Valley Forge

Oh Valley Forge....I have to say that this seemed like the longest Spike ever! When we got our assignment for our Valley Forge spike it said that we would be doing a lot of invasive species removal....for those of you that don't know, invasive species removal is a fancy term for weeding. So we thought we were preparing ourselves for six weeks of weeding this plant that is called "Mile-a-minute". Named because it can grow about six inches every day!

When we got to Valley Forge we got a quick tour of the visitors center. Then we got back in our van and followed Ernestine (our sponsor) to our housing. We drove throughout the entire park before we finally reach this road that was a dead end into our house. The house looked amazing! It was so big and out in the middle of no-where, but the scenery was gorgeous! We had a yard which was lined by woods and a grave driveway on the front of our house. On the back of the house there was more woods and a river. The house that we stayed in was actually General Lafayette's Quarters and it was ginormous. We had a huge kitchen, living room, dining room and attic, washer and dryer, three bathrooms, and five bedrooms. There was also a porch off of the side of the house and picnic tables in our yard. I would have to say that the only bad part about the house was the stink bugs. These things were everywhere! At first we would kill them, but then there were would be this bad smell (hence the name "stink bug"). So we resorted to grabbing them with toilet paper and flushing them down the toilet....it seemed to work pretty good.

For the first few days at Valley Forge we were in orientation. This was an orientation for the entire summer staffers, so most of the information was stuff we didn't really need to know, but it was still sort of interesting. After our orientation was over we finally got to work. Now, before we arrived at Valley Forge, Colleen gave us a run down of what things we need to be careful of out in the woods.....I am not a nature person and never intend to become a nature person. Colleen told us that we would be working around deer ticks, so we needed to check ourselves every day when we got home so we didn't get lime disease. Also, there are copperhead snakes in these woods, we might not see them, but they are out there. This info definitely freaked me out....deer ticks? NO THANK YOU! For our first day of actual work in the field we met our new boss named Kate....who is the nicest and funniest lady that is very passionate about her job (it makes sense cause she graduated from U of M!) Kate showed us the plant that we would be ripping out of the ground for the next 6 weeks. Then, we started pulling.

Mile-a-minute is a plant that I have come to spot from 5 miles away.....I even see it when I close my eyes at night. It's actually really easy to spot this plant once you know what it looks like because it has very distinct characteristics. It's leaves are triangle in shape (we always said like Doritos), at the base of each leaf is a circular leaf that wraps around the stem, and the stem has little prickers on it. We ended up picking mile-a-minute almost every single day.....most of the time it wasn't for the entire day though.

When we weren't picking mile-a-minute we were removing other invasives such as; Miscanthus, Japanese Knotweed and Stilt Grass, Wisteria and Crayfish.

Miscanthus is actually something that is found in suburban areas and is used for landscaping. It looks pretty in neighborhoods, but when it starts to spread to open fields it can become a nu sense. They grow in bundles and are taller and thicker than regular grass. To manage these plants we took sheers and cut the miscanthus as low to the ground as we could. Then we took this really thick black tarp and laid it over the area. Last we took a few cinder blocks and placed them on the edges of the tarp. We did this in order to suffocate the plant so that it could grow anymore. We did this technique on 2 fields. Which was about 30 miscanthus. This was done the second week that we were in VF, so during the last week we went back to check the progress of our work and see if anything had grown back. What we did worked!

Japanese Knotweed is a plant whose leaves look like marijuana leaves. Japanese Stilt Grass....is just a very light green colored grass which has actually taken over a lot of the ground at Valley Forge. This grass is especially bad because it over powers the native plants, so when you're standing in a field looking out at the forest, underneath the tree line there is no understory. The Japanese Stilt Grass has taken over. The reason that this plant has had more success growing than others is that the deer don't eat it. Valley Forge has a huge deer population, which is also part of the problem with the native plants. In a healthy environment there should only be about 10-12 deer per square mile.....Valley Forge has about 80 per square mile (if I'm remembering correctly). So, when the deer eat the native plants it gives room for the invasive ones to move in.

