Week 2 at the Oregon Garden!

Well, we are almost finished with work week number 2 at the Oregon Garden! Fun stuff. Stuff we've done this week included:

- Clearing blackberry bushes (they are vicious!) and using the string trimmer to clear brush on a hill near the front of the Garden

- Creating a burn pile near the back of the Garden and throwing brush cleared from other parts of the Garden into the fire

- Using hedge trimmers (one looks like a chainsaw and the other looks like a lance) to level and trim spirea bushes around the Wetlands area of the Garden

- Cutting and bending wire hangers into staple form for later use in stapling burlap coffee bags into the ground (to serve as an anti-weed liner)

- Raking all of the trimmings from the hedge trimmers onto the path and taking them down to the burn pile in Gators

- Transplanting native grasses from one area of ATM Hill next to the visitor's center to other areas of the hill (smelly, smelly stuff since this involved using manure as fertilizer... oh and it was absolutely exhausting cause it involves exorbitant amounts of digging!)

We've been doing a nice variety of work, and it's cool because we get to cycle people through different jobs so no one gets bored or tired. And being the Team Leader is a lot of fun because I get to work all the different jobs and check in with folks to see how they are doing. Our work also provides me with lots  of time to chat with everyone on my team and learn more about them as people. Recently, actually, we have been joking about all of our idiosyncrasies. It's funny because a lot of us are starting to pick up on other people's habits and then take them on as our own. Funny how that happens when you're spending a lot of time with other people.

Good stuff!