September 29, 2022 (Afternoon Session):

Today we drove down Gallison Hill to the part of the cross Vermont trail that will eventually pass by U32. We were working on that trail, and assisting Greg, a person who is working on building the trail.

We helped Greg move some lumber to 2 spots on the trail, where it will eventually be used to build railings (to help funnel people onto a bridge, or to help make the edges of the trail clear around a sharp turn in the trail).

After that, we drove a bit more up the road that connects to where we were working on a part of the trail. On that part, there was already a railing on the side of the trail but we were adding a board near the bottom of it (that lined up with the tread of the trail). We had to dig a narrow trench in between the trail tread and the railing, and then we screwed the boards in place.

Next, we nailed erosion felt to the board, so that water coming off of the trail will pass through the erosion felt and only the water will go off the sides of the trail. The erosion felt helps to prevent erosion because water can move through the fabric but dirt and rocks can’t.

Finally, we also helped dig a trench on the other side of the railing (the side where the backslope is). That trench will eventually be filled with large rocks, which I believe is also to help control the water flow coming off of the trail.

This conservation work that we did is very helpful to the local community that lives near U32 and will use the cross Vermont trail when it is completed. It is especially helpful because there is not a lot of funding for this project, so volunteer-work (like what we were doing with VYCC) helps them be able to continue working on this project.

October 6, 2022 (Morning Session):

Today we went down to work on the cross Vermont trail again. We were working on the same section of it as last time where we had been working on the railing. Today we worked on the trench on the other side of the railing from the trail, on the side where the backslope is. We were filling the trench with large rocks. The purpose of the rocks is to help filter the water overflow from the trail.

My main job today was to fill up wheelbarrows with rocks, and bring the wheelbarrows up the path to the part of the trail that we were working on. Then we dumped the rocks out of the wheelbarrows and put them in the ditch on the other side of the railing.

Moving rocks to fill the trench was what I worked on this morning, but other than that other people in the group were still working on screwing the additional boards onto the railing, and nailing the erosion felt to that. (I also helped fill in some dirt on top of where they put the erosion felt.)

October 13, 2022 (Afternoon Session)

Today we were working again on the railings along the cross Vermont trail that we had worked on the last 2 weeks. First we moved the small rocks off of the section of the trail that we were working on, so that it would be less bumpy for bikers or strollers. Then I helped screw in another of the boards that line up with the tread at the bottom of the railing. One problem that we ran into when we were putting on this board is that when we lined it up with the tread of the trail, it did not line up with the board above it on the railing, and so we had to find a compromise of the top of the board being near the tread of the trail, but also having the railing look aesthetically pleasing. Next we nailed erosion felt to the board that we had put in, and filled it in with dirt. The rest of the time, we were bringing up more wheelbarrows of rocks and dumping them on the trench on the backslope of the trail (on the opposite side of the railing from the trail).

October 20, 2022 (All-Day Field Trip)

Today we went on an all-day field trip to Orange, where we helped Winooski Natural Resources Conservation District. We planted bare root saplings in a field alongside the Jail Branch River. I planted 26 saplings total.

Here are a couple of steps of how to plant a bare root sapling:

• First, you dig a square of earth out of the ground, to make the hole where you will plant the sapling.

• Next, you hold the sapling in the hole while you crumble the dirt back into the hole. (You have to break up the clumps of dirt, because if you don’t then there will be air pockets in the dirt and the roots can rot.)

• Fill the dirt in around the sapling up to the top of the roots, but not higher on the bark of the sapling.

• Finally, once the sapling is buried in the hole again, take the grass that you originally took out to make the hole, and break it into several pieces. Place those pieces grass-down around the sapling. (The reason that the pieces are placed grass-down is because the nutrients of the grass decomposing help the tree grow, and also if you put the grass down it will kill it which helps lessen the competition when the tree is first growing.)

October 27, 2022 (All-Day Field Trip)

Today we went on an all-day field trip to a location near the Mad River (I think that it was in Waitsfield), and helped the Friends of the Mad River plant a riparian buffer. Like last week, we were planting bare-root saplings in a field near a river, although it was slightly different because this time the grass in the field was not very high, which was nice because it was easier to see all of the trees that we planted.

