Long Time, No Blog

I have not blogged this WHOLE project and i blame this on an upsurdly busy schedule, the fact that I have a boyfriend, and am reading Stephen King. All my time goes to work, eating, Dan, sleeping, work, bathing, and being scared of vampires. This project has been great and I'm both sad and happy to see it go. We have one more week. The kick of being earth day. For earth day we each are leading a team of youngings to basically do what we've been doing around Coralville Lake which is........................
TIMBER STAND IMPROVEMENT!
TSI is us basically taking one huge wooded mountain area. This area was completely covered with invasive species, fallen trees, brush, debris, garbage, you name it. First we were chain saw trained(eh). Seemed scarey at first but turned out to be really fun. The trees that were fallen, we bucked. Bucking is cutting the tree into smaller pieces either used for fire wood or to be thrown in the chipper. The chipper is also my favorite piece of machinery. It looks like this-->
It is incredibly dangerous but SO much fun. After we get all the logs/sticks out of the area we burned it. We set on fire about 15 acres of land. The purpose of this was to get rid of any invasive species that take over the area that kept it from being hikable and basically letting the native species flourish. THEN the area started growing greenery and wild flowers and became aboslutly gorgeous.
This was my day, every day, for seven weeks.
NEXT PROJECT!
South Dakota. We will be in the black hills-->
I am sosossososo excited about this. Mount Rushmore is about 20 minutes from our area and yellow stone is about 5 hours. Out of all the places in the mid west they could have put us, this is the absolute BEST place. The best part is, is that we'll be working on a wild life refuge. They have a lion! and an elephant! I am sosooooo excited.
Alas...I have to go do more work. This round I am Assistant Team Leader and have paper work galore! Miss you all.
-me

Farewell Miss Mary/Life

Yestersay was our last day with Miss Mary and the tears were glistening! I didnt think I would be this sad about leaving this crazy woman's house and never seeing her again but thinking back on it, I grew super close to this woman. Every day when I wanted a little break I would sit with her while she watched general hospital and made fun of it.
Her stories ALWAYS brightened up my day. Yesterday's were the best. She told me about how her and her dead husband Everett met. She was 17 and working at a restaurant. Everett came in drunk and asked for well done seafood. When Miss Mary brought it out to him he said it wasnt good enough. She told him to go to hell and leave then. And then he threatened to get her fired and she said never! When she got off work Everett followed her home to appologize and then they fell inlove.
She also told me how her mother sold her at age 10 which is pretty disturbing. Alot of her stories sound fake but I would really like to think that they were all true.
I really appreciate old people, especially old woman. My favorite womans studies professor told me I would recieve the best advice and most noble words from hanging out with old ladies.
When leaving Miss Mary gave me a bookmark with hearts and a calandar on it along with her address. We plan on writing her often and hopefully getting back there to visit one day. Ill post before and after pictures soon of her place.
Next Project-->South East Iowa-->Burning invasive species. Yikes.

Some More Mardi Gras Pics!

Stephy and I with mucho beads(no we did not flash)

Also...lots of provocative floats

A political float. I Wish I knew more about politics in New Orleans, ro politics in general. They were pretty cool.

Stephy, Shannon, me, and Tim waiting for the first parade of Mardi Gras to start in New Orleans called Krewe du Vieux! Tim is holding delicious ginger adult beverages. He was an amazing host and helped me fall in love with New Orleans.

This is a huge out door art festival. I remember telling Tim I wish they had festivals like this where everyone taught each other their crafts. He said they do and they're called communes. ha!

This is a picture from the Blue Nile. This is me, Steph(my favorite person on my team),David(her love interest), and Griff(a silly ginger on my team who looks alot more silly here than he is, also those are not pit stains, someone spilled on him)

Mardi Gras! Nola! Who Dat!

