upon seeing this new challenge. They had been the most lost out of any other group, never found their campsite to sleep at, which meant they also never got to replenish their water for day 2. So basically, the pirates made a new enemy, instead of entertaining friends. They also didn't find the two oars we left for them on land, so one of them tried to wade out into the lake to get the oars strung out over the water; then they returned to the land and used a big stick to gondola out to the stump and untie the oars. Sucks to be them.
_more later_
p.s. here's a topo map of the area we hiked.
http://cewalter.tripod.com/id128.htm
Saturday, September 22, 2007
back from the wild!!
This blog will, for the next year, be the chronicle of my adventures with Americorps St. Louis' Emergency Response Team (ERT).
Last night I returned from the Illinois wilderness, south of Carbondale, where we did a trip called "Quest/Immersion," (sort of two trips in one). Not only is this the only ERT Americorps program in the country, but this trip is also unique to the St. Louis Americorps chapter. We also found out that we made a 1 in 5 cut to get onto this team, and that FEMA relies heavily on us for disaster relief all over the midwest. So basically, I went on a unique trip with a really unique group of people, AND I COULDN'T HAVE HAD A BETTER TIME!!
I've come to nickname Americorps "the hippie army" because it is like the US Army in that there is a lot of unknown and fly-by-the-seat-of-your-pants about what we will be doing, when we will be doing it, and where we will end up, for an amorphous amount of time. I call it the "hippie army," though, because it is A LOT less militant than the Army, and a lot more about being in touch with your feelings, Native American ideals about stewardship of the Earth, and going with the flow. There is never a fixed agenda, and if there is, it is certainly never in writing, much less etched in stone.
While these observations may be having you thinking, oh god what have I let this kid go get herself into?? --don't worry. It's a fabulous test of my patience, and I never once felt like the leadership didn't have a firm grasp on the big picture of what needed to get done, nor did I ever feel the need to question their ability or competence in getting those prescribed goals met. This is, after all, the second oldest Americorps chapter in the country, and the directors of the program, Kathleen and Bruce, have been the grandparents of the group since it was conceived.
Okay, okay. Enough back-story- it's time for the Quest!
We arrived at the Americorps office at 8 on Monday morning. We were told beforehand to bring our belongings separated into two giant trash bags. One was for the two days we would spend hiking and camping in the wilderness, and the other for the three days we would spend at an actual camp. My old buddy Ben dropped me and my trash bags off at 8:01 and and I went inside to get my pack, which would serve as my slightly more substantial suitcase for the week. We were split into groups of about 15 (there were almost 90 people, including the leadership team) and were subsequently given plastic flagging so we could more easily retrieve our bags once unloaded from the trailer upon arrival in Illinois.
Aside: The thing with Quest is that it's all very hush-hush. All we knew was that we were going into a national forest south of Carbondale, and we would be sweating, hiking, and carrying extra group gear besides what we packed just for ourselves... but other than that, we had no idea what to expect out there.
So we packed our trash bags for Quest and the group gear into our hiking packs, and then flagged our camp bags with our team color and loaded those second bags into the trailer. Once the canoes were hitched up to one of the pickup trucks, our bags were all loaded via an assembly line passing gear from the building into the trailer, and then, finally, we loaded ourselves into the hot vans with weak a/c; we could hit the road. I think we left around 10:30-- which was apparently amazingly snappy performance compared to last year's departure.
We drove east for about 3 hours with only a vague notion of where we were going. When we arrived at a picnic area on the edge of the park, we all got out and ate lunch (PB & J on pita bread), loaded the rest of the food into our packs, and had a big group meeting standing in a circle on the gorgeously green grass. Bruce, the executive Director, led the meeting, reminding us about things such as team work, anticipating each other's needs, proper blister care, and what some Native American chief once said about how our lives are made up of concentric circles, not unlike the rings of a tree.
