week three recap

ok, so i'm still behind with my blog but again i say, better late than never!
this past week was our last week working at bluff lake nature center. of course, denver stuck to it's normal ways and the weather was all over the place.
monday, we spent the morning working on debarking the logs we'd gotten the week before in order to start working on the railing for the stairs. a couple of us spent some time going ahead and digging holes for the posts.  that afternoon we headed to the denver food bank because it was seriously cold outside. we spent the afternoon filling boxes with non-perishable foods that would be sent out to people who needed them.
tuesday morning, we headed to a suburb in denver where we split into teams of two and were each assigned a few streets where we had to go door to door handing out pamphlets. there's an organization called the mile high million and they plan on giving out one million trees by 2020 to neighborhoods that are poor. the tree will help brighten up the neighborhoods, add value and just bring beauty. that afternoon, we headed back to bluff lake where we continued to debark trees.
wednesday, we spent the day working on the railing. some of us debarked and others put it together. wednesday night, our team headed off to jumpstreet. this is a big building with a ton of trampolines. it was so much fun! and it didn't even feel like pt! until thursday... then i felt the pain!

thursday was our last day at bluff lake. we spent it debarking the final logs and getting as much done on the railing as possible. unfortunately, we didn't get to finish the whole thing but we got really close and a few of us plan on returning to get the job done before we leave for break. that afternoon, we had a bonfire before we left. we made smores and took group photos for our last day together at the park.

friday, we went to the greenway again and we spent our final day painting trees so beavers wouldn't chew them down and cutting down the dern russian olive trees that have taken over denver!

oh, and for lunch on friday, our two sponsors (chris from bluff lake and caroline from the greenway) took us to lunch at a cute little restaurant called charlotte's web! it was fun!

overall, i felt like our time at bluff lake nature center was well spent. i know the waste barrier will help for years and years to come and even if people don't notice it or know what it does at least they'll notice how clean the park is. the railing is wonderful to me and was probably my favorite project. while debarking those trees, i couldn't stop thinking about how i was just one of the first few to touch it. the chain of hands those logs will go through is amazing; starting with the man who chopped them down, my team who traveled to the mountains to get them and then spent days debarking and setting them up and then all the millions of hands that will touch that railing for help up those stairs. it's an amazing thought to me.

xoxo,
B