Today was filled with – surprise, surprise – another awesome ISP! This time, we were back at Herring Run Nursery for the third consecutive day, volunteering with the Great Seedling Shuffle. Lindsay, Traci, Chris, Roy, Sabrina, and I spent six hours potting, repotting, and moving to the giant tarps hundreds of plants: blueberries, azaleas, pine tree seedlings, and more. It was fun to be getting our hands dirty on a quiet volunteer day after the busy coordinating of yesterday. Since there were far fewer people in attendance (most of my group, I know, was in church this morning), the structure was much less formal and we all worked together to finish up the remaining tasks.
Roy, Sabrina, and I headed out the door again almost immediately, this time with Melissa, after returning home at 4. The four of us headed about 10 miles north of Baltimore to hit up REI, a thrift store, and Best Buy, the first because Melissa had expressed interest (and who doesn’t love a good outdoor store), the second for Sabrina to get a sweater, and the third so I could have my camera checked out (it hasn’t been working for a couple of days and is now on its way back to the manufacturer for repair). It was a productive trip and the company was excellent.
We returned home for another chill evening at the mansion. I spent a significant while texting with friends in the greater AmeriBubble (i.e. outside the amazing Wolf One), sent out team pictures of Team Mickey – my volunteer crew from yesterday – to those members of the crew who had requested them, and showed Melissa and Traci pictures of Snan and my nieces since both had yet to see them and I’d promised Melissa I’d show her a picture of my darlingest sister and I. Her response was that we look exactly alike. I explained that we sound and act alike too, but it’s probably good that people here can’t see us together because that could be a bit overwhelming for them. We’re just that…us when we’re together. Sister love.
Now it’s time to sleep because it’s late and we have another great ISP planned for tomorrow. It’s raining outside, which I adore, making the AmeriBubble a great place to be right now. Good times.
Day 50 – Monday March 29, 2010
Another day, another awesome ISP.
Today we worked at the Loading Dock again. I’ve definitely settled into a rhythm there; both recent trips have been much better than the first as I’ve begun to figure out the worker culture. It’s almost exactly, I realized today, like volunteering at the Rhode Island Food Bank in that regard. The first couple of days, I was just figuring out the unique break-room culture and the basic inter-volunteer interaction structure. I was an outsider looking in on this group of white-haired volunteers who were firmly settled into established routines, even those who had ‘only’ been there for seven or eight years. I’m also on the outside looking in at the Loading Dock, here watching a bunch of thirty-something men from Baltimore tease and swear and talk up their sports teams. As I figure out how the structure works, I enjoy working there more and more. Now, it’s lots of fun.
Our task for today involved rakes, dirt (not soil, which is more intentional), and the parking lot in drizzling rain. Some people worked with trees, but I did not. We get lots of tree time during the service week already. The goal is to clean up the area alongside the Loading Dock parking lot and plant $2,000 worth of donated trees and plants in that space. Some of us raked roots, rocks, and trash into piles to move onto pallets for removal (except for the rocks, which we tossed into the trees backing the lot). Others continued the work of a recent NTrip ISP group planting some of the donated trees and shrubs under the direction of the landscaper who was volunteering her time to set up the space. My favorite part of the project came early afternoon, when I noticed a few inches of fencing and decided to remove them from the ground. I proceeded to spend over an hour digging out two metal squares about 2x3 feet each which were attached to the fence, which itself was about 3 by 5 feet. At the end, I let Chris and Nick (one of the Ravens based in Baltimore this round who was also there for an ISP) take pickaxes to the final corner of fencing to get it out of the ground about fifteen minutes before we ended for the day. It was awesome to stand there with this giant piece of metal and fence after all that work.
While the Ravens stayed until 4, those of us on Wolf One (Lindsay, Sabrina, Traci, Chris, Roy, and I) rolled out early at 2:30 because we had numerous other errands to run. We stopped by the post office to mail off our weekly FedEx envelope to the Point of paperwork, ISP hours, and such, refueled the Vanimal, and went to the bank. I intended to withdraw my travel reimbursement there, but was unable to because I only had my AmeriCorps ID, which was not accepted in spite of it being government-issued identification and my reimbursement card being labeled with ‘AmeriCorps NCCC’ rather than my name. Amanda wasn’t asked for ID and was able to access part of her reimbursement, so I’m hoping for more success tomorrow. (The bank is next to Target and it’s usually pretty easy to convince teammates to go on a Target run. Indeed, it’s rarely difficult to gather the minimum 3 people required to take the Vanimal out.)
We returned to the mansion for our weekly pre-grocery-shopping team meeting. After reviewing basic policies and standards associated with work, we went over the grocery list – Melissa had amazingly already prepared one while we were ISPing based on what we have and what we’ve gotten in recent weeks (so nice!) – then wrapped up and had the rest of the evening free to chill. I had a lovely phone conversation with Jamie as she walked to Camp Hope to meet up with friends from her university who are there on alternative spring break. I love hearing her laugh every seven seconds; it makes me happy.
