Round 3 Part 1: Land Heritage Institute

Round three, shuffle round, in San Antonio Texas working with the Land Heritage Institute!

Getting to know Texas very well...

Anyway, the most exciting thing we discovered other than the awesome housing was the fact that two strays lived on property! 

Ameri-Dogs!

Bandit:

and Daisy who was pregnant: 

Bandit (who really lives up to his name) is also an Americorps Super Hero!

Totally Laid back awesome dog, almost adopted twice while we were there:

We ended up with the best housing ever. washer, dryer, four showers/toilets/bathroom sinks, central air, wrap around porch.... just amazing!

Not to mention our back yard had some of the coolest cows ever. Texas long horns! Plus many were having their calves while we were there. Roughly 40 were on the property including one adult bull named Adobe. 

Adobe:

Baby!

They had the most amazing curly horns!

Our first day consisted mainly of a tour of the grounds. It started with visiting the long horns and then we walked along a few of their trails:

One trail that starts off LHI property is the San Antonio bike trail, a 7 mile paved trail.

Our main job at LHI was to build more trails that were geared towards mountain bikes and horses!

Two of the trails we built ran along side the Medina river, for one we had to build check dams to keep rain water from eroding the trail:

Chainsaw!

I even got to name one of the trail!

This is the 'Saddle and Spur' trail in its early stages. 

Surveying

We also assisted in wild hog trapping by building traps:

We ended up catching one adult pig and three piglets.

We also built a garden next to our housing and ended up having to kill a rattle snake:

Apparently if you hang a dead rattle snake on a fence it rains. 

 We tested this and so far it turns out to be true...

We also went geocaching!

Geocaching is basically a world wide treasure hunt using a GPS and coordinates!

Also made Cookies!

 

I had my 21st birthday!! We went to Fiesta Texas Six Flags and then to Olive Garden!

We worked one Saturday because LHI was hosting the Native San Antonio Festival. One of our sponsors awesome friends (who is also on the board that makes decisions for LHI) Hans Let me ride his horse for a little while!

First time on a horse since Americorps started in October last year. It was a blast riding around!

We went to an art museum and met up with a team from a different Americorps program dealing with environmental stewardship. The girl next to me was in NCCC last year and was on my team leaders shuffle team with him.

The Wednesday before we left we went Kayaking and Canoeing on the Medina river. It was quite the adventure, we saw several water moccasins a dead boar and spiders rained on us from the trees, but it honestly was fun!

The day before we left for the second project of our third round Daisy had her Puppies! 

Three black ones and one brown puppy!

Our next project is in Austin Texas with the Center for Maximum Potential Building Systems or CMPBS

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Transition Week

My last blog post ended with me on my way back to Denver to start our exciting next project! I got my first choice, a split project (meaning two different projects for the round). The first part in San Antonio Texas and then the last two weeks of the round will be spent in Austin Texas!

Before I get into that let me tell you about everything that my team accomplished while working with Faith Communities for Disaster Recovery:

Case Management

204 visits 86 completes 27 full intakes 7 no longer need assistance 2 duplicates found

90 files organized to get construction work plans

45 files of client pics scanned into computer and printed

Construction

0.5 acre brush cleared

1500 sq ft painted w/ two coats

20 windows chaulked on two houses

148 sheets drywall installed and mudded

2 entryway stairs built using 30 boards

15 sheets of plywood installed to floor

4 buckets of roofing tar used

1 door waterproofed with 2 coats

3000 lbs of canned food picked up at food bank and delivered to food pantries

1 water tank removed and 1 installed

1 window installed and 1 door installed

21 boards installed for soffits

804 sq ft house shingled using 38 bundles of shingles

10 widows framed with 14 cedar boards

2 doors trimmed and siding installed around doors

65 braces, 42 boards cut and installed as fascia

30 sheets of siding installed to 804 sq ft house

36 ft drip edge installed to roof

800 ft electrical wire installed in 38 electrical boxes

17 bags of donated jackets picked up, moved, and sorted

100 donated blankets, 3 desks, 1 couch and 1 reclining chair moved and stored

7 houses visited to create construction work plans

20 metal studs and 22 ft of C channels used to frame a metal wall

800 ft sq house mudded

85 boards cut to 31.5 in and 30 boards cut to 81 in (2x4s)

2 sheds organized

2 trash bags of weeds pulled from garden 412 Lantana plants planted

8 racks of clothes organized and 87 lunches served at soup kitchen

230 “backpacks” of food packaged and 1 ton of canned goods sorted and marked

12 foot trailer loaded and unloaded of construction debris 2 times (approx 2500 lbs)

40 ft of fence removed invasive vine

10 lbs of suet prepared for feeding birds for 2 weeks

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Anyway, the interesting part of this up-coming round is the fact that all of the teams get shuffled allowing us to work with different people. Next round we shuffle back to our permanent teams

My new team consists of 11 people including the team leader (Todd is still my Team Leader)

On our way back to Denver my permanent team stopped to visit the Cadillac Graveyard (Cadillac Ranch)

 

Then we had a really fun week, Transition week, where we were shuffled and were able to spend time with other teams!

