Twelve things the AmeriLife has taught me:

1. Don't put metal dishes in the microwave. Unless you're trying to burn the house down.
2. "You're a dirty plant!" is the best insult ever.
3. You can never have too many brands of hot sauce.
4. "Clean kitchen" is an oxymoron.
5. Criminal Minds > all other cop shows.
6. On the east coast, slugbugs are called punchbuggies. (weirdoes.)
7. We learned it all from Google!
8. There will always be two jars of the same thing open.
9. Coffeepots and sauce pans are acceptable replacements for a bowl.
10. All vehicles deserve a name.
11. Fried eggs, over hard. Try them.
12. If you're trying to look hardcore, hold a pulaski.

A typical day.

I've been trying to write this post for days. I keep staring at the blank page, trying to write something that will be interesting to read. The problem is, I keep comparing this project to New York, and Silverton isn't New York. In New York, we were directly influencing the lives of those we served. Here, it's harder to stand back and look at an area we've cleared of brush and say, "I just made the world better." Silverton runs at a slower pace. The work is all important, but it isn't the same kind of important.

I've spent the past two days cleaning up cotoneaster next to the pavilion. A patch of it was blocking a fire hydrant and had to be removed, and the rest had to be trimmed down significantly. Kevin took a hedge trimmer to the largest patch and cut it down to knee height. Then the rest of us came through and cleaned it up, pulling out loose branches and trimming down any that stuck up over the patch. To be frank, the cotoneaster looked better before we came along. Cutting off the top layer of leafy branches only exposed the larger, bare ones. But Ty says that it will grow more branches soon enough and be easier to maintain at it's new height.

Most of our work here is similar to that- either removing plants or trimming them back. There is some other work though- Alyssa and I had the good fortune to be working in the Northwest Garden when some plants were delivered. We actually got to replant an area we had cleared the day before! It may not be noticeable to the guests that walk past, but to us that little area of the Northwest Garden (98 square feet, to be as exact as you can get by measuring with a rake) became ours. We saw it go from totally overgrown to newly planted because of our hard work. It may not be the same as gutting a house or handing out food to hungry New Yorkers, but it meant a lot to us.

Current sun count- 5 days.

Silverton

Well, we made it to our second round project! It's actually the first of two projects- we have a split round between Silverton, Oregon and Eatonville, Washington. We left Sacramento at 6am yesterday and arrived in Silverton after twelve loooong hours in Mayhem (that's our van, if you've forgotten). We passed through a white Northern California, and Lois played in the snow for the very first time!

 

 

Our Silverton project is with The Oregon Garden. We're going to help them maintain their various gardens and remove invasive species in their oak grove. I spent our first day here scraping moss off of their paths and cleaning. While we stay at the Oregon Gardens we have the use of their fire-safe house for cooking and laundry, but the kitchen hadn't been deep cleaned in a while. That fridge was Disgusting. Dylan, Lindsey and I tackled it, and by the end everything was shiny! Here's a picture of Blue 1 enjoying our nice clean kitchen:

 

 

We are actually staying in the Oregon Garden Resort, which is FANTASTIC. Imagine spending a month in New York on a cot in a room with twenty other people and zero personal space, and then being given a key to this room: 

 

 

That's Shaunacy on her bed. We get that whole room to the two of us! And do you see the black square on the left? Yeah, that's a fireplace. Guess what else we get to use? The resort's hot tub. We're in heaven.

 

The man in charge of us here at the Oregon Gardens is Ty. He likes to say things like "rad" and "keep it classy" and has a charming habit of clapping his hands when he's thinking. We all really like him. He taught me how to drive this lovely little thing today!



 

 

It's called a gator. We'll be using it to move soil and weeds and rock for the next month. They're pretty fun.

 

It's been rainy and snowy and cloudy since we left California, but there have been a few sun breaks. Shaunacy and I decided to start counting the days that we see sun. Current count- 2. I'm sure you care a whole lot about sun in Silverton, so don't worry, I'll keep updating.