So Mississippi isn’t anything I expected. My team is living in two houses on the Noxubee National Wildlife Refuge in Brooksville, MS. When we first walked into what is the girls’ “bunk house” we couldn’t believe it. This is by far, the best project housing any of us have had, and is probably as close to the polar opposite of sharing a hotel room with 3 other people (first project), that we could get. We’re living in a spacious two-bedroom house with large bathrooms, closets, and counter space. We have a free washer and dryer in our house. We also have a large porch with a hammock and we are a 50-yard walk to the lake. The only downside is not having internet and having to drive 30 minutes to town to get it, but I’ll sacrifice that for two months of this.
We are right in the middle of the woods, and there are tons of animals everywhere. On our first day here we saw a bald eagle, a box turtle, a cotton mouth snake, a glass lizard (legless lizard), deer, tons of birds, two very large alligators, and lots and lots of bugs. Between the eight of us, we’ve probably pulled 30 ticks off of us in two days of work so far. I also had the pleasure of getting bitten by 10 or so fire ants today, which is a lot more painful than I expected it to be.
The first day of work (Friday) we were doing boundary marking, so we were scraping and painting yellow strips on trees every tenth of a mile along the boundary of the refuge. After Friday we had a three-day weekend during which we spent a lot of time hiking and canoeing as well as catching up on tv and movie watching. I also started and finished the book “A Walk in the Woods” by Bill Bryson, which was excellent and made me want to hike the Appalachian Trail.
Tuesday we were removing pine trees from a field, which took the seven of us (Avery is at home for a couple days) from 8:30 am to 4:30 pm. We cut the trees down with bow saws and loppers, but the brush was so thick (mostly with pricker bushes) that it was really hard to move around. We would walk from one end of the field to the other in rows, and the brush was so thick and the trees were so tall, we couldn’t tell how close we were to either end. It was always a surprise to come out to the light on the other side. There was also anywhere from an inch to 5 inches of water on the ground which made it extremely hard to move in some places. In the morning it was very hot and humid. After lunch though, it rained which we all thought was great until it stopped and our clothes weighed twice as much and there was even more water on the ground. The second day of doing the same job was pretty similar, except it was hotter, more humid and more pine trees. I also got my boots stuck in the mud as I was walking and fell flat on my stomach in the mud. After lunch, we were down to 6 people because Eddie had been stung by bees and is allergic. People started getting really nauseous and head-achey so Mike decided to end the day early and let people (Joe looked like he was in especially bad shape) rest. They were extremely exhausting days and I am covered in scratches and fire ant bites all over my arms and legs, but it felt satisfying to be that tired at the end of the day.
I think this is going to be a good project for our last one in Americorps. We’re in a beautiful place and we have really great supervisors. I am ready to be done and close to the people I love again, but I’m glad I get to do something like this before I go.
