Here in Joseph, volunteers have been working hard all week to renovate the city park with some fancy new play structures. My housemate suggested that I volunteer too, since it would be a good opportunity to meet some other people in town. I was happy to oblige, and showed up this afternoon ready to work up a sweat. Since it was the last day of the build, after taking down a few tents, I got the inglorious and delightful task of shop vacuuming plastic shavings out of the grass. I'm certain I made a good impression with the members of my new community, because several came over to either apologize for the absurdity of the situation or laugh about it with me. The lady who vacuums grass, yup that's me!
It actually felt pretty rewarding. I filled several large trash cans with tiny plastic shavings that came from all the playground equipment having been cut out of dimensional plastic. Since the park is directly adjacent and upslope of the Wallowa River, I feel like I've done a good thing for the aquatic community of this town too.
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| The playground build at Joseph City Park. Minimal plastic shavings remain under that Safeway tent! |
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| Slickrock Falls- accurately named, whether colloquial or not. |
This evening I went over to Hurricane Creek to check out the trail conditions, and was delighted to find only a few patches of snow between the trailhead and what I've heard called "Slickrock Falls" a few miles up valley. Spring has barely arrived in that north-draining catchment, with buttercups as the sole bloomers that I noticed. Even the buds on aspen had not burst yet. I wonder if there are glacier lilies in this area like there was in McCall, because that was one of the first things I remember coming up last spring. Animal sightings were sparse too, though I did see a couple hen grouse on the way down Hurricane Creek Road, and Jasper terrorized a jackrabbit along the trail. I'm looking forward to exploring further along down the trail soon.