Day 51 – Tuesday March 30, 2010
We started our third (already?) service week with Parks & People back in the great outdoors, this time in the rain. We spent about an hour in the morning moving railroad ties – and not moving too-heavy marble – from a patch of woods to the dirt road nearby. Apparently, a city parks assistant director back in the 1980s recognized the potential for recycling railroad ties, the iconic Baltimore-row-house marble stoops, and the like, so collected piles of them in this patch of woods. Our job was to bring them out of the marshy grasses so some big power machinery can be used to pick them up and haul them off. The railroad ties will be used for garden beds; the marble stoops, if they’re safely lifted out of the swamp (like Yoda rescued Luke’s spaceship in Star Wars), will become benches for people to sit on at various park venues.
After making fairly quick work of the railroad ties, we headed back to the Gwynns Falls Trail for another day raking leaves off the path with the P&P trail crew. We had a quiet, if drizzly, few hours of work before ending early – at 3:30 – when the trail crew headed out for the day. Melissa and Jeff were off at the health clinic while we cleared trail since Jeff had hurt his wrist last night (it should be okay for use again next week) and it was quiet not having everyone there, especially our bubbly TL. Traci, though, did a great job stepping into the lead as our ATL. Good times.
We returned to the mansion for PT (Tuesday is now circuits day, when we rotate through three sets of ten exercises, each doing a different exercise for any given minute). I’ve become the de facto leader of timing circuits and co-leader with Lindsay of counting down the 10-to-20-second intervals for stretches. My b-side captain skills probably help me with these tasks far more than my math-degree skills.
PT was followed by a trip to Target and the bank so I could make a second attempt at getting my travel reimbursement. Fortunately, it all went smoothly this time, which was quite good. Also, I managed to avoid getting anything at Target and instead got to talk to mom for awhile, which was even better. We headed back home in time for Melissa and I to fit in a walk/run. She ran further than she has thus far in one go, making me super-proud. I was also happy that she no longer questions me making her run even when it’s rainy and cold, instead just reminding me that I shouldn’t force her to run in such conditions but accepting that we will anyway.
I spent the rest of the evening making bread with Sabrina – we did both savory pizza bread and sweet cinnamon-honey-chocolate-raisin-pecan bread – and having a wonderful conversation with Jen on the phone. I love talking to best friends, even when they insist on living multiple states away from whatever random location the NTrip chooses for me. Anyway, Jen makes me happy.
It’s bordering on the 26th, but I think I can count this one as in under the wire after a fun night out on the town in BMore.
We had a surprisingly long work day today after a rather late (comparatively) start. We headed out at 8:20 to begin work at the Parks & People office at 9. (It’s just under 20 minutes away, but being on time is understandably important and getting into and out of the van always manage to take a couple of minutes.) We spent the entire day doing inventory for the SuperKids Camp, a summer program P&P runs which focuses on literacy and math skills. Kids heading into 2nd and 3rd grade can participate in the six-week camp for a total cost of $60 (and many of the families are still on scholarship), making it affordable to families for which summer camp would otherwise be completely out of reach. The kids go on field trips around the city and also practice reading and math skills. The practice seeks to help them maintain or even improve in areas which otherwise often see a drop-off, especially among the target groups for this program, over summer break. SuperKids recently got a national award for Best Practices in its educational program. It’s a pretty great camp.
My entire SuperKids inventory time was spent counting books. The campers have designated reading levels: yellow, yellow yellow, green, green green, blue, blue blue, red red (yes, the double comes first in this case), red, orange, brown, black, or white.
Day 47 – Friday March 26, 2010
Moving plants can be even more enjoyable that moving excessive mulch. That is a lesson learned today.
I’ll begin by noting that I was astounded by how easily mulching came to us yesterday after just over a week with Parks & People. After that morning spent with the lovely trees of Franklin Square Park, we know how to get the mulch job done. We’re kinda legit with the mulch. This 1) is awesome and 2) makes me appreciate the day-to-dayness of our round with P&P. Even if we sometimes don’t know until 9 PM where we need to be the next morning and what we’ll be doing (and we almost never know when the service day will end), it’s totally counterbalanced by the plethora of learning opportunities this type of schedule affords us. When we have different projects every couple of days, we don’t get that same sense of seeing a long task through to completion (though I’m sure that will come in later rounds), but we do get to see a ton of places – urban neighborhoods and sprawling woodlands – and learn new tasks every single day. I love that.
Our work today was with one of P&P’s wonderful partner organizations, the Herring Run Watershed Association. The Association works on water cleanliness and conservation, tree planting, and community engagement in nature in the Herring Run Watershed (a watershed, again, being an area which drains into a particular body of water, in this case the Chesapeake Bay, by a common route, e.g. all the water drains into one river which runs into the Bay). We began our morning at the Association’s office building, where Darren, our enthusiastic supervisor for the next two days, gave us all free Herring Run nalgene bottles and told us a bit about the organization. Darren also talked about the NTrip crews he worked with last year, how great they were and how he’d love to have another crew during tree-planting season this fall. He’s incredibly friendly and enthusiastic about having us there.
