This is Harder Than it Looks

For our second volunteer service (four weeks ago; late post is late), Zoë, Auriana and I went back to the Tule Ponds. I think I was more enthusiastic than both of them, as I was the only one that really wanted to come back instead of trying to look for a new place to volunteer at. I enjoyed the work from the week before and wanted to continue helping the environment and people at the establishment.



Us pretending to be sexy--Ignore me, I blinked

The supervisor guy (Brandon) said that because we came later than another group of kids, he didn't really have anything for us to do. He put us on a hill behind the visitor center and told us to dig up the weeds. We were joined by an 8th grader and then another kid a few minutes in, and then Corrina showed up to help us out. We were glad for another friend to talk to during our work, and gladly welcomed her toour mini task force. The work itself wasn't too bad; the lack of shade made it a little worse than it should have been but other than that it was pretty fun.

Different weeds were easier to pull up than others. Corrina and I spent at least 15 minutes trying to get out one particularly stubborn one, and then we kind of just gave up and walked awy and hoped no one would notice. Aside from the tall ones with giant roots, the smaller ones were easy enough. However, other factors impaired my ability to get weeds out as well. One part of the hill was very steep, and I could bately stand up straight without losing my footing. Zoë stayed up on the steep part of the hill and worked on those, something I think she's pretty brave for doing. I tried to dig out a weed from where she was and nearly fell down the hill.

Us after we finished our work

The whole things was fun, but kind of pointless. Brandon himself said, "There's not much for you to do... I guess I'll put you on the hill to get some weeds out." It felt as if all of our hard work was wasted on stuff that didn't really need to be done, but I enjoyed it anyway. It's been good excercise and a way to get out of the hosue and talk to friends on a regular basis. I look dorward to being able to go back to the Tule Ponds, and maybe next time doing something more usefull (and we all know how that turned out--again, late post is late.).