Green Valley Continued...

Mid-March the trail crew worked toward wrapping up our various projects at Green Valley State Park near Creston, Iowa.  After the internal siding and shingles were added to the cabin, it was time for external siding.  A great idea for providing a rustic look and durable, lasting protection from the elements, this siding was unfortunately quite a challenge for these novice carpenters.  We received some pointers from Mark, the carpenter in charge of the cabin's framing and electrical work, and learned the rest through trial and error (but not too much error, because these panels are costly!)

No idea what we were getting into...

Was it scant?  Or strong?  Oh the precision required 

of this task...

One wall down... you might think this other one looks over half 

finished, but that's where you're wrong.  The final pieces take 

almost as long as the first dozen.

This would be another "almost finished" wall, except

for the fact that cutting that final wedge piece can eat up an

afternoon.  No straight lines here, being stacked on a dozen

other pieces of wood each with their own natural warps

means this final piece needs to be so irregular that it's a task 

best suited to pocket knives.  

So close!

After finishing the exterior siding, the heavens decided to pour.  Some of the crew worked on intensive Asian Lady Beetle habitat destruction back at the house (i.e. cleaning windows) while others waded through the mud moat around the cabin to oil the interior siding, leaving a protective coating that still showcases the natural beauty of the wood.

The cabin still needs some final touches such as a drainage area under the eaves, some landscaping, and a protective coat on the exterior siding, but those all needed to wait for dryer, warmer weather so the crew moved onto their second large project at Green Valley, a check-in stand for the newly renovated campground.  This is where campers will reserve their sites, ask questions, and buy sodas, and it will be the daytime "home" of the campground host.

First wall!

And we have... a frame!

Always looking for ways to cut down on costs and waste, we used

rafters from an old, torn-down building in the park.  Unfortunately, 

this meant an incredible amount of nail-pulling.

 Adam demonstrates how the checkstand will look when it's in use.

Fascia board... harder than it looks, especially with reclaimed rafters

See those blue skies?!  Finally!!!

Back to one of our favorites, roofing!  

We look to be wrapping things up in Green Valley soon, a couple more weeks ought to see both projects through.  This brings us into the long-awaited trail season, and most likely we will head to (somewhat) nearby Lake of Three Fires next, where water quality issues require us to take a look at the popular equestrian trails and re-route or re-structure areas where runoff is going straight into the lake.  Unless somebody finds a (legal!!!) way to dissuade thousands of geese from calling the park home, spiffing up the heavily-used horse trails should do the trick and get the lake's bacteria levels back in check.  

Green Valley Cabin

After a rough start to the month, Trail Crew bounced back to begin working on its next big project: finishing the construction of a cabin at Green Valley State Park. The primary carpentry work was completed while we were working on clearing out and refurbishing the house nearby, and it was our job to put the finishing touches on both the interior and exterior.

The first step was the interior. Fiberglass insulation and a vapor barrier help to ensure that the cabin is weatherized and energy efficient. After applying these, we finished the walls with tongue and groove siding, cut to fit each wall individually. Doing so was a complicated affair with a steep learning curve, but we quickly learned to mind all of the many details associated with trimming a board to have a tight and level fit that was aligned with the boards on the adjoining walls. We also learned to "blind nail" each piece, a technique that hides the nails in the joints of the siding so that the final product is unblemished wood.




After Ceith cuts a piece of siding, Adam blind nails it to the wall. The before and after can be seen on the final photo.

After mounting a mantle above the heating unit, applying the siding to the walls and vaulted ceiling and providing trim to the windows, we moved to the exterior. Siding was again individually cut from stock, this time from log siding that gave the cabin a rustic aesthetic. We also applied drip edges, shingles and vents to prevent moisture from rotting the wood, thereby ensuring that the cabin will stand the test of time.




Adam Delilah and Ceith raise a piece of external siding. After that was finished, everyone moved on to roofing for a day.

Though the bulk of the work is now finished, we still have details to finish on this project. All of those loose ends will hopefully be tied up next week, allowing us to move on to what will hopefully be our first project of spring (is it spring yet? please?). More on the Green Valley cabin, as well as pictures of the final product to come soon!

Oh, February...

Winter has been bittersweet for the trail crew, with some really fun experiences as well as some awful ones.  Many of the past few weeks we've been prevented from working by the weather, which only makes collaborating as a team that is spread over 300 miles that much more difficult.  Some highlights in the past few weeks were:
MLK Day at the Iowa State Capitol, where we got an awesome tour of the most amazing building I've ever seen (HELLO Davenport schools, forget Chicago, you need to take your kids on field trips here!!), got to participate in various service projects (including serving meals for the homeless at Hope Cafe, part of Bethel Mission... very clean kitchen, very friendly staff, and the food even looked good!) and got to meet with our legislators... mine (Phyllis Thede) worked in my high school library so it was great to see her again!