Darren led us across town to the Herring Run Nursery, stopping along the way for a few of us to load up some tools and supplies into the bed of his truck. Once at the nursery, we commenced our day’s work of preparing for this Sunday’s seedling planting, which we’ll actually get to participate in as an ISP. The seedling planting will involve 20 volunteers, most of Wolf One included, potting between 7,000 and 8,000 seedlings. We sorted seedlings, most of which were around 2 feet tall including a nicely developed starter root system, recorded which size pot each should go in (one of my jobs was writing the size Sabrina determined down on a clipboard checklist), put the seedlings in soil for storage (all together in loose bunches, not neatly potted as they will be) and attached labels marking each type of plant, sorted other more developed plants from stacks into rows on giant tarps, and made labels for the seedlings-to-be-planted with common name on one side and scientific on the other. It was fun to do a whole range of tasks within one day. I especially enjoyed ending the day with half an hour writing out plant names on plastic marker cards because I got to see lots of cool plant names and transcribe the Latin-derived scientific names. It reminded me how much I love biology and Latin.
We returned to the mansion at 5, stopping along the way for a bunch of people to get coffee at a place Darren recommended as best in Baltimore (Zeke’s). We began PT at 5:20, doing circuits for the first time. Circuits were a nice change in routine and intensity from our standard course of PT. We did a round of ten exercises three times through, twice with 1 minute on and 10 seconds off then once with 50 seconds on and 10 seconds off. I timed all the intervals on my watch, an enjoyable way to stay engaged in the process (and always know how much time was left on a plank or wall sit). PT ran close to an hour because the circuit rounds took 35 minutes. Afterwards, I made dinner with/for Melissa and Amanda. They were my sous chefs as I mixed lots of frozen green veggies and some fresh white/clear foods (onions, tofu, mushrooms) with olive oil and spices to make deliciousness. Lots of curry powder and cumin blended well with a hearty dash of cinnamon.
I haven’t done much since except sit down to write. It’s been nice to have a quiet night before yet another busy weekend full of P&P and ISPness. Though I generally enjoy it, we are still adjusting to having a Sunday-Monday weekend. As Amanda said recently, Monday becomes like Sunday and Sunday just isn’t quite as awesome as Saturday. I like having a weekend day and a weekday off though, since it does increase our opportunities for both ISPs and exploration. Baltimore is an amazing and educational city thus far.
Day 48 – Saturday March 27, 2010
I had my most fun work day yet today. I got to supervise a crew of volunteers and I had a blast.
Our work with Darren at the Herring Run Nursery continued today in the form of us helping run the annual Great Seedling Shuffle. Basically, we made sure things ran smoothly as about 30 volunteers potted tons of plants from ‘tubelings’ (those flats of 30+ baby plants you can get at the garden store) or bare root form (one or two feet of young stalk and roots, not in soil or such). Some of our team wrote label signs to designate different types of plant; others directed volunteers to place finished plants in optimal locations; Lindsay and I supervised. The volunteers were split up between two big dirt piles, which I believe contained slightly different types of soil, and the plants associated with each. Each pile had two tables of volunteers and each table had a volunteer coordinator. Lindsay worked the ‘up’ pile with Cathy from Herring Run while I worked the ‘down’ pile with Ashley, another Herring Run staff member and the guy responsible for the name Great Seedling Shuffle (which apparently has boosted event attendance since the name change a couple of years back). Ashley had about 4-10 volunteers most of the day (more were present at the morning shift) at his table; I had two tables pushed together and began with 13 volunteers, hovering around that number fairly consistently all day.
My volunteers were awesome. I encouraged them to come up with a team name after I heard Ashley and his crew discussing the same and they did almost immediately. They settled on Team Mickey because most of them were there for the Disney “Give a Day, Get a Day” volunteer challenge. That they were part of the Disney challenge meant they were there all day, so I got to keep my group (though a bunch rotated in and out to weed plants for part of the morning) while others traded every couple of hours. This made me happy; I had some very hard workers, a whole group that attended church together, and a great mix of ages and planting experience.
My primary job was to keep things running smoothly. Mostly, I made sure we (Melissa, specifically, as my de facto helper after she wandered over task-less early in the day) conducted a demonstration of proper potting technique every time we acquired new volunteers or switched between bare roots and tubelings for the first time in a shift, found and brought over a new type of tubeling from my checklist whenever a set was almost done, announced cheerfully to my volunteers what type of plant each new one was and got answers to their questions about whether the plants were perennials and such (yes, all were trees or shrubs), ran pots when we needed more 300s or 400s or 1000s (we didn’t use the 600s much at our table), reminded Darren every couple of hours that it was time to give all our volunteers a water break, coordinated with Ashley to track what down-soil plants had been potted and which we each planned to do next, chose a sensible order for potting plants based on what pot size we currently had out and whether we were working with bare roots or liners, checked in with my volunteers and reminded them multiple times how much amazing work they had done (especially when we finished potting the last of the down-soil tubelings mid-afternoon), and felt cool holding my clipboard. Simple, really. Honestly, though, it all came naturally to me and I had a ton of fun. It was a great day.
Melissa and I bid farewell to Team Mickey at 4 PM (we’d arrived at 8; they’d started planting at 9) and we all headed back to the mansion after what Lindsay and I agreed (though some of team seemed less pumped from their tasks) was a less-long-than-expected day. As Melissa had commented midday, Saturday does nicely generally seem to be our easy day. Darren had warned us it’d be long, but it ended up feeling much shorter than many, especially after we already had a 7 PM day this week. Five just isn’t that late anymore.
