April 29th 2010

This week has been awesome, everyday different and hard work. Before I get into this week I’ll do a little recap of last week…last week was a lot of ditches. We did ditches everyday. Part of the Silver Lake Ditch runs right behind our house so we hiked back there in order to fix a few areas that were leaking by adding a bunch of rocks and dirt. Tuesday we laid some seed stuff along one of the trails in order to make the soil better for growing vegetation. That was something different and kind of exciting because there were cows put in the area to “cut the grass” and when our bosses truck drove up they thought she was feeding them so twice they all came jogging towards us in hopes of food. I have never been that close to a cow before, wow they are big animals. Friday Megan and I had our first Capping event. We went to Fairview High School here in Boulder and talked to about 25 kids about Americorps NCCC, we figured about a third of them would actually apply, which was a pretty good number. We set up a table during their lunch periods in a common area and people would walk up to our table. We found it so interesting to sit and watch the kids in the hallways. It was like a movie, in many funny ways.

Last Monday we had training for this ISP we did with Climate Smart this past Saturday. We were put in pairs and given a rolling cart full of energy saving tools and supplies (drying rack, low flow shower head/hose nozzle, CFL’s and many more things). Then Claire and I were given a route of houses to go to. We went up to the door and asked if they were interested in this free service of changing out up to 20 light bulbs from old ones to new energy saving bulbs. Most of the homes we knocked on were not home, or not interested. We were able to go into one home of a very appreciative older couple. They were so nice and even gave us presents of frames with words in them. We were pretty discouraged before getting to their house, but they really made our day. What I thought was going to be nerve racking and stressful, turned out to be really fun.

Saturday was the light bulb volunteering and then Sunday Megan and I walked in the Boulder Earth Day 5K which was a lot of fun. I really miss being able to walk everyday, and the scenery was beautiful as it always is here. We then went to the Earth Day fair thing they had down town and were able to meet up and get lunch with some of our friends from the team that is based in Denver. After a relaxing movie afternoon at the mansion Paul and I went for a walk and then to The North Face store… my weakness to the max. I bought this really nice jacket that was on sale which I love. But, I also got a lunch bag and a laundry bag (I had neither) that were made out of old tents that were defective and factory mishaps. They are so awesome, and a dollar goes to a kids organization aimed at giving kids more knowledge about our natural world. They were also surprisingly really cheap (surprising coming from North Face).

And that brings me to this week…as of now I am sitting in my bed because we were planning on leaving at 8:15 but we woke up to it snowing so we aren’t leaving until 9 now. Crazy Colorado and its’ weather, yesterday after work we ran to the store and I was in shorts and now… snow!! This week has been a lot of hard work. Monday was one heck of a day. We worked with the IPM team removing Mediterranean Sage, which is what we did more of at the beginning of the project. We walked a few miles that day in our steel toes, with a shovel in hand and our back packs on… not to mention a mile back to the car up and down hills. The ground was also very uneven which made for people on my team to get blisters like whoa. Man oh man were we tired at the end of that day. Oh and we saw five rattlesnakes and one non rattle snake snake. Only one rattled because they said they were sleeping and sunning, so they moved slowly which made for a good view on our part.

Tuesday we built a rock wall made out of railroad ties, cement, all sizes of rocks and our sweat J. We carried the massive railroad ties, 60 pound bags of cement and all of the tools down the trail over and over again. It was another very tiring day, we even worked a longer day by choice in order to get the job done. The outcome was great and the wall will hopefully keep the expensive houses belong the ditch from getting flooded for ten years. So the soreness of our bodies continued. It was a beautiful day weather wise in Boulder which made it a lot more bearable carrying the 60 lb backs of cement on a trail for about a half mile over and over again. It was a great team bonding day that's for sure. I am going to miss people on this team so much next round when we go back to our original teams a week from tomorrow.

Yesterday was amazing, we FINALLY got to work with the FEMP team which works on forest restoration. They cut down trees and do controlled burns to control the size of the forest in Boulder. It was another beautiful day here and thankfully it was pretty high winds to keep up from overly sweating. We hauled a bunch of scrap, that they had cut prior to yesterday, into piles that we later hauled to the chipper which was so cool. It was raining wood chips and smelled wonderfully. We also cut down a bunch of smaller "only" 25 year old trees with hand saws and hauled those up to the road to be later chipped and returned to the forest floor. It was an amazing day, hard work but still a ton of fun. Not to mention all of us ladies were excited to work with the good looking FEMP crew... none as good looking as Paul thought :-) Jocie and I then made 5 amazing homemade pizzas for dinner with a dessert of course (they all know my sweets addiction). After dinner Michelle and I dropped people off at the Internet and YMCA before setting off to many different stores to find the perfect presents for our TL Daniel's bday tomorrow. I really like to plan these kind of things so I took it under my wing to collect to money and find the perfect gifts, which we were able to do. I love knowing that the present receiver will love their present and can't wait until tomorrow to give it to him and decorate the house.

Well, here I am... now at Barnes and Nobles since there is still snow on the ground we are not leaving the house until 11:30 to head to a tour of the National Center for Atmospheric Research which should be pretty interesting we hope. Then one of the OSMP staff we have been working with (Bob) is giving us a presentation at 1:30 and we are calling it a day!!! So wonderful, then tomorrow is Daniel's 24th bday so we are getting a cake and heading to dinner with him. After dinner most of the team is heading to Denver and staying in the dorms since Saturday we have the Walk MS volunteer day long event. It will be a long day but should be a ton of fun!!

Well, I need to use the rest of my Internet time to look at jobs, places to live, and canine friends.

Miss and love MN,
Nicole Marie Burg

p.s. I can't believe: I am almost 23, how amazing/challenging this experience has been, how fast it has gone by, it's almost time to head back to MN for an amazing Burg wedding!!!