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My Second Spike

Here I am in beautiful Oregon! I've finally crossed off a state on my to-see list. We started driving on Monday morning, and stopped overnight in Ashland, OR. Ashland was cute, very Shakespearean, they have a festival during the summer but that doesn't stop them from making a lot of Shakespeare references all over town. Our hotel had a pool and hot tub and a tv in the room, we were in heaven. Then we set out on Tuesday for our final destination-Silverton. We got here and settled in. The eight girls on my team are sharing a room that was once used as the garden's library. So there are shelves of books lining the walls. It is also the room everyone has to walk through to get to the rest of our housing. We are a bit squished, but it's better than camping out. Down the hall there is a lounge with two couches and a tv, a bathroom with a shower, and the boys' room (for the three of them). And yes, we only have one shower. During the workday, those are the only places we are allowed in, except for our "dining area" which is really a garage. We share our kitchen with the employees of the Business Center (aka our home for the next two months). There are also two other bathrooms that we can use, but only during non-office hours. It's pretty rough getting everyone to get ready in the morning with only three bathrooms, but we've managed pretty well so far. Wednesday was our first day, we took a tour of the garden with Clinton, our site sponsor, and Cindy, who teaches the fifth grade program here. Then Clinton took us on a tour of Silverton (population 9,700). And we got a private tour of the Silverton Historical Musuem. Thursday we met with Julie and Eden, who teach k-12 groups at the garden about identifying trees and reforestation stuff. It was pretty cool, we all got a book about the trees of Oregon and had to identify a tree. Then we met with someone whose name I can't remember who talked to us about irrigation and gave us a tour of the wetlands. The wetlands are just a collection of ponds used to filter Silverton's waste water and cool it down to either be dumped into Silver Creek or used for irrigation for the garden. They had a unique problem with the water being too hot after treatment to go straight into the river, so they collaborated and it has been working pretty well so far. Unfortunately, the Oregon Garden is not doing very well financially, but recently a resort has started paying the bills of the garden while the resort gets built. It's a weird set up, but in the end, the garden doesn't have to declare bankrupcty, so that's great. Thursday was also our first day of work, though it was only for two hours. We started attacking the himalayan blackberries and scotchbroom. It is tough to take everything out, but we did our best. Friday we had a tour of the Waste Water Treatment Center, which was smelly and pretty gross, but it's cool to know where the water comes from that is all over the garden. We also stopped at the Drinking Water Treatment Center, which was pretty cool to see all the different kinds of filtration processes. Then we worked for about four more hours taking out English ivy and more blackberries, the blackberries never stop. It's a funny sight really, eleven people dressed in bright yellow rain gear (did I mention that it rains on and off all the time here? well it does) hacking away with machetes, clippers, shovels, and weed wrenches in this huge bush of thorny blackberries. We consider it somewhat of a war, so far it is Blackberries:1, Green Five:0. But we're working on it. We all have scratches all over our bodies (arms and legs) because the thorns are so sharp that they pierce through gloves, clothes, and rain gear. Nothing is inpenatrable, except for the amazing steel toed boots, they work well.

Interesting facts about Silverton, OR: 1. The movie "Bandits" was filmed here, they painted some random signs on buildings by the bank, and they are still there. 2. The old movie "Incredible Journey" was based on the story of Bobby, a dog who went on vacation with his family from Silverton to Indiana, got lost along the way, and made an incredible journey back to Silverton. 3. Just last week someone tried (badly) to rob the Silver Falls Bank in the center of "town." And when we heard this we all thought it was cute. How can anything in this small town be anything but "cute?" That is our word for this town, all the time. It's cute. Everything about it.

I love our garden. We have 80 acres of garden in our backyard. Though no flowers are in bloom because it's winter, and it rains all the time. It is still very pretty, and cute...

This project is a very big change from what I was used to, not only in work, but also in living conditions. But I am excited for the challenge and for how easy it will be when I"m done with this to be completely comfortable sleeping on the floor. (I made the choice to not use a cot and just sleep on the floor, so far it's been okay).

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