The Familiar Future

First I want to thank everybody for their hospitality, generosity and love during my brief but relaxing time in Tulsa. Especially my parents who were kind enough to not only fly me back, but support my shiftless video-gaming extravaganza with heat, power, food (amazing food by the way) and a bed to sleep in, thanks folks! Also Kevin, Cameron, Amber, Naomi, Summer, Tyler, Granddad, Grandma Cheryl, Grandma Beth and everyone else I saw or interacted with over the break. Thanks for playing video games, making cookies, watching movies, going to hockey games, sitting and talking about life or just plain hanging out with me, you guys are the reason I can work 12 hours a day here in Americorps.

That being said, this is a new beginning for the blog. I have been lax in updating it due to my computer-less situation in Salt Lake City. However that will change at least for the next month as I train for wildland firefighting in Sacramento.

I returned to the Sacramento campus around 1 am local time and didn’t actually get to bed until around 3. Work with the Sacramento Zoo started at 7:30 the next morning so I woke up at 6 in order to eat breakfast and make the 30 minute commute. I was tired :( as was everyone else, but that didn’t stop us from working hard.

We were split into two groups, one of which did animal care, the other worked with maintenance. I was in the latter of the two. Our first project was digging a two foot wide by one foot deep trench around a section inside the flamingo exhibit in order to create a nesting ground for them to mate. This was arduous labor that involved pick axing the solid ground and then shoveling the loose dirt. It was not unlike the work we are expecting to do with wildland firefighting creating fire lines.

After that we cut down and pulled cattails out of the pond to create an area where visitors could more easily see the flamingos. This was done with rain boots in 2 feet of mud and muck and freezing cold water, chopping solid hunks of cattail roots from the mud to keep them from growing back. Needless to say it was awesome.

That night we got a surprise when we were issued our WILDLAND FIREFIGHTING BOOTS! Top of the line 260$ handmade fireproof boots. They are tight.

On day two myself and Finley created a fence for the Bongo exhibit so they wouldn’t destroy newly planted trees, and half the group worked on the tortoise exhibit clearing stones and preparing the soil for sod as well as transporting 4 tons of boulders to the pen to fence in the tortoises. Then we had PT, which I have decided to increase in intensity to better prepare us for the physical labor that awaits us after training. We ran 45 minutes straight with 100 yard sprints every ½ mile. All in all we averaged about 6 miles.

Today Finley and I: dug a 200 foot trench and laid ground wire, dug fence posts in the Bongo exhibit and put up part of the fence for the trees, planted various plants in the “pregnant tiger room”, watched an anteater physical (they discovered it was pregnant) and toured more of the zoo. The other part of the maintenance team moved boulders, laid sod and planted bushes for the tortoise exhibit which is now done and ready for shell-mania. PT was 2 20 minute ab routines that were extremely intense.

Tomorrow:

SILVER TWO IS ISSUED ALL WILDLAND FIREFIGHTING EQUIPMENT!

Read more about it next time!

I will update this with some of my own feelings and perspective on the project later, (Sac Zoo is the coolest place to work ever) but I thought I’d give you a general rundown of our days today and fill in the observational part later.

Stay classy, and comment or I’ll never call you again.

-J