 

House of Representatives

  

House of Representatives' ceiling... WOW

   

Up in the dome... need a tour to get up here :)

 

Looking down from the dome... HUGE drop!

  

They look like paintings...

  

But are actually mosaics!  Some pieces are smaller than the tip of your pinkie finger!

  

The Law Library... yes you are looking at five stories of books! 

  

Exterior shot

  

We had to cut the day short due to an impending ice storm... and it's a good thing we did!  It hit Ames hard, and we woke up the next morning to over a half inch of solid ice on our cars... and I actually caused a lot of damage to mine in trying to get it off :(

 

  

 

The tire is literally frozen to the ground!

  

Poor trees...

  

Despite the awful weather, we did manage to make a lot of headway back at Waubonsie on the former tent pads:

 

Adam painting balusters--easier to paint before you put them on!

  

Cutting out the stairs!

  

Delilah cutting more balusters from a reclaimed 2x4

  

Ceith and Ewan cutting more pieces for the stairs 

  

Matt (Waubonsie staff) and Ceith installing some reclaimed counters in the WaShawtee shop to give us more workspace!

Ceith working on the railing on one of the tentpads

  

99% finished... just needs some balusters for the railing, and a nice coat of paint! 

Delilah, Ewan and Ceith made it to a rescheduled training day in Cedar Rapids for the Iowa Commission on Volunteer Services (ICVS) where we met up with some other DNR/Keepers of the Land Americorps volunteers, as well as got to meet Americorps volunteers from other programs such as Habitat for Humanity, Each One Reach One, and Green Iowa, to name a few.  For our service project we helped move Theatre Cedar Rapids back to their original building downtown which sustained major flood damage and has been restored beautifully.  They were stoked to have 30+ people move their boxes, and we were happy to do it.  It's amazing what you can accomplish with a decent amount of people.  Although we hit a minor snag when we heard our cars would be towed back in Iowa City, we moved them in time and were able to fully enjoy the day.  Here are some photos from a team building activity in which we had a limited amount of time (15 minutes?  20?) to build a self-supporting structure that would contain all team members out of only newspaper and tape:

 

Delilah and Ceith's structure that just couldn't support itself... 

  

This team won two awards... awesome! 

  

Ewan's team on the left won "Most Fashionable" 

The bitter part of our winter involves mostly cars.  Ceith's car is basically totaled from an interstate pileup (in which he also chipped a tooth), Adam sustained major damages to his car in an accident, Delilah's been through two flat tires, unknowingly caused major paint damage by ice scraping, and also was towed in Iowa City (yes, after the runaround to move them, it got towed the very next morning)--all of these things happened en route to work.  We have yet to encounter a week that isn't started late, cut short, or blown altogether by weather and its effect on our cars, but here's hoping it's behind us now.  Already a storm has kept us in today, but hopefully tomorrow Ewan, Ceith and I can join Adam and our boss Michael so we can go to Green Valley State Park and start on a big project.


And our sincere apologies to Joan at Pleasant Creek State Park, we were scheduled to do invasive species removal (a favorite winter activity of ours) and that week was the one with two accidents and the tow.   We do look forward to helping you out at a later date!

The January Scramble

The last 3 weeks of January have seen the Trail Crew in a number of places across the state. Our second week at Green Valley was a busy one, in which we cleared out the vast majority of the material in the basement, as well as the trash and recyclables in the 3 outbuildings. This was a major undertaking, as our only means of accomplishing it was to manually load our flatbed truck and drive to the nearby landfill and scrapyard. A fully refurbished site is now within reach and hopefully more progress will be made in the near future, but for now Trail Crew's attention is being demanded elsewhere, within the park at Green Valley as well as outside of it.


Delilah takes out her frustrations on a (now vaporized) ornament found amongst the trash in the outbuildings.


While shoveling trash out of the outbuildings, this plaque was uncovered. The text reads: "My house is clean enough to be healthy, and dirty enough to be happy".

The third week of January began with our Martin Luther King Jr. service day. Trail Crew, along with many other members of the Keepers of the Land program, spent this day in our state's capitol. There we toured the capitol and met with a representative of the Governor, as well as some of our local legislators, in order to promote awareness of our programs. Afterward we broke into groups and spent several hours at local soup kitchens, homeless shelters and the Ronald McDonald House, assisting the staff with projects that needed attention. This brought us out of our routine duties, and allowed us to have more diverse public service experiences.

Unfortunately, the rest of the week was full of horrible weather, and the Trail Crew was restricted to working at the Shop. Undeterred, we decided to tackle one of the most dreaded Shop projects: scrubbing and sealing the tile floors. Built three years ago, the Shop never had sealed floors, and so the dirt and grime we inevitably tracked in worked itself securely into the floor. We therefore spent the remainder of the week on our hands and knees scrubbing it clean tile by tile. A tedious task, it nevertheless gave us at least a minor sense of accomplishment, as our headquarters is now significantly cleaner and more presentable.


