Hello again all! Its been along time since I've written so hold on to your hats... this will be quite a journey.
For the last month I have been stationed in a beautiful little place in Southern Missouri. The park itself is called Roaring River State Park and it is located near the roaring metropolis of Cassville (population 3,000 and state football champs two years running). Like its name leads you to believe, this park has a river that is stunning. The CCC built a a lot of the structures in the park including a hatchery that was only a couple hundred feet from our cabin. Every morning I would wake up, get ready, and then walk out the door and see the river. On cold days it was steaming because the water was hotter then the air. I would follow the river to the hatchery and watch the thousands of rainbow trouts swimming around in their pools. The hatchery was fed by a underground spring, and the stones the water passed through made the water a very pretty deep blue color. Towards the end of my weeks of visiting the hatchery, one of the night watchmen, Rick, started leaving me fish food so I could feed the fish every morning. It was quite an adventure! Oh and because the river was teaming with so many trout there were always fishers and cool birds like bald eagles and kingfishers to watch.
So you are probably thinking... why was Elsa at Roaring River... did they just need another person to feed the fish? Nope, the first two and a half weeks I was there my twelve person team worked with the DNR falling invasive Red Cedar Trees to open up natural glade areas. Now this task is quite a daunting one. We were working on one hill, and from it hundreds more were visible... all were covered in Red Cedars. The trees themselves are not bad, but they have grown into areas they don't belong and are chocking out glade environments. This happened because settlers put out wildfires, but the fires are necessary for healthy ecosystems. The small cedars didn't burn and were allowed to keep growing and are now everywhere and very large. In my first two and a half weeks I became very comfortable with a chainsaw. We worked with skilled sawers until we proved that we could handle these trees on our own. I probably cut around a hundred cedar trees in my first stint.
I got to go home for Thanksgiving, and it was a very needed break. There is nothing like home cooking and family. I was not ready to go back... but I did and felt very refreshed. I was told that me and nine other people would be going to Roaring River for two weeks. A repeat for me, but I was okay with it because it was such a great project. The second time around I was with four other people and we were cutting with the MDC (Missouri Department of Conservation). Our project was still lade restoration, only this time it was on MDC land. The first two days we drove through the woods on a poor excuse of a road to get to a place to park the truck. Then we hiked down Potato Mountain to our cutting site. On the way out we had a steep climb, and then walked in front of the truck to cut branches, and stumps in our way. On the third day we got smart and found a short cut... it required us walking across a very sketchy bridge over the river. It was basically ladders connected together with a saw horse in the middle for them to rest on. Every day was an adventure from then on. I spent those two weeks cutting with another first year, Lane. We got really good at taking down trees quickly and I had a blast. The weather was chilly the whole time(nothing like Minnesota though) and the last couple days required so many layers that I felt like Ralphy's little brother in A Christmas Story.
I was one of three first years who spent the entire month at Roaring River and was told that if another group goes back there I might be leading it... or at least helping out a lot with the organizing of the project. In a month my tree falling skills have climbed exponentially and I am very confident in my sawing abilities.
Now I am back in St.Louis for the weekend. I am not sure where I will be next week, but the rumor is that Christmas Break starts on the 18th. Keep your fingers crossed for me...
Missing you,
Elsa