We finally got back on the road after our 2-hour lunch, and along the way, (our small team of 15) was handed mysterious maps of where we were, and where we would be going. The maps were laminated and had boundary lines delineating the edges of the wildlife preserve, the surrounding counties, and a lake called "Devil's Kitchen." They were topographical maps, but they did not have a compass rose on them, nor did they have a scale or legend, describing what the different types of lines meant.
The van was filled with questions that went unanswered: Is that a trail or a road? Are we on a highway or just a path? Is that a boundary or trail? How old is this map? Are these trails still there, or are they grown over and thus useless? Which way is north? How far apart are these "topo" lines? Is the grid in square miles? kilometers? tens of miles? Where are we going? Where are we now? How much longer until we reach our drop off point? Where is our drop off point?
The list goes on and on, but instead of getting frustrated with our leader's apparent silence and vagueness, our group pulled together and started scouting out clues on the road to figure out how the map corresponded with reality. We watched the clock on the van (since we were told not to bring watches) to see how long it took to get from one place to another. We paid attention to the curvature of the lake's shoreline as we drove around a small part of it. We noted what side of the tree trunks the shadows were on. We decided that we were headed past Little Grassy Lake, over to Devil's Kitchen Lake, and that when we finally stopped, we had arrived a small black dot called "Boat Access." We pointed out that it took no more than 5 minutes to drive from Little Grassy to Devil's Kitchen. We decided the grid was in square miles and that the top of the map was north.
_to be continued_
Last night I returned from the Illinois wilderness, south of Carbondale, where we did a trip called "Quest/Immersion," (sort of two trips in one). Not only is this the only ERT Americorps program in the country, but this trip is also unique to the St. Louis Americorps chapter. We also found out that we made a 1 in 5 cut to get onto this team, and that FEMA relies heavily on us for disaster relief all over the midwest. So basically, I went on a unique trip with a really unique group of people, AND I COULDN'T HAVE HAD A BETTER TIME!!
I've come to nickname Americorps "the hippie army" because it is like the US Army in that there is a lot of unknown and fly-by-the-seat-of-your-pants about what we will be doing, when we will be doing it, and where we will end up, for an amorphous amount of time. I call it the "hippie army," though, because it is A LOT less militant than the Army, and a lot more about being in touch with your feelings, Native American ideals about stewardship of the Earth, and going with the flow. There is never a fixed agenda, and if there is, it is certainly never in writing, much less etched in stone.
While these observations may be having you thinking, oh god what have I let this kid go get herself into?? --don't worry. It's a fabulous test of my patience, and I never once felt like the leadership didn't have a firm grasp on the big picture of what needed to get done, nor did I ever feel the need to question their ability or competence in getting those prescribed goals met. This is, after all, the second oldest Americorps chapter in the country, and the directors of the program, Kathleen and Bruce, have been the grandparents of the group since it was conceived.
Okay, okay. Enough back-story- it's time for the Quest!
We arrived at the Americorps office at 8 on Monday morning. We were told beforehand to bring our belongings separated into two giant trash bags. One was for the two days we would spend hiking and camping in the wilderness, and the other for the three days we would spend at an actual camp. My old buddy Ben dropped me and my trash bags off at 8:01 and and I went inside to get my pack, which would serve as my slightly more substantial suitcase for the week. We were split into groups of about 15 (there were almost 90 people, including the leadership team) and were subsequently given plastic flagging so we could more easily retrieve our bags once unloaded from the trailer upon arrival in Illinois.
Aside: The thing with Quest is that it's all very hush-hush. All we knew was that we were going into a national forest south of Carbondale, and we would be sweating, hiking, and carrying extra group gear besides what we packed just for ourselves... but other than that, we had no idea what to expect out there.
So we packed our trash bags for Quest and the group gear into our hiking packs, and then flagged our camp bags with our team color and loaded those second bags into the trailer. Once the canoes were hitched up to one of the pickup trucks, our bags were all loaded via an assembly line passing gear from the building into the trailer, and then, finally, we loaded ourselves into the hot vans with weak a/c; we could hit the road. I think we left around 10:30-- which was apparently amazingly snappy performance compared to last year's departure.