Wisteria is a vine that grows up into the tree tops, weighs the trees down and ends up killing them. Our job in this was to take sheers and snip the vine in several places.....as low as we could go and as high as we could reach. We couldn't pull the vines out of the trees because they were tangled so badly that it would have hurt the tree. So, we would cut them and leave them until they dried up.

Catching Crayfish was a lot of fun. Not all the Crayfish were invasives. The difference in these guys was that the invasives were called "Rustie's", named for this rusty spot that they had on the sides of their exoskeleton and top of their heads. Also, the invasives were a different color than the natives......Rustie's were more of a bluish-green color while natives were a pinkish-peachy color. The Rustie's had come over from the Ohio river and invaded the Schukyll (not sure how it's spelled). To erradicate these guys we would get our wadders on and grad a finishing net. Then, we would stand in the river and place our nets down stream right behind a rock. Next, we would lift the rock and wait a few seconds. Then we would place the rock back down, pick up the net and see if we caught anything. In most of the bad areas of the river we would catch over 100 invasives and only about 15-20 natives. If we caught a native we would count it and then throw it back into the river. Once we were done fishing we took our catch back to the green house garage and counted them. They would then go in a zip lock bag and then into the freezer to be measured and inventoried later. We caught Crayfish about 2 times a week.

As you can see I learned a heck of a lot of information at Valley Forge.

Work Work Work

The past 2 weeks have been very busy work wise. The long term vounteers at OHH decided that we should all be split up and go on different sites so they could use us to our full potential. At first I wasn't too crazy about the idea, but then I realized that the point of doing this was to train us to lead our own short term volunteers....I was excited! So 2 weeks ago we were split up into pairings. I was put with my teammate Josie. When we are assigned to our house we find out that we get to paint the outside of a house in the historical district....awesome! The house was pretty big, but we got it done in one week. The colors the homeowners picked were pretty shocking at first, but once the house was finished it looked amazing!

Yep...that's right....purple with gray trim!

Halfway through working on this house I actually injured my back :( I was trying to move a 32' extension ladder (fully extended, so it was actually 64') all by myself! Real smart I know....I did get to see the end product of the house though and it looks really purply!

Because I got hurt I was not put on the paint crew:( I was sad for a little bit cause I absolutely LOVE painting, but I got over it and it ended up not being too bad. I got to be assigned to many different houses doing lots of different work.

One of the many things that New Orleans is famous for is having "Shot Gun" houses. I heard that these were named this because if you stand at the front door of the house you can shoot a bullet straight through without hitting anything else. I got to work in one of these houses. It was kind of tight quarters, but really interesting to see. When you walk into the house you go down this long narrow hallway that leads right into the bathroom. If you keep going through the bathroom you end up in the laundry room. From the laundry room you can either go straight to go outside to the backyard, or go left into the kitchen or go behind the kitchen to the upstairs. It was a really funky layout, but pretty cool to see. At this house I patched up some drywall (I am a proffessional now..haha) made an attic door and frame, made a frame for the outside vent and installed some insulation in the attic. Insulation took all day long and it was very dirty work, but we got two seperate attic's finished in a day! All of this was done in four days!

The next house I worked on was right accross the street from the Musicians Village. This area was built by Habitat and was made specifically for musicians who are from New Orleans. Kiddy corner to the house I was working on was where a school had been before the flood. Now they are making the entire area into a New Orleans Music Museum! This house I was working on was almost complete by the time I got there. The homeowners story was that she is elderly and almost blind. When Katrina hit she was stuck in her house. Her older son came by in a row boat and got her out by cutting a hole in the roof. He took her to safety and then said he was going to go back to help some more people. He never returned and she hasn't been able to burry him because they never found his body. The house that she is living in now was completely rebuilt from the ground up by some hired proffessionals. After they finished the house they were told that it had to be raised 5 feet off the ground. So what they did was raise the house and put cindar blocks underneath it to hold it up. When they did this the entire houses foundation shifted. So, what I was doing, besides patching up drywall, was redoing the tile flooring to make it level. Also, I got to build a front porch and steps!

