Amanda Gauna
Registered: December 2008
Posts: 1
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In need of change
Amanda
On Thursday July 3rd I realized I would be doing something that would maybe only minimally impact our world but make a big difference for our bosque.
My summer English 11 teacher Kristen Christy gave us the opportunity to go and plant trees in the Bosque after a fire that took place in 2004 had burnt down a pretty big area in the Bosque. She told us of this assignment on Monday of that week and on Wednesday Jeff Sipley an educator with tree New Mexico educated us more on the types of trees in the Bosque and the Rio Grande and how it is deteriorating, he also educated us on what it was going to be like to plant the trees and different organizations that go out and try to restore the Bosque, although the lesson was helpful I still found it might be easier to get the hands on experience.
That Thursday morning I woke up late and stupidly put on flip flops instead of closed toe shoes, after arriving on scene I realized that the fire did so much damage and it looked horrible, with the exception of a few trees that the fire didn’t burn down, Martin Martinez a park ranger with open space was our tree planting guide and he gave us a mini lesson on how to scarify the roots and put the tree In the hole and different plants that inhabit the Bosque, he also told us of the Russian olive trees and how they are a invasive species. Mr. Martinez noticed I had flip flops on and I inherited the nickname “the flip flop queen” I felt so embarrassed by this but after a while I just got used to it.
I was paired up with Janet Avila and Lisa Harmon (go team Lisa!)
We planted six New Mexico olive trees in three hours, while we were planting is was really difficult to actually dig the hole because of my flip flops and there was a lot of clay and roots in the ground which made the hole digging process even harder!
Although it was very hot and very tiring I knew I was helping my environment and ultimately my world. Us and the other groups even made a little contest out of it to see who could plant the most trees. Jacob and Adrian won and planted ten trees.
After planting these trees we decided to go for a walk to a pond off in the distance and while we were walking we saw a coopers hawk nest and the coopers hawk flying away from the nest. When we finally got to the pond we saw silvery minnow; a species of fish that are endangered because the river cannot flood like it naturally should. We saw jetty jacks that were put in the river in 1958. The jetty jacks cause the river to not be able to flood, after learning more about jetty jacks and how they cause the river not to flood Martin Martinez told us of how they are trying to get the jetty jacks removed from the Bosque.
We walked farther to another pond like body of water and saw baby frogs and turtles. There is so much wild life in the Bosque and to see people destroying their habitats made me pretty upset.
Today so many people take our environment for granted and do harmful things to it, like littering, not recycling, and causing fires that destroy our Bosque! All of these things are so destructive to our environment and people don’t realize it, or just don’t care. But by doing small things like planting trees in the Bosque, or recycling, or actually caring it can help keep our world going and healthy for a long time.
Doing this small thing has made me realize that I want to do things to change my environment and my everyday life. I felt so accomplished and good about my self after that day, it made me feel like I was doing good things for the world.
Over all this experienced opened my eyes to so many different things that happen in our world and in our state and it made me change my ways and caused me to appreciate the environment and the world a lot more. I enjoyed the experience so much that I want to go back and do it again in the future.
I think that everyone would get a similar experience by going and planting trees, it’s a lot of fun and you really get a good look at everything that our world has to offer besides material things.
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