We drove east for about 3 hours with only a vague notion of where we were going. When we arrived at a picnic area on the edge of the park, we all got out and ate lunch (PB & J on pita bread), loaded the rest of the food into our packs, and had a big group meeting standing in a circle on the gorgeously green grass. Bruce, the executive Director, led the meeting, reminding us about things such as team work, anticipating each other's needs, proper blister care, and what some Native American chief once said about how our lives are made up of concentric circles, not unlike the rings of a tree.
We finally got back on the road after our 2-hour lunch, and along the way, (our small team of 15) was handed mysterious maps of where we were, and where we would be going. The maps were laminated and had boundary lines delineating the edges of the wildlife preserve, the surrounding counties, and a lake called "Devil's Kitchen." They were topographical maps, but they did not have a compass rose on them, nor did they have a scale or legend, describing what the different types of lines meant.
The van was filled with questions that went unanswered: Is that a trail or a road? Are we on a highway or just a path? Is that a boundary or trail? How old is this map? Are these trails still there, or are they grown over and thus useless? Which way is north? How far apart are these "topo" lines? Is the grid in square miles? kilometers? tens of miles? Where are we going? Where are we now? How much longer until we reach our drop off point? Where is our drop off point?
The list goes on and on, but instead of getting frustrated with our leader's apparent silence and vagueness, our group pulled together and started scouting out clues on the road to figure out how the map corresponded with reality. We watched the clock on the van (since we were told not to bring watches) to see how long it took to get from one place to another. We paid attention to the curvature of the lake's shoreline as we drove around a small part of it. We noted what side of the tree trunks the shadows were on. We decided that we were headed past Little Grassy Lake, over to Devil's Kitchen Lake, and that when we finally stopped, we had arrived a small black dot called "Boat Access." We pointed out that it took no more than 5 minutes to drive from Little Grassy to Devil's Kitchen. We decided the grid was in square miles and that the top of the map was north.
_to be continued_
Wednesday, March 14, 2007
color exercise- what red means: lessons for the blind woman
As a painter, I must say that colors are what give the world flavor, movement, texture, emotion, even symbolism. Colors give light meaning, and have sometimes profound effects on mood. I once dyed my hair hot pink as a way of rebelling against a control-freak ex-boyfriend, and also as a way to cheer myself up in the mornings when i woke up alone. They say when you are sad, that wearing bright colors cheers you up, and conversely, that wearing dark, drab colors like black and grey, can perpetuate your solemn mood.
As a writer, I often find it frustrating when the colors described in my peers' works are not palpable- but rather 2-dimensional words stolen from a crayon box. When you, Lynn, touch a crayon- they are all the same to you, except you might notice the paper wrapper of one is missing, or the point of another is worn to a bald nub. Colors, like lighting, emotion and sound, should always be something the reader can experience, because when a writer assumes the reader experiences color in the same way that everyone else on earth does, the writer is cheating himself, as well as his audience.
Red- the Crayola-name for the color of blood, passion, heat. In the Chinese culture, red is the color of luck, and is a dominant color in wedding ceremonies. If a Chinese person is in the hospital, it is better to bring them red flowers for encouragement. In the western culture, mostly because of Christian symbolism, white is a color of hope, faith and strength- and as a result bouquets with white lilies (also a symbol of the purity of the Virgin Mary) are often brought to the bedsides of the sick. If you brought a Chinese person white flowers in the hospital, it would likely cause more harm than good, because white is the color that symbolizes death in their culture. think of the light at the end of the tunnel, if you will.