After that house was done we were all put back together to be the paint crew, so even though I wasn't in charge I still got to paint! We ended up scraping, scrubing, caulking, priming, and painting the exteriors of 3 more homes before we left New Orleans.

All-in-all I have to say that New Orleans was an amazing time and really fun project. I coulnd't have asked for more from Catholic Charities.

New Orleans!!!!!!!!!!

We left for New Orleans the day after Induction. It took us 2 days to drive down here, but I was totally okay with that because we stopped in Knoxville for the night! I can't believe that I got that lucky to be in Knoxville and see some of my friends for the night....it was sooo much fun! I love you guys! Sunday we left pretty early so we could get to New Orleans at a pretty reasonable time. We ended up getting in around dinner time and went strait to our "Cottage". This place that they call a Cottage is so not what I picture a cottage to be.....this place is a large house! There's four bedrooms, three bathrooms, living room, dining area, kitchen, another living room area, and washer and dryer.....it's pretty darn nice! It used to be a place for troubled boys to live, so the furniture is really heavy duty. After we got settled into our house we went out to dinner in the French Quarter with one of my teammates brothers who is also doing AmeriCorps, just a different program.

It was a really good, really cheap mexican restaurant......delicious!

The next day was our first day of actual work. We are working with Operation Helping Hands and Catholic Charities remodeling houses. OHH primarily works with homeowners who are disabled or elderly and just don't have the means to do repairs themselves.

For the first week we were there we worked on one home. It's located on Louisa Street in the Upper 9th Ward.....I think? Basically all we did that week was pick up where the short term volunteers before us left off. We floated drywall.....all week long. I even had dreams about mudding and sanding because that's all we were doing. Yeah it was tedious, but i'm glad I got to learn how to do something new! (we actually were at the same house for 2 weeks...mudding and sanding every single inch of the place).

well that's all for now!

Induction

On Friday March 12th, we were officially inducted into AmeriCorps NCCC!!!! Training was finally over and we were on our way to our first spikes!

It was pretty cold and rainy that day and we had to wait outside for about an hour, but it was totally worth it!

Pre-Spike

Were going to New Orleans!!!!!!!!! For our spike reveal, Colleen had us go on a scavenger hunt around 9H. We each had a different area to go to and find a letter....when we put all the letters together it spelled out "Helping Hands". Then she gave us all a few puzzle pieces and without talking we had to put the pieces together to make a picture.....it ended up being Bourbon Street!!!! After we figured out that we were going to New Orleans and calmed down a little....Colleen told us about our spike details. We are living in Marrero which is only about a 10 minute drive from downtown New Orleans and Bourbon Street! They said that we would be living in a small cottage. We are working with Catholic Charities of New Orleans and Operation Helping Hands. What OHH does is help those that are elderly and dissabled rebuild their homes after hurricane Katrina.
The week leading up to our departure was crazy busy. We had to put together all of our information about New Orleans in a Power Point Presentation and present it to the Director! It was intense and very nerve-racking, but we got it done and even got a compliment on it! Once the director's briefing was over, it was pretty much smooth sailing and planning for the rest of the week!

Mini-Spike

We went on a 3 day mini-spike to get us redy for our first real spike! We didn't go too far from Perryville.....about an hour and a half. We stayed in they cute cabins that had a kitchen and porch. It was in a girl scout state park....Killens Pond. Sounds pretty scary right.....the lake in the park is called Murder Kill Lake! We were prepared for anything....we made up a scenario just in case a serial killer came after us at night....fortunately I lived! For our work that week we spent 2 days at Lums Pond and the last day we went to Fort Delaware. At Lums Pond we painted and tiled the Recreation Center.

We finished it so fast that the third day they sent us somewhere else, Fort Delaware. We took a ferry ride over cause the Fort was on a man made island.

