“Mending fence for room and board”*
Posted on June 13, 2007 - Filed Under And your point is?, Adult swim, Travel
*”Six-Year Drought” by James McMurtry. This guy is very quickly becoming my new favorite singer-songwriter. His voice, lyrics, everything–he is just awesome. If you have any leaning towards roots rock, take a listen.Â
As Erin mentioned, I spent the weekend traveling to and working at the Andrus Wildlife Management Area near Cambridge, ID. It was part of a volunteer project with the Idaho Department of Fish and Game. Our basic purpose was to replace old broken down barbwire fences so that cattle won’t go where they shouldn’t. (The politics of ranching and grazing are pretty thick out here. When you think about it, it’s the bread and butter of both sides: The conservation groups are donated to, etc. by people who want them to work to preserve the land and the ranchers need to feed their stock so they can feed themselves. So, of course there’s going to be a constant struggle between the two sides.) It was very physical work; in fact, it would be very safe to say that I haven’t worked as hard as I did on Saturday in a very long time.
The social aspect was pretty satisfying as well. The people I worked with were relatively young and energetic. There were two groups–one of three females and another of eight males–and me, so I was definitely the odd man out. But in these kinds of situations, that doesn’t bother me because I know that lack of comfort is more than canceled by the good I know I am doing. We had a long car ride there Saturday morning, which was very good because it afforded the opportunity to grade some papers. We got there and pretty much got right to work, really humping it for about 6 hours. We headed back to the little compound they have there for the WMA staff and had ourselves a pretty good steak dinner. We then moved to the campfire for beer and (don’t tell Erin) s’mores. As the beer flowed more easily, so did the conversation; people were getting goofy, to say the least. We all crashed around midnight and got up around 7am. We ate breakfast and went out for another 2 or 3 hours of work (it began raining, so they cut us short a bit). We left right at noon for the very long drive back, on which I got even more of my papers graded. I was back home by 4pm Sunday. All in all, it was a good time.
Why do I tell you this set of kind of boring details? Well, partly so I have justification to write about an ethic I want to live by: If I am going to spend time outdoors enjoying myself (hiking, camping, hunting, etc.), it is my obligation to also give back. There’s a lot of work to be done out there if nature is to be preserved and by taking and not giving back, we are just making that debt even larger. How am I going to enjoy myself now that I have earned some time to do so? Well, I have my eyes on a basic mountaineering course being offered here locally, similar to this one run by NOLS. It is 5 days of mostly high-altitude (12,000-13,000 ft.) hiking and trekking in the Wind River Range in Wyoming. It’s pretty much one of those ‘once in a lifetime’ type of things. It’s only $200 and that includes all the gear (except for clothing, boots, and food). I really want to do this and it might just happen; the only real possible show-stopper right now is not having someone to cover me in the classroom for one day. Anyway, that’s coming up over Labor Day weekend. I guess we’ll see how it all shakes out.
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