One thing that I noticed that was different from last week’s tree planting (each week we were working with a different organization with a different way of doing things, so that is why), is that this week they didn’t have us put the grass back around the planted saplings (last week we put it upside down so it would decompose and give nutrients to the new sapling). They said that we didn’t have to do that this time, which actually ended up being slightly challenging because Nora (one of the crew leaders) and I had to dig a lot of borrow pits (a hole near where the sapling is being planted, to borrow extra dirt from), which took extra work, because we weren’t able to use the extra dirt that was stuck in the roots of the grass clods.

Some of the trees that we planted included willows (which we planted closest to the river because they do best with wet soil), and pines (which got bigger than some of the other saplings that we planted, so we planted them a bit farther away from the river). In between the willows and pines, we also planted other saplings, including silky dogwood and a type of maple.

This riparian buffer helps prevent erosion and improve the water quality of the river but as well, the saplings will eventually provide shade for the water, which improves the habitats for the fish that live there because recently the waters in the habitats have been getting uncomfortably warm for them.

When we were done, we counted the number of trees that we had planted, and it was around 230-240 saplings!

November 3, 2022 (Morning Session)

Today we were back to working on the cross Vermont trail. We were continuing working on the section of railing that we had been working on a couple of weeks earlier. We dug on the trail-side of the railing to make a place to put the bottom railing board, as well as a trench on the far side of the railing, that we then filled with rocks (Mac was the one bringing up wheelbarrows of rocks, but I helped put those rocks over the railing to the other side where the trench was). We also measured where to put the boards on the railing, and measured the length of the boards to make sure that they were the right size, and then screwed them onto the railing. Next we nailed erosion felt onto that, and started filling the dirt back in.

After working on this, we drove back up to the school for the end part of the session, and met with someone from VYCC who talked with us about how to use VYCC as work experience, and how to describe it on a resume. I haven’t started making a resume yet so at the moment this information is not particularly useful to me, but it is good knowledge to have in the future and we had a helpful conversation and got some resources about it.

November 10, 2022 (Morning Session)

Today we were working on the cross Vermont trail again. We were adding more of the curb (bottom board) to the railing, and filling in the trench with more rocks. The skills I did today were: screwing boards, nailing erosion felt to the boards, shoveling, measuring and helping cut (holding the board while one of the crew leaders cut) boards, and putting rocks in the trench. There is not much else to say because we were working on similar tasks as we have when we’ve worked on the cross Vermont trail before, but it was nice and sunny and only slightly chilly, and it was really calm down by the river this morning. It was only Mac, Nora, Lucas, and I, but we got a lot done!

November 17, 2022 (Afternoon Session)

Sadly, today was the last day of VYCC! I am disappointed that it is over, but I had a lot of fun doing it, and I hope that I will be able to do it again in the future. Today we worked on building a bridge on the cross Vermont trail. The group in the morning put the 2 sills in place (big pieces of wood, one on each side of the bridge). We made the stringers to go on top of the sills (this essentially is the supporting structuring of the bridge, and wood planks will go on top for the part that people actually walk on). The stringers are planks of wood stacked on top of each other and screwed together. We made 6 stringers total and then put them on top of the sills - the one on each end had 3 pieces of wood each, and the other 4 in the middle had 4 pieces of wood each. Skills that we used this afternoon included: Carrying heavy lumber, working together with others (especially to safely carry the heavy lumber), using an impact driver to put in the screws (I barely stripped any screws today!), doing lots of lining up the boards to make sure that they were flush (or as close as they could be considering that a lot of them were warped in the middle, or the ends were cut badly), and surviving in the cold (there was snow! - I definitely would have benefited from having foot warmers and hand warmers). We learned how to build this part of the bridge - although it is not the part that you directly walk on, what we worked on is essential to the bridge’s structure. We also learned about the “crown” of a piece of wood, which has to do with where the wood is warped.