When it comes to planting trees, Green + SIlver = Gold.

Whew. So much has happened just between Tuesday night when I last updated and today, Saturday. On Wednesday my pod, "Diablo Scorpions", did some grueling hours of training which felt like they lasted forever. It was difficult sitting through three hours of going over policy and learning about tool safety but, honestly, it is all information that we're going to need to know at some point so, might as well suck it up and pay attention :).
After training on Wednesday a few of us went down to Sacramento and walked around for a bit, part of our group stopped off at the Hard Rock, Sacramento but two other girls and I decided to look for something more Sac-town original. We ended up at this great little creperie and I had a salad, the first real, good food I'd had, sadly, in days.
Thursday was a really, really great day and allowed for a much needed change of pace. All of us were feeling slightly antsy at the realization that for the next four weeks we would be sitting listening to lectures when what we really wanted to do was get our hands dirty and do some service. Luckily, that was exactly what my pod got to do! Wednesday we found ourselves strapped into waders, armed with loppers (used for cutting shrubbery and other vegetation) and ready to get muddy and wet. NCCC in Sacramento set up some pods to work with Sacramento Weed Warriors alongside this great guy named Frank, doing invasive species removal. The species we were removing was called armundo, also known as giant reed. And boy is that a proper name. We were hauling some reeds as tall as 20, 25 feet. Frank informed us that this species can sometimes grow up to a foot a day in the summer, when conditions are right. It is an invasive species that came from the eastern world and is somewhat similar in appearance to bamboo. Although the new, green reeds are thriving with life and full of water, the older reeds get very dry and pose a lot of fire danger. Sacramento is a city with a lot of water surrounding it and many residential areas, such as were near our project site, have clusters of giant reed all around them. Pods went on Tuesday and removed an estimated 1600 pounds of vegetation and our group of pods removed an estimated 1700 pounds of vegetaion. It was really great to do something with my pod, we really bonded over the service and I can only imagine how 9 months will affect my team when one day could do so much. Below is a picture that was taken by our pod leader, Erin, on one of my podmates' camera, check out the fancy waders and Ameriwear :)
Speaking of teams, I am now a proud member of team 5 in the green unit! Last night we had a scavenger hunt of sorts which lead us to our team leader, awaiting us in the van, ready to take us to dinner. These folks will be my roommates and so much more for the next ten months. On my team is another girl from New Hampshire who graduated last year from Coe Brown academy as well as someone from Maine who DROVE to Sacramento and a girl who was one of my podmates!
Today we had our first team activity.. planting trees! We worked with the Sacramento Tree Foundation and another green unit team as well as silver unit team to plant 55 trees in an area being developed as a recreational park by a river with picnic tables and areas for families to play games or fish or whatever they would like. It was really great to get to talk to the leaders of the Foundation about all kinds of things. Already I've met such incredible, dedicated people through this program, it is incredible. We learned that Sacramento has the highest number of trees per capita of any city in the world and the foundation is trying to double that number. Their current goal is to plant 5 million trees as a foundation by 2025, that means that every citizen of Sacramento would have to plant 2 trees. It sounds reasonable but, as Zara, one of the woman we worked with mentioned, there are elderly people, babies and disabled people as well as those who "just don't care" that wouldn't be able to plant trees. I really enjoyed being outside, getting dirt under my fingernails and on my uniform and I can't wait to do more projects like it.
Well, I'm off to enjoy my night off and hopefully I'll be heading into San Francisco tomorrow to meet up with the aunts and maybe a friend!
peace, love and trees,
--Walker