Apparently the Fort is really haunted....the show Ghost Hunters came there a couple years ago and they filmed a ghost. The guys working there showed us exactly where the ghost was seen and then they told us that this is where we would be working for the day! I was pretty excited cause I really wanted to see a ghost, but nothing happened :( It was still fun though...at the end of our work day the guys gave us a tour of the Fort and we got to see al of the rooms that they restored so far....I also saw some rooms where Generals were being held captive and there were signatures and dates written all over the walls....it was pretty cool!

Still no internet :(

I know, I haven't updated my blog in forever. It's not entirely my fault. We were promised internet and still haven't gotten it :( so I'm updating from somewhere off campus.

Well, a lot has happened in the past 3 weeks. We arrived on campus on February 8 and were immediately sent to get our paper work done and our room assignments. I am living in the 9h building of the VA Medical Center.....it's a lot like the dorms freshman year at college. We have communal Showers, kitchens and laundry rooms. I am in a room with 5 other girls and we have one bathroom.....it's pretty funny in the mornings when were all up at the same time, but we make it work.

We were put into our temporary teams (AKA Pods) on the second day. We were only in those teams for about a week. We also started our CTI (Corps Training....I don't remember what the I stands for). CTI is very very very boring, but I know that we have to get through it to be able to go out into the field. It's a lot of lecturing and not much hands on stuff, but it is all very important information. The weather was so crazy here that the first two days we were here we had snow days!!!

After the first week we were put into our permanent teams. Every year they have had the CM's (Corps Members) do something different in order to find their teams. This year we all had to pick a strip of paper...each paper had a CM's name and a song title on it. We had to find the CM that the strip belonged to. Then each TL (Team Leader) was introduced and their song played. When we heard the song that was written on our paper we ran to the TL and took a group photo. My TL's name is Colleen. After our teams were established we started doing PT (Physical Training). PT is at least 3 times a week and starts at 5:50 in the morning :( Other than the time, it's really not that bad....nothing I haven't done before.

That's pretty much it for now!

AmeriCorps Eve

Only 8 hours until I am boarding a plane to Perry Point, Maryland! I can't believe it's finally here. I feel like I'm pretty much prepared to start this thing....my only worry would be if I forgot to pack something and I can't buy it somehow. Packing....oh my god, packing was interesting.....not in a god way. Of course I waited until friday to start packing cause I love to procrastinate with that kind of stuff. Well, I finally figured out what I wanted to bring with me, so I started packing my bag.....Lucky me, everything fits! I wish it could have ended right there, but no....my bag was 8 pounds too heavy! So, I just moved things around between my carry on and big bag....took out a couple things :( and voila, it weighs exactly 50 pounds! Yay! Hopefully the scales at the airport aren't too much different.
My plane leaves bright and early tomorrow morning and I can't tell you how excited I am to be waking up at 4:30 in the morning.....totally kidding, it's gonna suck, but hey...that's why god invented coffee!
I have a feeling that because of the way the weather has been in that area that I'm gonna be waiting at Metro for a while.....I'll be ok though cause I packed all of my DVD's, so I'll be entertained for many many hours!
Well that's about it....I should probably get some sleep so I get more than 4 hours tonight....Oh yeah and congrats to the Saints on winning the Superbowl....I was definitly cheering for the Colts and Peyton though!

34 days to go!

It's been a crazy long wait and there's still a month to go. As most of you know I have been waiting to hear about Americorps since june of 2009. On Christmas Eve I got what i've been waiting for!!!!!! FINALLY....i was accepted! I haven't really had to much time to think to much about things since then, like......what in the world do I pack? How am I supposed to fit 10 months in one suitcase!? It's gonna be a challenge, but I think I can handle it! Other than packing, i'm just going with the flow and figuring things out as I go.
I do have some things to do before I leave on my "journey"....mostly just traveling to make sure I see everyone before I leave! I just got home from a week long trip in San Diego to visit my sister and new brother in-law! I'm heading down to Tennessee in a couple weeks to visit some friends! About a week after I get back i'll be leaving for Perry Point, Maryland!!
I am so crazy excited about this new challenge and adventure in my life! I am hoping that I'll be able to update this thing once a week....if not at least every two weeks. Oh and Michelle says "GO CHIPS!"
Love ya,
Nikki