We had PT twenty minutes after we got back to the mansion. It was free PT, which we’ll have once a week, for which we stretch together at the start and end but can do whatever PT exercises we want in the middle. Chris, Melissa, and I all ran/walked while everyone else did circuits in the ballroom. It was great walk/run weather and I enjoyed the abundance of fresh, crisp air I got today.
In the evening, Traci, Melissa, Roy, and I started our weekend off right with a trip to the Paper Moon Diner. It was my second trip there and the second on which I’ve laughed so hard I cried. There’s something about that place. We had an absolute blast and enjoyed replacing dinner with appetizers and dessert. Never not a good decision. I drove there and back to continue my adjustment to the Vanimal. A 15-passenger van is much bigger than my ‘personal vehicle’ (more AmeriLingo), but I do love that it’s the only black van in the fleet. Pretty awesome.
We had an ISP today. We went to the Loading Dock for my second time (the rest of my team’s first), which was wonderful. I’d wanted to go again because I didn’t feel like I asked enough questions the first time to understand the organization so I was glad to have the opportunity. It ended up being much more enjoyable than the first time and I was super-glad that we had gone.
I woke up at 7:30 AM so I’d be ready to head out for ISP by nine. Unfortunately, our planned ISP actually didn’t work out so Sabrina ended up calling the Loading Dock at 10:30 – I had given her the information and recommended it as a back-up option – after her contact at the planned site continued neither to be at work nor to call more than an hour after we were supposed to start.
Most of my day at the Loading Dock was spent sorting phones with Amanda, Chris, and Sabrina. They had recently received a donation of about 100 phones removed from dorm rooms from Johns Hopkins and all the cords were tangled together. We sorted out the mess, reattached cords to handsets and bases when necessary, and taped the cords neatly alongside the phone base with packing tape. Once we’d finished that, we went to the tile section and taped stacks of ten tiles together for resale purposes (ten tiles for $1, double price for decorated tiles). By twenty to four, our entire group of eight (almost our whole team had gone) was in the tile section stacking and taping. We all headed out together at four after a group picture for Katie, the wonderful former-NCCCer volunteer coordinator.
We returned home, after stopping by the post office to send the weekly team paperwork package to the Point, and went straight into team meeting mode. Since we begin the work week on Tuesdays, our weekly team meetings will always be Monday nights. They’ll always be followed by our weekly team grocery runs. This is a good system because it optimizes our chances of having good food options during the busy work week. The team meeting was fairly brief and quite smooth; the subsequent grocery-list-making was longer but markedly improved from previous weeks. We’re definitely improving in awareness of each other’s food needs and requests.
The rest of the evening was very quiet. I sat and read my book, talked to Jordanna on the phone for twenty minutes (my AmeriCorps little sister down in NOLA), and helped unload groceries. All in all, a nice way to prepare for our second week of the round.
Day 44 – Tuesday March 23, 2010
We made bread today. Bread-making was not, however, related (in any way whatsoever) to our spike project for the day.
Our day began at the Parks & People office, where we met Abby shortly after 8:15 AM. She drove us out to the Cylburn Arboretum (she drove her car; we followed in the Vanimal), our project site for the day. My morning was spent, as so many recent mornings have been, shoveling things. Specifically soil. (Melissa told me today that it’s only dirt if it’s not where you want it. Once it’s intentional, e.g. placed in a garden bed, it becomes soil. Melissa majored in agricultural studies so she’d know. I still enjoy calling it dirt because that brings up childhood associations of playing with dirt for fun. Yes, we did have toys. Dirt was often more fun.) Anyway, we shoveled soil into wheelbarrows from a big pile alongside the Cylburn Mansion then wheeled it around to the front of the mansion, where we dumped it into the two garden beds lining the front porch. One of us (not me, as I was having shovel fun time) proceeded to rake the soil neatly across the bed to provide it with an additional four inches of depth.
Five of us took a break mid-morning to return to the Parks & People office to help Abby with a project. She ended up needing help unloading a delivery of paper bags for lawn trash from the delivery truck into a trailer near the P&P office. The bags were on a pallet; they were supposed to be delivered tomorrow and Abby had a forklift lined up to unload the pallet when they came. Since they were delivered today, we unloaded the pallet by hand instead. The work would have taken quite a while for only Abby and the delivery man to complete, but with five of us helping we finished in under 15 minutes. Assembly lines are pretty awesome sometimes. We returned to Cylburn Arboretum for more dirt shoveling before our lunch break at noon.
I gardened in the afternoon. Sabrina and Melissa had been on weed removal all morning but Sabrina was ready for a change of pace so I agreed to switch with her. Melissa showed me the ropes and we proceeded to spend the next three hours digging tiny weeds, root systems and all, out of the ground with a fun pick tool. I also made two weeds-to-compost-pile runs with the tarp on which we’d placed the weeds, first with our site supervisor Jennifer, who works at the Arboretum in addition to another gardening job, then with Melissa. It was a chill way to spend the afternoon and I enjoyed it immensely.
We returned home for PT in the ballroom of our mansion, after which Melissa and I went for our daily walk/run. Our initial plan was to walk/run on PT off-days, but we’d skipped Sunday due to tiredness and Monday due to busyness (it’s now our official off day since we usually have ISPs, a team meeting, and a grocery run that day) so we were both ready for a bit of cardio. Seeing Melissa work up her running prowess reminds me of just how far my own running has come in the past couple of years. It’s kind of crazy.
