These are the moments...

...when I know I'm going to miss Blue 1:

When Shaunacy dances to music that isn't there.
When Dylan does math in his head faster than anyone else could.
When we listen to classical or jazz in the van because we can't agree on anything else.
When Lois brings home all the wild animals
When Kevin thanks the van for making it through a yellow light by kissing his fingers and touching them to the ceiling,
When Joey is Jerry. (But not when he's Joe)
When Keke doesn't stop talking.
When everything becomes an innuendo.
When Alyssa has all the answers.
When Shaunacy puts ketchup on everything.
When Joey makes Chili or Breakfast or Spaghetti for dinner because he doesn't know how to make anything else.
When Lois or Alyssa or Shaunacy sing at the top of their lungs.
When Keke just shakes her head in exasperation.
When we listen to Cherry Pie in the van "because it's tradition".
When Kevin bakes brownies. Or bread.
When Dylan won't stop talking about football (even though it drives me crazy).
When we all yell at each other without meaning a single word.

Well, Blue 1, we did it. We've come a long way since October 10th. We had some difficult times, some bumps in the long road, but we stayed strong and made it through. You are all my family now, even if we get on our planes home after graduation and never talk again. These ten months spent with all of you have affected me in ways I probably don't even understand yet. This has certainly been a fascinating experience and I'm happy (yes, really) to have shared it with the seven of you.
Love,
McKinley

How many days?

That's the question out of our mouths most often now. "How many days left?" Shaunacy is usually the one with the ready answer. She doesn't even look up from what she is doing, but says, "20 days."
That's right. I graduate from AmeriCorps NCCC in just 20 days, on July 23rd. I expect everyone to show up for my graduation, it's at 8:30 am, just come to the Pacific Region Campus (that's at 3247 Laurel St, in McClellan, CA), and wear nice clothes please!
Just kidding.

So, I've been a terrible blogger in the past two months. I'm very sorry. Let me catch you up.
After our time at Camp Jones Gulch in La Honda, CA, Blue 1 spent a month in Takilma, OR. We were working with the Takilma Community Association, the Dome School and the Spiral Living Center. I did a LOT of painting that round. Here's the proof:

Creepy clown bean toss thing, before!

Slightly less creepy clown, after!

Sunflowers on a tool shed for an ISP.

Original sketches for the Spiral Living Center trailer.

Finished first side- almost exactly the same as my original sketch.

In progress on the second side- it changed a lot from my sketches!

Almost done, except for the rows of crops.

The team did a huge variety of work in Takilma, from bicycle maintenance to trail work to poison oak removal (not fun) to construction and demolition. We also got to really know the community. That's really the challenge that I have in writing about Takilma- how can I possibly do these people the justice they deserve? Our Project Sponsor, Kate, was just incredible. Her family was so loving and generous- she kept insisting that one of us should use her tub for a bubble bath! And our Site Supervisor Aaron was another member of the team by the end of the round. Here's a picture of him with Shaunacy and Lois.

Everyone that we met in Takilma had a story and something interesting to teach us. While we were there we met a blacksmith who also sailed tall ships, a botanist, a jeweler who had also designed and built her own one room house, and hippies who live off the grid by using solar and hydro power and growing their own food. It is a fascinating community.

We stayed long enough to attend the Takilma Folk Faire and go square dancing...

...and then went back to Sacramento, CA to get ready for my current project!

Blue 1 is now in Fortuna, CA, and working with the California Conservation Corps. It's a pretty interesting setup- we are living with the corps members on their campus but we aren't following the same schedule as they do. They go through rotations of eight days on spike, then four days on center, then eight days on spike, and so on. We have a pretty normal schedule where we work Monday through Friday and come back to center every night. We've been removing invasive species and doing salmon habitat restoration. 

Salmon habitat restoration can look like a lot of different things. In the photo above, we are trying to take that huge log on the right out of the stream, in order to open up a path for spawning salmon. Doing that requires a process called gripping, where a cable is wrapped around the log (you can see it to the right of Joey's head. He's the one in the green helmet.), and that cable is attached to the main line that goes through a grip box. You then pull the handle back and forth on the grip box as quickly and forcefully as you can and it ever so slowly tightens the cables and the log moves out of the water a centimeter at a time but then it gets stuck on every single little thing on its way out so you have to halt the whole process and adjust the cable until it works. It's actually a lot of fun.

Another thing the CCC does is put log structures back in to the water! Sound counterproductive? It actually isn't. They build these log structures in order to give spawning salmon a place to rest on their way upstream, and give fry a place to hide from predators. We spent a week working on these by adding smaller sticks to the logs in order to create more shelter for fry. 

We also got to bring out our rain gear again!

We spent most of the week walking around in the river, so the porch outside of our room soon became the drying area for all our gear each night. This picture wasn't even it at it's worst- at one point there were a couple of pairs of pants out there too. 

One of the invasive plants that we've been working on lately is European Beach Grass. Here's a nice picture of NCCC and CCC members working side by side to remove it! Aww! 

All of us are more than ready to finish this round out and go home. We graduate in 20 days, but I won't be back in Washington for another 23 days- I'm going to New Orleans with Alyssa and Shaunacy right after the program ends! It was just one of those "That wouldn't happen!" ideas that pop up in conversation one day and then end up actually happening. What a crazy life I lead.