Day 1: Learning to Paddle & Hammer

Day 1 – Southern New Hampshire

Hi guys! 

Your New Hampshire team for the summer of 2015 is Claudia, Ashley, Andrea and myself (Nadia).

Today was our first official day on the job, after a 5-hour drive and mini-shopping spree to buy good work clothes. Today we had an orientation where we met most of our supervisors for the next month, accompanied by Len, who bought cherries for us to snack on.

After a 3-hour info session, we broke for lunch and then were about to head out for work when some rain came through. We loaded our boats onto the truck and picked some weeds to pass the time. We were successful in waiting it out and then headed over to the Lamprey River to do some cleanup. Both our mentor Deanna, and one of our interns, Ashley, got to ride in a kayak for the first time, and we all took turns alternating on canoes and kayaks between our two sites. The boat rides were rather successful; we only had one fall from Andrea getting out of a canoe, but it was in shallow water, so all was absolutely fantastic!

On the first site we had a pretty simple job picking up trash, and even though the site was known for its partying and litter, there wasn’t much to pick up. For repair work, we were prompted to maintain the snow fence covering an area, which allowed the plants to grow back in without getting trampled. We used staple guns, zip ties and all the stakes, which were malleted in, at the site. We recollected and made our way to the second site, which proved to be slightly more difficult. It was extremely upsetting to see the damage that had been done to the site. Signs were ripped, fencing was cut, more garbage was on the ground. Someone had even tried to burn the main sign! Yet we endured and with some creativity, we got the site fully prepared. We used a ton of zip ties to reattach cut pieces of the fence and repositioned old stakes into the ground, then secured them to the fence (this was slightly difficult because we didn’t have enough stakes). We also ran out of staples in the staple gun, so we got to learn how to use a hammer and a nail, and used nails to hang the signs into trees. After two successful site cleanups, we headed back on our boats, then loaded them up and called it a day, after our seven hours.

We came home and Claudia and I cooked dinner and everyone fell asleep super early and slept well.

Stay cool!

Your NH LEAF crew.