Week 6: ACE week

5/3/10 - 5/6/10
We had another volunteer week here. This time we had ACE (American Conservation Experience) helping us out for the week. They are another conservation organization that is based out of Flagstaff. This week we had 7 of them to work with for the entire week. We started the week watering our planting sites as usual. Every Monday is scheduled for watering at GCVC, but our watering duties keep piling up so watering has really been extended to 2 full days of watering. Since the snow melt, we have had to water more and more areas. After a restoration site has been planted it needs to be watered for at least 3 years afterward. Two years ago, an SCA crew planted along Hermit Road and now the watering schedule there has been reduced to every other week. Last fall, the SCA crew at GCVC completed a lot of restoration and we are continuing to water and maintain their old sites as well as any new plantings that we complete. Watering is a weekly battle that we are continuing to learn how to tackle. We water with 500 gallon water baffalos or “buffies” attached to the back of our trucks. While 500 gallons sounds like a lot, some of our sites require 5-6 loads of full buffies in order to complete. ACE helped us complete our watering priorities faster than usual. After that was done, we got the ACE crew started on gathering duff from a section of pinyon-juniper woodland that is going to be turned into another parking lot. While the idea of another parking lot cementing over even more of our beloved native plants isn’t all that appealing to anyone, it is sorely needed. The parking lots fill up here, and we aren’t even in the busy season yet. When they fill up people get desperate and park on the sides of roads, in restoration sites, etc. Hopefully this parking lot will be the last. Anyway… we also brought around 3 truckloads of downed wood into P-9 and P-5. At the end of the week the ACE crew planted some large woody plants in P-5 continuing our stuggle to get that large mound planted. In addition to completing their planting duties, ACE staked down a couple salvaged trees that were leaning over and spread some of the mulch that they collected. Molly and Jessica worked a regular Mon-Thurs week this week, while Cynthia and Christine took Wed-Thurs off because they had to attend their WFA training over the weekend in Sedona.

WFA training
Christine and Cynthia loved the WFA training in Sedona. They were trained with individuals from all over. They said the trainers were excellent, they just wish they had more time to practice and ask questions. They got to practice their WFAing skills almost immediately when they got back. A friend of ours at the canyon took a pretty bad fall. She had deep scrapes and bruises up and down her legs and hips. We found out the day after she fell and they irrigated the wounds and dressed them properly. When she went to the doctor he commented on how great the wounds were cleaned out. Good Job Christine and Cynthia!