Last Week in Saguache

We had been told that for our last week, we would be split up. Half would be camping near Stone Cellar Monday and Tuesday working on trails and using the horses to bring tools to another Southwest Conservation Corps group working up there. The other half would work with Dwight on that fence we had started on Monday and Tuesday. On Wednesday, the campers would return and join the other half to pull weeds with Clayton Wednesday and Thursday. Christina, TK, Jess, Becky, and Alex did the horses and camping while Tomm, Heather, Michala, Rob, and I stayed back. Let me tell you, I think we chose right. Michala was still working in the office because of her tailbone. Rob had not used any of his days off so he worked Monday then took the rest of the week off. Monday was pretty nice. Tomm, Heather, Rob, and I went back up that ridiculously bumpy road to Dwight’s fence. Remember how the last time we were there we had to reroute the road a little bit to get around some mud? The rerouted road went up a slight incline into the grass. Even with the gas pedal on the floor, the van wouldn’t make it up the hill. Dwight, Heather, Rob, and Tomm all had to get out and push the van while I floored it to get it up there. I of course found it hilarious and felt quite triumphant when I finally made it. The entire day was spent digging holes for H-brace posts and saw the digging of The Most Perfect Post Hole Ever by Heather and myself. We had a perfect area to dig in with hardly any rocks. Heather used the rock bar to loosen dirt and I removed it with the post hole digger. We were done in like 10 or 15 minutes and the hole was perfectly round and not much wider than the post. Perfection is a pretty nice way to start a day, don’t you think? I remember that on Monday we didn’t get much done because with the exception of that perfect post hole, everywhere else we needed to dig was full of rocks. That was also the day we found out that Dwight is a Beast. We knew him as this super nice and friendly slightly elderly man with white hair and a pleasant smile. What we didn’t know was that he can wield a rock bar like no one else. (There are slight variations on what a rock bar looks like exactly, but mostly it’s just a 6-foot metal staff that tapers at the end and weighs probably 15 pounds or so. It’s used to either pry rocks out of the ground or break rocks.) We kept running into soul-crushing rocks like Becky, Tomm and I did the last time we were up there with Dwight. We would take turns with the rock bar with varying techniques of trying to break the giant rock or trying to archaeology it out (I don’t know why we started saying that, but it’s when we would try to get the rock out by digging around it, not breaking it). Dwight would come over and juts wail on the rock with these beastly slams of the rock bar. He would be panting and sweating and we each independently planned what we would do if he hurt himself, but he broke some ridiculously huge rocks. It was insane.

That night, we had a lovely evening of sitting around in the quiet house. I grew up in a family of four. After my brother transferred to a college in Louisiana almost four years ago, usually when I am at home it’s just my parents and myself. And yet, after almost a year of AmeriCorps, having only five people home seems really quiet and empty.

On Tuesday it was only Heather, Tomm and I at work with Dwight. I made it up that grassy hill on my first try this time. Turns out you need to floor it from the beginning. Even with fewer people that day, we got so much more done. We dug more post holes than the day before and put in the cross beams for six H-braces. (Part of the reason that went so fast is because we had always had to do it with a hand saw, but Dwight is a chainsaw-wielding Beast. Goes much faster that way.) Also, at about 2:30, it started to rain really hard. Dwight told us to just take a break until it stopped. He sat in his truck and we sat in our van. It ended up raining for about an hour. After it stopped we worked for another 20 minutes or so, then Dwight called it a day. So even with fewer people and an hour-long break, we got SO MUCH done.

That night Heather, Tomm, and I watched Memento. We marveled at the fact that we all got a good seat in the living room and there was hardly anyone talking. (We don’t mind when people talk during non-dialogue parts, but we all hate it when people talk during dialogue. And that seems to happen a lot when there are eight of us or so watching a movie.) I love my team, but it was really nice to have some peace for a couple days.

The others were supposed to come back Wednesday morning and come join us wherever we were working on weeds with Clayton, but is anyone surprised that didn’t happen? Nope, not a bit. I would have been surprised if that actually happened. It wasn’t their fault though. I think there was some kind of problem with the horses or something. Since it was only Heather, Tomm and me again, we rode in Clayton’s truck. We pretty much just drove around until we would see a henbane plant or two along the road, then hop out and grab it. We ended up near some property Clayton’s family owns around lunch time. We stopped to fill up our water bottles at a stream on his property (delicious!) then had lunch at picnic tables outside of their adorable mountain house. No one lives their permanently anymore but it was really cute. At the end of the day we had the pleasure of accompanying Clayton to take the weeds we had pulled to the dump. This trip was actually highly amusing, but I think I’ll wait to say why until Tomm sends me the picture we took.

The others got back around 5:00 that evening with tales of rain and cold night in tents. We definitely chose the right job for the week.

And that brings us to our last day of work in Saguache. Clayton had a meeting or something in the morning so he just sent us to an area where he knew there were TONS of weeds in a gulch. We found it and split up to cover more ground. Becky and I were walking along the gulch from the far end when we found we needed a shovel. Becky went to find one. I stayed down there alone pulling whatever weeds I could get just with my hands. I ended up being down there for a pretty long time. I yelled to see if anyone was nearby a couple times but no one answered. I started getting paranoid. If there would ever be a time in my life when I would get bitten by a rattlesnake, I was sure it would be right then. I filled my bag with weeds, so there wasn’t really anything else I could do. I started trudging back up the gulch to where we had parked the van. I actually passed Becky and Tomm on the way. They were heading back to where Becky and I had ended up with a shovel and another bag or two. When I got back to the van, everyone else had finished their areas and were ready to move on. I told them about Becky and Tomm and we decided to wait for them so they wouldn’t be left wondering where we were. We ended up waiting about an hour and a half. They had found a huge bunch of weeds. A couple people even walked about a mile down the gulch but didn’t find them. We actually started to get worried. It was a little silly. They came back near lunch time so we just decided to go ahead and eat. Clayton had rejoined us by that time and he brought us Pulling For Colorado T-shirts. He had already given us water bottles with the same logo. The rest of the day was fairly uneventful. We went to another area of the gulch and split into two groups. My group accidentally went into private property pulling weeds. Oops.