My friends are really weird.

 We went down town to a pizza place called the Mellow Mushroom. One of the things that they offer there is gluten free pizza with vegan cheese and gluten free beer!

I can't drink yet, but my friend Ben is allergic to gluten and lactose, so:

Ben had his first beer and it was the first time he has eaten pizza since he was little!

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Today was our first day traveling to San Antonio for third round! 

I now have a camera that I can take video with!

No photos of my new team yet, but this is some of what I'll be dealing with:

and again:

Until Next time!!

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Some videos from first round! 

(which weren't posted until now because I didn't know how to change the format)

 (Eli doing a Sun Dance so we could help with the prescribed burns)

(Todd my Team Leader helping with the prescribed burn!)

Haley video bombing!

Round 2: Rio Grande Valley Part 2

So the second half of this round was really about the same as the first. Not much changed as far as how we do our job. Since my last blog post I've been traveling to different houses to complete case files. The majority of the clients live in neighborhoods called 'colonias'. Google maps and the Garmin sometimes don't know that these places exist. Sometimes we will get there and not only do we not have a phone number to call but all of the house numbers will have changed since someone was last there. Sometimes the last time a person contacted the clients was back in 2009. A few of the houses we visit the client will pretend to not speak english and they watch us struggle to communicate until they feel that it is safe to talk to us. (or maybe they just think its funny to watch us struggle?) Some don't even answer the door because they think we are border patrol (we are a bunch of white people in uniform driving a government vehicle and our Team Leader wears green like border patrol does). Some of the addresses we have in the clients files lead to empty lots or the client moved and so a different family lives there. We sometimes ended up doing a lot of pointless driving. We literally drive a few hundred miles a day between our two vehicles. That being said, the clients that we do talk to really do need the help. Plus they love us!

The one thing that really bothered me about this area and the culture was how some of the people treat their pets.

Most of the people we deal with can't afford much which is why they need our help to repair their homes. 

Some people have horses, most of them are just tied up and not always with a halter (rope around their neck). 

I asked the construction supervisor about it and he told me that the usually just have the horse just to have one, no real purpose behind it.

And there is all sorts of debris everywhere.

 

The majority of the livestock looked to be in decent condition, but there were a few skinny ones:

  

There were also a lot of stays, most of the people down here do not spay or neuter their pets so there are too many, we met this little guy during this last week:

 

On a happier note:

We finished more of the house we have been working on.

 The roof was shingled a ramp was built (their little girl can get into her house now!) and we started dry walling the inside!

We had a little bit of bad luck.

Two tires had to be replaced on our truck because we ran over debris while going to clients houses. We also cracked both of our windshields and had to get them replaced. No accidents! We still have all 9 of our drivers!

Emily Jones decided it would be a good idea to wear her flats wile completing cases. She stepped into a deep mud puddle. It was really funny. C=

Got some more of my independent service hours done!

Only 3.5 hours left! Hopefully I'll get them done during transition week!

Some of the fun things we got to do were:

Seeing the border wall!

Visiting the Rio Grande River. (Mexico is behind us) :

We visited a local history museum.

Visited the YouthBuild of Brownsville to talk about our program. Then they fed us lunch!

We celebrated Valentines Day by decorating bags and giving each other valentines like we did when we were in elementary school!

Evan Ardeshir is my Valentine!

Went to South Padre Island for presidents day weekend! Rented a few cars and a hotel room! Only seven out of ten of us went.

One thing that south Texas is known for during the winter months is whats called a 'winter Texan'. They are basically old retired folk from a round the country (many are from Kansas) that live all winter in RV parks or hotels. 

They think we are crazy for swimming in the really cold water.

This winter texan decided to stand and watch us for a creepily long amount of time...

Many people decide to drive on the beach on South Padre Island. The car all the way to the left got stuck in the sand. The one in the middle tried to help them out and also got stuck. then the truck to the right came about an hour later and pulled them both out. Oddly enough the more your wheels spin the deeper into the sand you sink...

People also ride their horses on the beach! =D

 

I dropped my phone and broke the screen. I was due for an upgrade anyway, so I got an iPhone for $.99.

Haley's Dad visited us from Austin Texas, came all the way on his motorcycle.

 He bought us breakfast!

Then it was time to leave!

On our way back to Denver we stayed in San Antonio (our first stop). We had to go through a check point. 

This is where the border patrol catches a lot of the drug smugglers.

Once we got to San Antonio we had a few hours, so we went for a walk along their famous 'River Walk' . 

Next Round I'll Be heading back to San Antonio to work with the Land Heritage Institute!

The Denver Campus unlike the other Regions, shuffles all of the teams for the third round.

So I be with a different team. I still have the same Team Leader (Todd) and Haley are still with me but everyone else will be different!

Till Next Time!

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