AZ G&F / AZ Elk Society volunteer weekend
Jun. 4th, 2007 03:05 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
sonoranrnWe're home! Steve and I went up near Springerville, AZ this weekend to do some work on a rehab project with Arizona Game & Fish and Arizona Elk Society. It was fan-frickin-tastic. There are pics in an earlier post. Text description behind the cut.
We left the Valley around noon or so on Friday and drove north. It was about a four-hour drive up to the campsite, not counting a swing by his mother's place in Pinetop for some more tools, etc. The elevation at the campsite was somewhere around 9300' or so -- higher than I'm used to, to say the least! I also didn't know that we had countryside like that in Arizona; it was all high grassland with a lot of old-growth groves of aspen and Ponderosa pine. Just gorgeous, and great weather, nice and cool which was a welcome change from the heat of the Valley. Not far from the site we stopped at a "scenic overlook". There was a picnic table there as well and a fat little chipmunk that was obviously used to being fed by picnicers. We didn't have anything for him and, besides, you shouldn't feed wild critters, so we just watched him scamper around and eye us expectantly. Finally he came right up to our feet. I was wearing sandals and said, "he's going to bite me on the toe, just watch". Sure enough! He didn't bite hard, didn't come close to breaking the skin or anything, more like tasting me to see if I was edible. (Jokes were later made about me turning into a were-chipmunk since I was bitten on a full moon.)
Anyway! AEK (Arizona Elk Society) was the main group running the rehab and they had quite a spread set up at the site. They'd set up a kind of base-camp with plastic picnic tables under a shelter, established in a clearing plenty big enough for other trailers, right next to a big fire pit. Another member had used his pickup and 5th-wheel to block off a great area for tent camping, so after we'd briefly met the goup we pulled in there and pitched the tent. (I borrowed Kirsten's brand new Taj 3 tent which Steve and I both now want. It's a great little tent.)
Not much happened really that first night. We walked over to base camp to get a chance to really meet the crew and join them for dinner and a sit-down around the campfire. With all the official people (Game & Fish, Forest Service, etc.) plus volunteers plus the guys from the ranch who run their cattle on the allotment, there were probably 25 people total. Not all of them were there that first night, but most were. Most of the guys were retired guys, all hunters with an obvious vested interest in maintaining elk habitat. There were three wives in attendance, but they were obviously planning on staying behind during the day and cooking, cleaning, holding down the camp, etc. There was a woman there with her two grown sons and one from AZ G&F, but mostly the crew was guys. Everyone was really, really nice. All good ol' boys, small town folk. Very friendly, down to earth and all extrememly hard workers, as we found out the next day. The wives had all brought their respective pets: a red heeler, a little black yip-yap dog, and Hondo: a 12-year old, 120+ lb wolf. He was just gorgeous and HUGEMONGOUS. (Pics of him in the previous post.) Initially I wasn't too worried about leaving our things behind at camp but once I saw the "carnivous pony" (as Steve called him), any concern at all vanished.
We ate dinner and chatted around the campfire where Steve and I made the critical error of drinking coffee. We turned in fairly early but neither of us slept too well. Duh. Caffiene before sleep = stupid. It was chilly at night but with both of us in the tent and a pile of blankets we stayed warm enough. The night was gorgeous -- big full moon -- so even tossing and turning wasn't as bad as it could have been.
Next morning we had breakfast and were split into two groups. The main focus of the project was rehabing a couple of springs but there were enough people to branch off a separate group to tear down some unneeded fence. Steve and I were in the spring group and headed off in his truck to the first location. All the pictures of us working in the previous post are from the first spring. The plan was to re-route a natural spring down into the pasture. Apparently the cattle were coming up to drink from the spring where it came to the surface, but that location is prime elk calving area. By piping the spring water down to a trough, the cattle and elk could still go down to drink and the elk could still have their calving location. Everyone wins.
The ranch guys had gone ahead and used the back-hoe to dig a trench (about, I dunno, 250 yards maybe?) from the spring down to the trough for us to lay the pipe in. Not long after we got there, Dwayne used the back-hoe to dig the hole for the culvert, which is where we all came in. First we had to secure the culvert by shoring it up with big rocks and gravel, then we had to set up the pipe intake. Once that was all set we finished covering most of the culvert (except for about a foot sticking up to take in water during floods) and laid the pipe down to the trough. Somewhere along the way a flow-box needed to be put in to give the rancher a way to regulate the water. Then it was just a matter of anchoring the trough and filling in the trench.
It was work. Good, physical labor. I did a lot of hauling rocks to shore up the culvert and helped with the gravel. I shoveled some of it out of the bed of the pick-up but eventually we needed someone up in the truck to help move it down to the tailgate for other people to shovel. I hopped up, planted my butt at the top of the pile, and used my legs to push the gravel down. Talk about a leg workout! Between the gravel pile, tromping around in the muddy ditch, getting splashed with spring water while tossing in rocks, and moving dirty stones into place, I got filty. See:
But it felt really good to do some good, hard work. No thinking, just physical labor. Pick up rock, pour gravel, shovel, push pipe, help move trough. We got it all done before lunch (except for filling in the ditch but Dwayne was going to do that with the backhoe) as well as picking up some extra barbed wire fencing that was in the area. After lunch we piled back into our trucks and drove to the other spring location. This one was easier. There was already a trough in place but it was too close to a campsite so we ran pipe about 200 yards or so out to the middle of the field/clearing to another trough. Another flow-box was put in on that one too. We finished up for the day around 3:00 (having started at about 8:30 or so) and headed back to camp.