Sabrina and I made dinner afterwards while half the team headed out on a Target run. We didn’t coordinate meals, but she made a thick vegetable-rice soup, I made a vegetable-tofu stirfry, and Amanda, Melissa, and both of us all ended up eating both together out on the porch with our OB house manager Chris. We had enough leftovers that my lunch for tomorrow is set and sandwich-free, which is very exciting.
While we ate, the bread dough I had made (water, yeast, and sugar, then flour – very simple) rose in the warm kitchen. After dinner, I tried making a cinnamon-raisin-dark-chocolate-chip bread roll, which is shaped much like a cinnamon roll, on the stovetop the way my course manager Eric had taught us during Outward Bound. I burned the first one a bit by cooking it on too high a temperature, but it came out super-well anyway so I got to show Traci, Amanda, Sabrina, and Melissa all how to make bread on the stovetop. They each created their own rolls using cinnamon, raisins, honey, sugar, pecans, and the like then cooked their concoctions. I loved having the chance to share my OB knowledge of bread-making with my teammates, all of whom enjoyed their delectable treats. I even had extra dough to make a few rolls for tomorrow to spice up my already awesome lunch. Teaching is fun and I’m so glad I remembered what Eric taught us.
Speaking of Outward Bound, the Congressional Award program is, best I can tell, based on the Duke of Edinburgh’s Award program based out of the UK. That program is a direct spin-off of a program instituted by Kurt Hahn at the boys school at which he was a headmaster. Yes, the same Kurt Hahn who started Outward Bound. Needless to say, I think he’s a phenomenal guy.
Day 45 – Wednesday March 24, 2010
“Education must enable young people to effect what they have recognized to be right, despite hardships, despite dangers, despite inner skepticism, despite boredom, and despite mockery from the world….” – Kurt Hahn
We planted saplings today, young trees between 4 and 6 feet tall. Our planting took place this morning at the Department of Public Works. The city has a program called Tree Baltimore which seeks to increase the canopy cover (amount of ground covered by shade of full trees) of Baltimore and we were working to help with that initiative. Working alongside members of two P&P project crews, we planted about 30 trees on a grassy patch alongside the entry gate through which traffic accesses the DPW complex. I planted with
Sabrina and I had lots of fun planting our two trees: digging a hole for each, settling them in, mulching them, and staking them in place. (Both the mulch and the stakes provide support for growth and serve the additional purpose of deterring lawnmowers from getting too close.) I asked while we worked on the first if we could name it and Sabrina quickly assented. She suggested Tony and I assented to Antony. This led into a prolonged discussion of Classics, mostly focused around mythology and the Roman empire. I got to practice story-telling in recounting Ovid’s version of Narcissus and Echo and I told her a bit about the major players in the formation of the empire after she agreed to the name Cicero for our second tree. We later chose the names Cleopatra, Hermes, and Caligula for other trees that seemed to fit those personalities.
We headed back to the Parks & People office shortly before noon. Melissa gave us a 45-minute lunch so we even had the opportunity for a quick nap in the conference room or on the back couches. (I chose the former, resting my head at the table as I listened to the conversation of the project crew members discussing recent work days nearby.)
We returned to the Cylburn Arboretum, yesterday’s project site, after lunch to continue our work there. I ended up working with Jeff, Traci, Kathy, Roy, and Lindsay on filling the garden beds with soil. We spent close to an hour removing a metal divider sunk most of the way into one bed which was only 3 or 4 inches deep but about fifty feet long. It went nice and fast after we settled into a rhythm of some people levering the strip out of the ground with shovels as others of us pulled up on it from above with our hands. Once we got that out, we spent the next hour transporting more soil from the parking lot soil pile we’d been working with yesterday into the garden bed which was no longer metal-edged.
I finished sweeping and loading up the last of the dirt pile with Melissa and Roy as we neared the end while the rest of the metal-and-soil crew moved on to weeding in the bed Melissa and I had finished on yesterday. The three of us then joined the weeding crew for our final hour in the sun. It was relaxing to sit and chat for awhile, enjoying each other’s company and mixing up the types of task we were doing.
We returned to the mansion almost ten hours after we’d left, ready for a relaxing evening ahead. After dinner and a run, I spent an hour working with Roy to plan our three CAP (Corps Ambassador Program) events for this round. We chose one high school, one college, and one other program to target so we can promote NCCC at a range of locations. Our next step is to call each place and request the opportunity to come speak with students or participants about the amazingness that is AmeriCorps NCCC. It’ll be fun.
I also got to check in briefly with Marissa and Jamie tonight, which was great. Now I get to sleep, which might possibly be even better.
We did lots of shoveling today. I shoveled asphalt, dirt, compost, and hay/sticks (the last with a rake, technically); it was pretty awesome.
We headed out at 7:20, swung by the Parks & People office to meet a couple of work crew members we’d be joining (like the Gwynns Falls Trail crew but with target area Watershed 263), loaded their truck with tools, and followed them over to a community center in Watershed 263. Watershed 263 is a collection of neighborhoods in Baltimore which all drain into the same river which empties into the Chesapeake Bay. It’s also a target area of Parks & People for greening operations. Our morning work today was part of one of those greenings.
