k6kakaley
Registered: October 2008
City/Town/Province: redford
Posts: 1
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On March 1st at 8:00 p.m., we set off for our reforestation project across the country. Now you are probably wondering who is “we”? Why so late? Where across the country? What are you doing? Well, don’t worry I will clear that up for you right now. I am a member of Alternative Spring Break through Western Michigan University. I and 10 others were chosen to go all the way to Southern Pines, North Carolina from Kalamazoo, Michigan (yes, there really is a Kalamazoo!), to volunteer with tree reforestation for an entire week. That is a 16 hour drive across the country, with 10 people who you just met that you will be stuck with the next 168 hours (7 days at 24 hours in each day, get it?)! Luckily we had 2 vans; but man was it a hassle to fit everyone’s luggage for a week in those vans! Anyways, after the long haul of a drive and several hours of playing the license plate game we arrived at the Rockefeller house, where slept and cooked are own dinner at night. Let me tell you, I never believed in ghosts until I stayed in this old mansion! Well, anyways, after the unpacking, exploring, and learning about the area, we set off on our ongoing week’s worth of reforestation. The first few days we helped out with controlled burns in the National park. This was so interesting to learn about. Smoky the bear may want to prevent wild fires, but without some fire in the forests they will be overgrown and the natural plants will not be able to grow to their full size! The trees that we were trying to save were the longleaf Pine trees. These trees once filled the South of the United States, but after years of people cutting them down they are now becoming very scarce. Therefore, the nature conservatory is trying to repopulate the Long-leaf Pine trees! By doing the controlled burns, they are able to have room to grow and expand, without being taken over by weeds, and other trees. The controlled burns are a very tedious process; not only does the wind have to be low so the fire does not spread outside of its controlled area, but the temperature and humidity have to be just right or the burn will not happened correctly and a disaster could happen at any second. After two days of doing controlled burns, we set off to plant Long-leaf Pine trees in areas that have been cleared previously. Now the Long-leaf pines trees that we were planting were very small, they looked like a carrot; the dirt and roots resembled the actually carrot, and the 6-8 inch needles of the pine resembled the greens on top of a carrot. These trees may seem very small right now, but about 5 years they will be about 5 feet tall, and in about 100 years or more than grow to over 70 feet in height! Anyways, over the 4 days of planting trees for several hours a day; as a group we planted 30,000 baby long-leaf pine trees! I hope to come and revise the sites where we have planted these trees in several years to see how they have grown! I have never felt too accomplished and good about my self after this trip was over. This trip was not only a ways to get in touch with nature and really learn what goes on out side of the city where I am from. Also, before this trip I did not know anyone or anything about reforestation; now I have 10 new great friends and enough knowledge to encourage people why it is so important to help out with environment!
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