Dinner was steak with baked potatos, corn on the cob, rolls, and salad. We ate like pigs. It was cool -- I felt like a farm-hand come in from the field. And ya know -- something about hard work just makes good food taste that much better. After dinner we sat around the campfire telling jokes and stories before we called it a night around 9:00 or so. Slept like babies that night, that's for sure! In fact, we actually overslept. There was a group of guys going back out finish tearing down the unneeded fencing, but we missed them leaving. Ooops! We felt bad but the women (busy cleaning up and breaking down camp) assured us there was plenty of help and we shouldn't worry about it. So we got over it, broke down our own camp, and headed out.
Now Steve's mother lives in Pinetop which isn't too far at all from where we were and his brother and sister-in-law were planning on being there yesterday as well so we figured we'd stay last night up there. His mom lives in a HOA community right on a pond that the HOA stocks with trout so we went out around 5:00 last night and did some fishing. I haven't fished since I was a kid so there was more than a little bit of teaching involved, but I had a really good time. It was like shooting fish in a barrel, really -- the pond was freshly stocked with hatchery fish and we were using bait so there wasn't a challenge, really, but that's probably just as well as it gave me a chance to get used to casting and landing the fish. We released all the fish we caught (which makes me feel a bit guilty as a fish torturer) but it was a good time. Steve was pleased to see me enjoy myself and we're both looking forward to taking some fishing trips together in the future.
We got up early this morning and headed out. All in all, a very excellent weekend. I'm home now, going through backpacks and doing laundry and whatnot. Steve's home as well, getting ready to leave for his 3-week trip to Alaska tomorrow, that bastard. (No, I'm not jealous at all, why do you ask?) Then he'll be home for 4 or 5 days before setting off again, that time in his truck to drive to Syracuse for a while and then off to Wisconsin. He's offered to fly me out to visit him in WI and maybe make the drive back with him -- I have to get exact dates before I'll know if I can do that.
So, yes, home and happy and with another day off before I have to be back at work on Wednesday. Yay!
We left the Valley around noon or so on Friday and drove north. It was about a four-hour drive up to the campsite, not counting a swing by his mother's place in Pinetop for some more tools, etc. The elevation at the campsite was somewhere around 9300' or so -- higher than I'm used to, to say the least! I also didn't know that we had countryside like that in Arizona; it was all high grassland with a lot of old-growth groves of aspen and Ponderosa pine. Just gorgeous, and great weather, nice and cool which was a welcome change from the heat of the Valley. Not far from the site we stopped at a "scenic overlook". There was a picnic table there as well and a fat little chipmunk that was obviously used to being fed by picnicers. We didn't have anything for him and, besides, you shouldn't feed wild critters, so we just watched him scamper around and eye us expectantly. Finally he came right up to our feet. I was wearing sandals and said, "he's going to bite me on the toe, just watch". Sure enough! He didn't bite hard, didn't come close to breaking the skin or anything, more like tasting me to see if I was edible. (Jokes were later made about me turning into a were-chipmunk since I was bitten on a full moon.)
Anyway! AEK (Arizona Elk Society) was the main group running the rehab and they had quite a spread set up at the site. They'd set up a kind of base-camp with plastic picnic tables under a shelter, established in a clearing plenty big enough for other trailers, right next to a big fire pit. Another member had used his pickup and 5th-wheel to block off a great area for tent camping, so after we'd briefly met the goup we pulled in there and pitched the tent. (I borrowed Kirsten's brand new Taj 3 tent which Steve and I both now want. It's a great little tent.)
Not much happened really that first night. We walked over to base camp to get a chance to really meet the crew and join them for dinner and a sit-down around the campfire. With all the official people (Game & Fish, Forest Service, etc.) plus volunteers plus the guys from the ranch who run their cattle on the allotment, there were probably 25 people total. Not all of them were there that first night, but most were. Most of the guys were retired guys, all hunters with an obvious vested interest in maintaining elk habitat. There were three wives in attendance, but they were obviously planning on staying behind during the day and cooking, cleaning, holding down the camp, etc. There was a woman there with her two grown sons and one from AZ G&F, but mostly the crew was guys. Everyone was really, really nice. All good ol' boys, small town folk. Very friendly, down to earth and all extrememly hard workers, as we found out the next day. The wives had all brought their respective pets: a red heeler, a little black yip-yap dog, and Hondo: a 12-year old, 120+ lb wolf. He was just gorgeous and HUGEMONGOUS. (Pics of him in the previous post.) Initially I wasn't too worried about leaving our things behind at camp but once I saw the "carnivous pony" (as Steve called him), any concern at all vanished.