The community center outside which we were working has a full-day daycare inside. It has a playground outside. Due to the state of the area, the kids are walked four blocks away for playtime at a different playground at a nearby school rather than playing twenty meters from their classrooms. The school district called Parks & People to request help cleaning up the area. The current project involves converting the hillside outside the community center, a ten-foot slope from the fenced-in playground to the sidewalk, from an asphalt strip into a garden with “annuals, perennials, bulbs, and trees,” as P&P staffer Jeff described the vision to me. The asphalt had already been pulverized into little bits; our job was to load it and some dirt from the slope into big dump trucks to be taken away from the site. Over the course of two hours, we filled three dump trucks with asphalt pieces, dirt clumps, and about six bags of trash from the alleyway next to the center with the help of the two P&P work crew members who had joined us. Later, Abby would comment how we always got work done about an hour before expected. She’s worked with NCCC teams before and we’re still underestimated. When we say we get things done, we mean it (especially when we’re fresh and (semi-)rested at the beginning of first round).
We returned to the Parks & People office for lunch at 11:30 and found out we’d head out again between 12 and 12:30. By about 12:05, all of us except Roy were asleep. He stayed awake, Melissa slept five minutes, and the rest of us got about half an hour of naptime. I think I was the first one to close my eyes and probably the first one out. It was great to have such a nice midday siesta after (and before) a couple of hours of direct sunlight and physical labor.
We rolled out in the afternoon to what one pre-arrival description pegged as a ‘punk rock community garden’. The garden, alternately known as the Ash Street Garden and (the name preferred by the participants) the Baltimore Free Garden, was indeed run by a fairly punk rock group of which we worked with maybe six guys and one girl. They had acquired the garden, as one member explained to me, through the city’s Adopt-A-Lot program. Basically, they’re given a one-year renewable lease on the lot and need to make something good happen in that time in order to keep it. They had already cleaned it up, removing tons of trash, trees, and other detritus, and were now trying to get some things growing so the city won’t thank them for cleaning up this nice lot and take it away. They already had five raised garden beds finished in the top section and we helped create two more (line the desired area with logs then fill with compost) while two members planted seeds in one of the extant beds. While some of us moved the compost, which was a mixture of horse manure and newspaper (I found that pretty cool), others did assorted activities. Melissa and I were assigned to raking and transporting hay-like grass and sticks. We raked out the aisles between the garden beds then took many loads of that hay stuff and of already-cleared sticks and logs down a big alleyway hill to the street at the front of the lot. We then re-scaled the hill for the next load of logs. Our companion for the afternoon was what basically amounted to a small aluminum rickshaw, which our task assigner gave us for the job. It was fun to wheel our rickshaw down and up – especially down – the hill. Sabrina joined us towards the end then we all shifted over to a compost pile for the last half hour, loading up a bunch of wheelbarrows-full of compost for the sitting area of the lot.
As we headed home after swinging by the office to get tools for tomorrow, the general mood was quite fatigued. I felt full of energy after a great day’s work, but most of the team understandably needed some quality rest time after a full day of physical labor. We decided, because of that, to move PT from this afternoon to tomorrow morning and take the evening off. Melissa had said yesterday that she planned to go on a walk/run every non-PT day and that sounded like a great idea to me, so she and I headed out after dinner for a few laps around the OB campus. I spent the rest of the evening truly relaxing. I sat on the back porch chatting with Melissa, used the free wireless to catch up on email, talked to Rachel when she called between busy team happenings (she might visit Sunday after a Baltimore ISP!), and enjoyed delicious vanilla yogurt with dark chocolate M&Ms. I also showered to remove the ever-present layer of dirt that exists when you’re doing projects such as ours and read my book for awhile. Mmm, so nice.
It was another wonderful day here in Baltimore. I’ve continued to meet interesting people, including Faye this morning, who has lived across from the community center for almost three decades after growing up on a nearby street. Faye asked Jeff from P&P how to mulch trees and he offered assistance in transporting mulch if she orders it and in showing her how to mulch properly (donuts not volcanoes!). He encouraged her to get her neighbors involved, at which she rolled her eyes in frustration at their lack of response in spite of her repeated efforts. (She mentioned knocking on the door of a woman two apartments down and encouraging her to recycle.) Faye seems very disenchanted with her neighbors’ involvement in keeping their community clean and green, but also takes the effort to sweep out their street and learn to mulch the trees lining it. I admire that a lot.
We’ve got another full day tomorrow to top off this first work week so that’s all for now. First round continues to be fabulous.
Day 41 – Saturday March 20, 2010
We officially survived our first work week of first round! Today went from good to awesome in a fantastic way. Even morning PT was enjoyable, but the highlight was the best evening out I have had thus far in the NTrip.
Our work day today was shorter than usual – 10 to 2 – but we began our day at 7:30 AM because we had some PT to do. We had decided that Tuesday, Thursday, and Friday would be good PT days given our work schedule this round, but we’d pushed back our Friday afternoon session because a couple of people were totally drained after work yesterday (whereas I had felt surprisingly energized by a full day of physical activity…or physical labor, as some might call it). Thus we had a fairly early morning here at the mansion. It was nice, though, because I sat out on the back porch to eat some pre-PT yogurt and got to see the orange sun still finishing its rise out of the woods behind our house. Perhaps some morning I’ll wake up early enough to see the full sunrise. That would be lovely.
