Hello Ft. Collins, goodbye “miss-ery”

As of April 10, 2012 the shuffle team of Water 4 embarked upon their highly adventurous project in Ft. Collins, CO working with Wildland Restoration Volunteers (WRV). Prior to this endeavor, the newly assembled team (put together solely for 3rd round) spent a month in “miss-ery”, or what is more commonly known as Missouri. Working in St. Louis, Water 4’s main objective was removing a highly invasive and vile species of plant named honeysuckle. While many may believe honeysuckle is innocent, perhaps nice smelling, or with pretty flowers, they would be sorely incorrect. As this group of 11 individuals discovered, honeysuckle can grow to such proportions that a chainsaw is required to cut it down (Pro: The team was trained in chainsaw use, Con: The honeysuckle was huge). Not only can it become thick, it has a tendency to tangle with other honeysuckle making it extremely difficult to remove to a less infested area. And of course the plant kills everything that gets in its way. So yeah, it is something not so great for the environment of Missouri. Good thing it has taken over about half of the state already. Besides wrestling with “exotic” plants each day, Water 4 also combatted numerous amounts of poison ivy as well as the occasional meth lab discovered at the worksite (no big deal or anything). During the groups free time, they slept outdoors on a wrap-around porch -being woken up by rain every so often-, were first responders at a car crash outside of their home (a visitors center located in the beautiful Greensfelder park), travelled to the top of the gateway to the west -also known as the arch-, went to a sweet one room movie theater, spent a day at a giant jungle gym posing as a city museum, explored some caves, and line danced very successfully with some senior citizens. For being in Missouri merely a month, the group had an amazing amount of adventures. While it may be surprising to some, cutting down weeds all day can become slightly monotonous, so for the sake of Water 4’s sanity their time in St. Louis only lasted a month. And where are we now? Back in beautiful Colorado. While it is only our second day on the project, the vibes are already great. We begin each day with a 2mile hike to the worksite, a great early morning wake up. On the worksite the team is striving to improve 4 mile trail in Poudre Canyon (pronounced “Pooter” -don’t even get me started). The projects main objectives are altering the trail to avoid erosion as well as adjusting the slope of the trail to a comfortable percent.  Already we have discovered trail maintenance and construction is much more technical than the average hiker would believe, truly keeps work interesting. Not only is the project site scenic, but always sunny with fresh 7,000 altitude air to breathe. After the work here the team will travel to Boulder for the last part of their project for more trail work as well as pond restoration. I can say without a doubt that I am not ready for AmeriCorps to end.