Adam works hard to seal the freshly scrubbed floors.

Our final week in January was initially spent at the shop (again due to unfavorable weather), but we were eventually able to reach Green Valley where we demolished several of the outbuildings and cleared out some remaining trash and hazardous waste. Several more potential projects were presented to us there, but before committing to them, we felt obligated to tie up the loose ends we'd left at Waubonsie State Park. Thus we spent our last two days of the month at Waubonsie, organizing and preparing tools and materials so that we could finish our work on the two tent pads we'd refurbished, as well begin working on the third pad. Hopefully our first week in February will see favorable weather so that we can devote as much time as possible to finishing what we started there.


Adam and Ceith work together to demolish one of the outbuildings as neatly as possible.

Green Valley is the place to be!

After a short winter hiatus, Trail Crew met back up in January to begin a mostly indoor project that would keep us out of the weather for a while near Green Valley State Park, just outside the town of Creston, IA.  The park recently accumulated some adjacent land which includes a house and some outbuildings.  The house still had some belongings in it, and during its vacancy it seemed to have become a refuge to all sorts of six- and eight-legged creatures trying to get out of the weather.  Trail Crew started cleaning right away--many vacuumfuls of Asian Lady Beetles later, the house was suitable for us to stay overnight in, and we spent most of the week cleaning the bedrooms, kitchen and bathroom, and starting to clear out the basement/garage area.  We found all sorts of goodies, including a mounted Amazon parrot, an operational Pirate and Traveler board game, lighting kits, mason jars, an old wallpaper sample book, army clothing, vintage apple crates, countless old books, and much, much more.  Far from finished, we plan to re-use many of these things (particularly tools and crates), and what is still in good shape that we can't use we plan to donate to D.A.V. stores, Habitat for Humanity Re-Stores, and other charitable organizations.

Ceith and Adam cleaning the kitchen

One truckload down...

Hey, all work and no play makes Adam and Ewan dull boys...

We will be returning next week to continue to clear out/repair the house, and we will be able to use the house as a great base station when working on projects in the surrounding area--so expect to see lots of Trail Crew in Green Valley for some time!

Waubonsie State Park and Biodiesel

The Trail Crew spent the majority of the year's remainder at Waubonsie State Park, a park nestled in the Loess Hills of southwestern Iowa, near the town of Hamburg. The Loess Hills are a very unique landform, found only in parts of Iowa, Missouri, and China. The fine particles of the soil allow for the formation of narrow ridge tops and step-like terraces, and can also support vertical cuts into the hills without erosion. These features combine form a very unique visual aesthetic, and make Waubonsie a one of a kind park for outdoor enthusiasts (and outdoor work crews).



A beautiful view from Sunset Ridge at Waubonsie State park

Trail Crew's work at Waubonsie consisted primarily of refurbishing tent pads that had aged into disrepair. These wooden platforms provide a level and elevated location for people to comfortably pitch their tents. Our job was to jack the platforms up, remove the old supports, and then install new ones. Meanwhile, we also constructed and painted numerous wooden balusters to support a newer and more secure railing. As Trail Crew always attempts to use "green" methods whenever possible (and save taxpayer dollars), much of the wood used during this project was salvaged and recycled from structures that had been torn down.







The tent pad seen above, as well as several others in the park, needed replacement supports and stairs. Seen above, Delilah, JB, and Ceith salvage wood from other structures and cut it into the needed components. Meanwhile, Adam and I cut off the overlapped edge of the pad.

The installation of these balusters was delayed by a winter storm, which prevented us from reaching Waubonsie during the second week of December. We returned to the (newly snow covered) park during the third week to finish the work that we began, namely cutting and attaching the railings, and then securing the balusters. We also assisted with some upkeep around the park, including vehicle maintenance, plumbing, and the application of salt to the roads.




Our return to Waubonsie was greeted with a great deal of snow and colder temperatures. Though this made our work more difficult, it certainly added to the aesthetic appeal of the park. A friendly poker game helps us relax after a hard day's work (here I show off my winning hand: a 4 of a kind on the flop, a 1 in 4,164 chance).

With two tent pads completed, and a third ready to be refurbished, we decided at the end of the week that we had reached a good stopping point. Steadily dropping temperatures and freezing rain began to complicate our work and tools, and other projects required attention. However, we plan to return to Waubonsie after winter ends, to finish what we started and to help them with further projects on their wish list.

Our final (partial) work week in December was spent at the Big Creek shop, where we learned about our biodiesel project and the various processes and steps that are involved in the production of biodiesel. This gave us time to leisurely transition into our week off for the holidays.

For our first project in the new year we will be renovating a newly acquired house, along with the accompanying property, near Green Valley State Park in southern Iowa.