We ate dinner and chatted around the campfire where Steve and I made the critical error of drinking coffee. We turned in fairly early but neither of us slept too well. Duh. Caffiene before sleep = stupid. It was chilly at night but with both of us in the tent and a pile of blankets we stayed warm enough. The night was gorgeous -- big full moon -- so even tossing and turning wasn't as bad as it could have been.
Next morning we had breakfast and were split into two groups. The main focus of the project was rehabing a couple of springs but there were enough people to branch off a separate group to tear down some unneeded fence. Steve and I were in the spring group and headed off in his truck to the first location. All the pictures of us working in the previous post are from the first spring. The plan was to re-route a natural spring down into the pasture. Apparently the cattle were coming up to drink from the spring where it came to the surface, but that location is prime elk calving area. By piping the spring water down to a trough, the cattle and elk could still go down to drink and the elk could still have their calving location. Everyone wins.
The ranch guys had gone ahead and used the back-hoe to dig a trench (about, I dunno, 250 yards maybe?) from the spring down to the trough for us to lay the pipe in. Not long after we got there, Dwayne used the back-hoe to dig the hole for the culvert, which is where we all came in. First we had to secure the culvert by shoring it up with big rocks and gravel, then we had to set up the pipe intake. Once that was all set we finished covering most of the culvert (except for about a foot sticking up to take in water during floods) and laid the pipe down to the trough. Somewhere along the way a flow-box needed to be put in to give the rancher a way to regulate the water. Then it was just a matter of anchoring the trough and filling in the trench.
It was work. Good, physical labor. I did a lot of hauling rocks to shore up the culvert and helped with the gravel. I shoveled some of it out of the bed of the pick-up but eventually we needed someone up in the truck to help move it down to the tailgate for other people to shovel. I hopped up, planted my butt at the top of the pile, and used my legs to push the gravel down. Talk about a leg workout! Between the gravel pile, tromping around in the muddy ditch, getting splashed with spring water while tossing in rocks, and moving dirty stones into place, I got filty. See:
 |
FILTHY! This shirt was white when I started the day.... |
But it felt really good to do some good, hard work. No thinking, just physical labor. Pick up rock, pour gravel, shovel, push pipe, help move trough. We got it all done before lunch (except for filling in the ditch but Dwayne was going to do that with the backhoe) as well as picking up some extra barbed wire fencing that was in the area. After lunch we piled back into our trucks and drove to the other spring location. This one was easier. There was already a trough in place but it was too close to a campsite so we ran pipe about 200 yards or so out to the middle of the field/clearing to another trough. Another flow-box was put in on that one too. We finished up for the day around 3:00 (having started at about 8:30 or so) and headed back to camp.
Dinner was steak with baked potatos, corn on the cob, rolls, and salad. We ate like pigs. It was cool -- I felt like a farm-hand come in from the field. And ya know -- something about hard work just makes good food taste that much better. After dinner we sat around the campfire telling jokes and stories before we called it a night around 9:00 or so. Slept like babies that night, that's for sure! In fact, we actually overslept. There was a group of guys going back out finish tearing down the unneeded fencing, but we missed them leaving. Ooops! We felt bad but the women (busy cleaning up and breaking down camp) assured us there was plenty of help and we shouldn't worry about it. So we got over it, broke down our own camp, and headed out.
Now Steve's mother lives in Pinetop which isn't too far at all from where we were and his brother and sister-in-law were planning on being there yesterday as well so we figured we'd stay last night up there. His mom lives in a HOA community right on a pond that the HOA stocks with trout so we went out around 5:00 last night and did some fishing. I haven't fished since I was a kid so there was more than a little bit of teaching involved, but I had a really good time. It was like shooting fish in a barrel, really -- the pond was freshly stocked with hatchery fish and we were using bait so there wasn't a challenge, really, but that's probably just as well as it gave me a chance to get used to casting and landing the fish. We released all the fish we caught (which makes me feel a bit guilty as a fish torturer) but it was a good time. Steve was pleased to see me enjoy myself and we're both looking forward to taking some fishing trips together in the future.
We got up early this morning and headed out. All in all, a very excellent weekend. I'm home now, going through backpacks and doing laundry and whatnot. Steve's home as well, getting ready to leave for his 3-week trip to Alaska tomorrow, that bastard. (No, I'm not jealous at all, why do you ask?) Then he'll be home for 4 or 5 days before setting off again, that time in his truck to drive to Syracuse for a while and then off to Wisconsin. He's offered to fly me out to visit him in WI and maybe make the drive back with him -- I have to get exact dates before I'll know if I can do that.
So, yes, home and happy and with another day off before I have to be back at work on Wednesday. Yay!
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no subject
Date: 2007-06-05 06:08 am (UTC)*does not make tacky joke about nuts*
I would like to point out re Hondo: OMG SO JELLUS. I wish I'd been there to see him. And maybe pet him, if that was kosher. Also: "carnivous pony" = HEEEEE.
This sounds SO excellent. I'm glad you got a chance to go. And the pics are FABULOUS.
no subject
Date: 2007-06-07 11:44 pm (UTC)