New Orleans is like no other place I've ever been! Patrick, Griff, Shannon, Steph and I were let out of work an hour early to rent a car and head to NOLA. The three hour car trip seemed like nothing due to our excitement. We dropped the boys off at the La Quinta downtown and the girls and I headed to Tim's house. Tim is a friend of mine I met at Rutgers who goes to Tulane Grad School for social work. A hilarious kid with heaps of stories, the best one about how he managed to hike up with Himalayas with malaria accompanied but a drug cartel and didn't know it.(ask if you would like to know more)The best part about Tim was hos hospitable he was.
He lived in a beautiful old fashioned New Orleans home with his girlfriend and one other roommate. It was a full house due to 2 other guests spending the month there who were also from Jersey/Philly. It sounds silly but there is something about the presence of other people from NJ that make me feel light and at home. We walked in to a Creole themed dinner party! Tim and Serena had made us a creole craw fish etouffee! It was delicious and exactly what we needed. After living in a church/braille school for the last 4 months, a home, with good friends, good food, and good wine(!) is the best thing any of us could have asked for.
That night Tim took us to this place called Blue Nile on Frenchman street. There was a great band playing. Their style could only be described as New Orleans own breed of music and it was fabulous.
Every now and then the singer would throw out there..."Who dem say gonna beat dem saints!", and then the crowd would scream, "who dat! who dat!"
This, "who dat" was incorporated into every song. I have never seen so much sports pride in my life. I guess after everything Louisiana has been through and the fact they they've never been to the Super Bowl really got the crowd going.

The next day we walked around the touristy and not so touristy areas. French quarter is amazing. All the architecture is Spanish which i didn't really understand but it was beyond beautiful. there is so much culture wrapped into this one little city. it is definitely someplace I could see myself living.
Later on we went to an our door art festival which made me miss embroidering and knitting and made me thrive to do something creative. We then got friend chicken and daquaris. This was a good choice.
Later on that night we headed to the first parade of Mardi Gras! For all of you that don't realize how big Mardi Gras is in Louisiana, you should know it is bigger than anything! Mardi Gras technically starts after Christmas and doest end until Fat Tuesday which is translated into Mardi Gras. This parade was called Krewe du Vieux. This is a sexual/political parade so it was very very interesting. Had alot of floats like this. Pretty X rated. This is NOT a parade for the kids.
Alot of the floats were very harsh and political. I guess New Orleans doesnt like the politics going on in their city and they were conveying this through the floats at the parade.
After the parade we floated around the city and had a great time doing so.
In the morning we got brunch and bloody marys and decided to head "home" to lake charles. All in all this was an amazing New Orleans experience and made me like the south just a tad bit more. : )
more pics to come!
cheers

this is miss mary

Oh Miss Mary

This is an article I wrote for the corps paper.

Cedar 7 pulls up to Miss Mary’s home during the first week in Louisiana. The lot basically resembles a glorified junk yard made up of a decrepit house (the reason we were there), tin panels surrounding her whole acre (to prevent forest fires?), and 12 cats. Filled with curiosity, Cedar 7 approaches the back door, eager to meet Miss Mary…and the cats. An 82 year old woman with the mouth of a sailor and the endurance of a 24 year old, Cedar 7 appreciates her greatly, especially her potty mouth. We also appreciate her unloading her guns for us. The guns are to scare off the “pill head boys” who come in her yard and mess with the cats.
We were asked to clear up debris. As we are peeling this debris, layer by layer were received our first batch of authentic Louisiana culture; the bugs. Termites, ants, spiders, millipedes, centipedes, and a scorpion! Kevin, our sponsor, explained to us that these bugs are called “tai tai’s.” While working, Miss Mary is constantly screaming from her window telling us she would grab her “poison” if we wanted to kill the bugs. We politely refrained. In the midst of screaming at us in her Louisiana Creole accent, Miss Mary screams, “Michael! Get off my husband’s grave!” Apparently she buried her husband in her front year some years earlier. Creepy?
The next morning, Miss Mary asked Michael to fix the electricity because she has a lot of lead in her. “Oh yeah is there a lot of lead in the water?” asked Michael.
“No! When I was 17 my husband stabbed me and the lead is still lingering!” Michael smiled awkwardly and continued working.
This woman is full of surprises and the best thing Louisiana has brought us yet! Despite her outlandish stories and threats with guns, Miss Mary is a dime in dozen and a hoot to work for.

Cedar 7 at Holly Beach

Team outside the recovery Center