We did PT in a circle on the pavement in front of our front porch; it went quite smoothly. We did the usual five exercises, today’s selection being jumping jacks (or the side straddle hop, if you prefer), push-ups, the AmeriCorps squat, the supine bicycle (i.e. bicycle crunches), and the seated military press (‘raise the roof’ in workout form). PT has become much more chill since we gained distance from the Point – and UL Sean’s intensity – and it’s nice to settle into roles. Kathy is excellent at leading squats and arm movements in cadence, Amanda takes on jumping-jacks counting, and I monitor timed intervals and do many of our countdowns for stretching (a skill I think rugby captainship taught me). Our PT will evolve daily for the next few weeks at least, but it’s fun to start finding skills and routines together as a team.
After PT, we headed back into the mansion to prepare for the day ahead. I had my daily oatmeal then settled in to wait for Jamie, my much-adored housemate, who was coming to visit! Actually, she was coming with STL Jessie and some other CMs to steal Brandon away from us for a one-month composite team (a composite team being a team made up of members from a range of regular teams) with the St. Bernard Project in New Orleans. Regardless, I got to see her, which was awesome. I had a good 20 minutes with Jamie before we had to say goodbye to her and Brandon and head off to work. It was sad to leave them, but they’ll have a phenomenal time and will definitely be sending some wonderful updates our way from NOLA.
Our work day today took place at the Baltimore Montessori Public Charter School. We actually spent the first two of our four hours in a training with some other Parks & People affiliates and community members (there were about 15 of us in total) then the next two working in the schoolyard. (I use the term ‘working’ loosely because our service hours rarely feel like actual work, though I suppose they do in the workout sense of the word.)
The training was fabulous. It was run by a guy named Denzel who works at the school and does much of the growing and landscaping there. Between July and October of this past year, the schoolyard was transformed from an asphalt lot into a haven of young trees, raised garden beds, and grassy retreats, along with a big play structure for the kids. Denzel oversees all the trees, garden beds, thornless blackberry bushes, and such.
The topic today was How to Care for Fruit Trees. It was unclear to us why Abby would want her NTrip volunteers to have this training, but we learned a ton and it was very enjoyable. Hopefully that’s why she chose to have us attend. Among the things we learned are such tidbits as which fruit trees are easiest to grow and maintain (always choose pawpaw over peaches) and how to fill the space between multiple fruit trees (make a mulch donut around each then fill the rest of the space with an annual cover crop; the cover plants will both attract good insects, which keeps away unwanted ones and brings pollinators to the trees, and compost nicely in the fall to enrich the soil for the trees). The whole talk was engaging and made me want to garden stuff. I love that sort of inspirational lecture.
After lunch on the front steps of the building, we returned to the back schoolyard for a couple of hours of work. Our primary tasks were removing three trees – this took Melissa, Traci, and I roughly five minutes because the young roots, we quickly realized, hadn’t yet grown out of their original potted shape –, transplanting four raspberry bushes from one end of the yard to the other – us tree folks joined up with Amanda and Roy for that one –, and fixing and topping off with soil the raised garden beds filling one section of the yard. While Kathy, Jeff, and Sabrina worked with drills and screws on fixing up the bed walls, the rest of us shoveled soil into wheelbarrows from a big pile in the corner formed by two of the school’s walls then emptied it into the fixed-up beds. They were already half-full, but keeping them fuller gives the plants more and fresher soil to flourish, always a good thing. Our timing was perfect and we finished right at two.
We arrived back at the mansion about an hour before our firefighters, Lindsay and Chris, returned from training. They had been gone the entire first week for Wildland Firefighter training down in North Carolina but now they’re back as officially certified firefighters! Every team has at least one firefighter (and at most two) so we all got to regain members today, except for those teams whose firefighters have the first round as their fire composite team round (each firefighter will spend one of the four rounds on fire composite). Since Brandon left this morning, it’ll be a month (at least) before Wolf One has a work day as an entire team, but it was fun to have our first reunion with missing members this early into the year. We’ll have many more to come with Brandon gone and later fire composite and disaster call-ups.
Melissa and I had our daily walk/run in the late afternoon; we’d had PT but it was hours earlier so she agreed-slash-volunteered to go anyway. I much enjoy our walk/run time.
The evening was amazing. Sabrina had wanted to go for days to this pizza place called Joe Squared. She has a friend named Joe and wanted to take a picture of herself there and send it to him. As a math major and fan of pizza, I of course offered to accompany her on this venture. Roy also loves pizza and agreed to join us on our journey. Since we had three people, we were at capacity for taking the van so managed to avoid navigating confusing Baltimore via public transport and instead enjoy free and flexible govie travel in the Vanimal.
Joe Squared had a great atmosphere – lots of paintings and generally a good vibe – and the food was delicious. Sabrina and I split a Greek salad and a vegetable pizza, both of which were fantastic. As suggested by the name Joe Squared (or not, depending on how your brain operates), all the pizzas are square, which was fun. Dinner conversation revolved around water, favorite work days this week, and other wonderfully random topics. Towards the end of our stay, a guitarist started playing live music, which added to the awesomeness of the space.
