10/4/11-10/11/11
This week the Grand Canyon SCA Vegetation Crew completed many tasks that brought them closer to completing their goal of re-vegetating the entire Paiute Apartment complex. The week started with a new SCA member, Sarah Seiler, joining the crew who had just come from working with the SCA in Tuscon. To start the day, irrigation splitter caps were unscrewed and replaced with brown netafim connectors, then 15' netafim lines were connected to the splitters. Within the first day of work we had a group of volunteers from Elder Hostel in conjunction with the Road Scholar program to help the SCA crew plant, mulch, water, and cage the sites completed. As the week continued the groups of volunteers grew to include many random volunteers from the area including a few volunteers from the Arizona region, two long term volunteers, Hannah and Lil, a visiting volunteer, ACE and a few helping hands from interns within the vegetation office including Ellen Aikens, Laura Getts, and Sara Manly. With the massive amount of help the crew had, more planting was able to occur than ever. After planting in each site was completed, mulching the planted sites became the priority; focusing on mulching the areas within the berm. After mulching is completed, cages needed to be constructed and staked to the ground to reduce the amount of elk degradation. Throughout the week the crew also spent time fixing broken irrigation that had been damaged by elk, cold weather and volunteers. During the week, cages that had been erected in previous years that are too small for the plants they were protecting or fallen over were removed to allow for plant growth.