Red, like all other colors, can come in thousands of shades and hues-- all of which might change the emotional impact of it. A bright, clear red is the color that often symbolizes alarm- which is why it is on firetrucks and stop signs. It grabs people's attention, I think, because it is the color of blood. An attractive woman in a slinky red dress is not wearing that dress solely because it's comfortable or warm: she knows when she puts it on that she is going to turn heads, and her strut down the sidewalk will also probably dictate this awareness. Her chin will be held high, and her hips will swing more emphatically, probably a subconscious (or conscious) way of saying to onlookers, especially her honey, "hey babe, these things do good work!" She will probably take longer, quicker steps to drive this gyration of the hips. She is the picture of confidence, and it's because she knows she looks good in her slinky red dress, and she knows every one else looking at her thinks she looks good. Red is what you wear when you want to make a grand entrance. It's alive and vibrant, sensual and demanding.
As a writer, I often find it frustrating when the colors described in my peers' works are not palpable- but rather 2-dimensional words stolen from a crayon box. When you, Lynn, touch a crayon- they are all the same to you, except you might notice the paper wrapper of one is missing, or the point of another is worn to a bald nub. Colors, like lighting, emotion and sound, should always be something the reader can experience, because when a writer assumes the reader experiences color in the same way that everyone else on earth does, the writer is cheating himself, as well as his audience.
Red- the Crayola-name for the color of blood, passion, heat. In the Chinese culture, red is the color of luck, and is a dominant color in wedding ceremonies. If a Chinese person is in the hospital, it is better to bring them red flowers for encouragement. In the western culture, mostly because of Christian symbolism, white is a color of hope, faith and strength- and as a result bouquets with white lilies (also a symbol of the purity of the Virgin Mary) are often brought to the bedsides of the sick. If you brought a Chinese person white flowers in the hospital, it would likely cause more harm than good, because white is the color that symbolizes death in their culture. think of the light at the end of the tunnel, if you will.
Red, like all other colors, can come in thousands of shades and hues-- all of which might change the emotional impact of it. A bright, clear red is the color that often symbolizes alarm- which is why it is on firetrucks and stop signs. It grabs people's attention, I think, because it is the color of blood. An attractive woman in a slinky red dress is not wearing that dress solely because it's comfortable or warm: she knows when she puts it on that she is going to turn heads, and her strut down the sidewalk will also probably dictate this awareness. Her chin will be held high, and her hips will swing more emphatically, probably a subconscious (or conscious) way of saying to onlookers, especially her honey, "hey babe, these things do good work!" She will probably take longer, quicker steps to drive this gyration of the hips. She is the picture of confidence, and it's because she knows she looks good in her slinky red dress, and she knows every one else looking at her thinks she looks good. Red is what you wear when you want to make a grand entrance. It's alive and vibrant, sensual and demanding.
hmm... I think I now have two blogs by this name?
It suddenly occurs to be that I may already have a blog on this site with the same title as this one, but it's not like I've posted on it more than maybe four times in the last year, so I guess I'll have to actually use this one to keep it from suffering the same fate as the aforementioned one.
FYI- I'm not a poet, in fact I pretty much completely suck at poetry. On the up side, though, I am a pretty decent fiction writer, even if my short stories do end up wandering more toward the novel realm. I also paint! I'm currently working on completing 200 paintings (which vary in size from 8"x10" to 20"x30" and maybe larger) by my next birthday. 349 days to go; something like 12 paintings completed and two in progress. I suppose here is as good a place as any to keep myself accountable to the masses in the achievement of this goal.
well, I better get down to the garage and get painting number13 out of the way!
ciao,
-brynn
FYI- I'm not a poet, in fact I pretty much completely suck at poetry. On the up side, though, I am a pretty decent fiction writer, even if my short stories do end up wandering more toward the novel realm. I also paint! I'm currently working on completing 200 paintings (which vary in size from 8"x10" to 20"x30" and maybe larger) by my next birthday. 349 days to go; something like 12 paintings completed and two in progress. I suppose here is as good a place as any to keep myself accountable to the masses in the achievement of this goal.
well, I better get down to the garage and get painting number13 out of the way!
ciao,
-brynn
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