We decided that dessert was a necessity to fill out our square meal so asked our waitress where we might find ice cream nearby. She offered that we could get ice cream at Cold Stone or other desserts at Paper Moon Café; Sabrina asserted that Cold Stone does not have real ice cream and we headed for the latter. Though Marissa had described the café when she came to visit, I was still amazed when we stepped inside. Eclectic doesn’t even begin to describe the décor. Pez dispensers lined the wall in the entryway, mannequins decorated with sequins and googly eyes settled in various poses throughout the dining areas, and action figures of every description watched over our table and the nearby counter seating. Almost every inch of space was filled with some sort of creative flair.
Our desserts were amazing – I had a yummy chocolate-peanut butter pie – and the conversation was even more so. I don’t know what set us off, but we had one point at which we all started laughing so hard that we were literally crying and having trouble breathing. I laugh so hard I cry frequently, but for all three of us to do so is incredibly rare. Needless to say, we had some fun. The sugar rush that hit as we left didn’t help calm us any and by the time we reached home we ended up all three sprinting up the stairs before Sabrina and I collapsed in a heap on the floor giggling about our ears (not) twitching. It was kind of amazing. We proceeded to do our daily self-selected chores to music before the sugar rush died down and we calmed enough to settle in to write (me), use internet (Roy), or sleep (Sabrina). The rest of our group (with the exception of Melissa, who recently returned from a dinner with other Baltimore-area TLs and almost immediately headed for bed) is still out on the town celebrating St. Patrick’s Day and the firefighters’ return, but we already had a full, phenomenal, and unforgettable night. I loved every moment.
Day 42 – Sunday March 21, 2010
Today was a bit too quiet, but otherwise quite enjoyable.
It was too quiet due to lack of ISP-ness – I miss getting my daily dose of service – but I rallied well with some practice driving the govie van on a morning target run and a fun afternoon visit to Marissa and the rest of Wolf 5 at their farm.
When I talked to Sabrina and Melissa before bed last night, both said (in separate conversations) that their bodies would wake them up on our usual schedule this morning and they’d be active by 8 or 8:30. I, on the other hand, planned to sleep in until the late hour of 9:15, for which time I set my alarm. So what happened? I was up at 7:30 and out of bed at 7:50 while both of them slept until ten…and they were still among the first of my teammates awake. I did end up having an absurdly relaxed morning, however, due to the hours of uninterrupted quiet time with my breakfast, a book, my netbook, and a 10-foot-tall open window through which wafted a cool breeze and the merry chirping of birds. I ate scrambled egg with veggies and oatmeal with apple, peanut butter, and honey, read more of Ender’s Game, and talked to AmeriFriends via text message. All in all, it was a wonderful morning.
At eleven, Sabrina, Traci, Melissa, and I headed to Target. Melissa and Sabrina both needed insoles for their boots, I needed van driving practice, and Traci needed to pick up her debit card from a pub they’d been at the previous night. I drove us to Target then on to Fell’s Point by the Inner Harbor. It was good practice for me and I have learning to do (don’t hit the brake on an automatic when switching lanes – there isn’t a clutch to adjust for that) but already feel more comfortable in our big 15-passenger govie van. I even managed the impressive task of spending 45 minutes wandering through Target without buying anything, though I was tempted by the bright pink duct tape and the assortment of giant coloring books.
We returned to the house around 1:30, just in time for me to finish my leftover Joe Squared pizza straight from the fridge. I spent the next couple of hours reading some more and generally feeling vaguely unsettled because I wasn’t out doing something at an ISP. When you’re this immersed in service, a day off is not necessarily the most relaxing thing.
Fortunately, we had a chance to venture out of the house again shortly before 4, when Melissa, Traci, Amanda, and I headed ten minutes away (12, according to MapQuest) to visit Wolf 5. They greeted us warmly then Marissa took us around on a lovely tour of the property. She gave us a full introduction to all of it: their accommodations, the nearby century-old house which their sponsor organization (The Samaritan Women) is converting into a residence for women who have been in abusive situations, and the farm on which they do about eighty percent of their work (the other 20% being fixing up the residence, she thinks). Marissa is a very thorough tour guide so we learned a lot about the place and their work, all of which was pretty awesome.
After our tour, the rest of my group headed into the house while Marissa and I settled into two chairs out back by a fire pit. It was wonderful to get to talk to her for awhile, just sitting and having a conversation in the pre-rain breeze without a million people around. I also found it interesting how my housemates and I immediately gravitate to one another when we’re together, a behavior I haven’t seen as strongly in anyone else. I think we’re all just a bit ridiculously obsessed with each other. I know we’ll each be like that with our teams in the not-too-distant future, which is fantastic.
Once Marissa and I had enjoyed a solid hour of catch-up time, it was time for us to head back to the mansion for dinner and chill evening time. I split a frozen veggie concoction with Melissa then she and I headed out for a walk (what one might call a modified walk/run, the modification being removing the run part) around our usual loop of the Outward Bound property. Upon our return, I proceeded to have a nice conversation with Chris on the front steps, talk to Kate on the phone for the shortest 20 minutes ever, read some more, and write. Altogether quite nice.
Now it’s time for sleep. The details are apparently still unclear, but I hear we have a good ISP lined up for tomorrow. Yay!
