Elbow Grease

As beautiful as Tuateawa is (and it's beautiful), there's a lot of work to be done here.  We work either on the land doing projects directly related to conservation or at the resident house doing projects to make life more enjoyable for the folks doing the conservation work.

Dave did a great summary post of some of the things he's worked on here.  This is a very quick outline of some of the work I've done in the past 2.5 weeks.  It's definitely not a complete list...  actually it's based on the projects for which I have pictures!

Trail Clearing:

(at the land - one of my favorites)

Planting Flax:

(at the land - flax is a really important plant for stabilizing ecosystems here, especially wetlands and flood plains.  this was the dirtiest i've been in a long time)

"Tree Love:"

(at the house and the land - digging up seedlings, settling them into the nursery, & prepping to transplant them)

(one of my favorite projects)

Building a Spa Bath...

(at the house - a spa bath will make working in the winter much more tolerable, and the cool, damp winter months are the best times to plant seedling trees here.)

...building the deck of the spa bath:

(the "ol' fashioned" way - with a hammer and saw)

...bricks and mortar:

(building the structure to contain the wood fire and support the vat)

(the woman in the picture is laura, not me)

So there you have it:  good days of work in the fresh air and sunshine.  Not always glamorous or interesting, often uncomfortable, always tiring.  Yet for every tree I settle into our little nursery (we prepped 92 the other day), I think of the future, when that little eight-inch seedling will stand eighty feet tall.  I probably won't be around to see that day, which is both a humbling and reassuring thought.