Habitat Works Adventure

I spent the weekend volunteering with a non-profit organization called Habitat Works. Saturday night we drove out to a wildlife area less than two hours from Burbank that was so remote we ran into only two other humans all weekend.


Our task was to remove an invasive plant species called Tamarisk from a river. Tamarisk is a plant native to Eurasia and Africa. Here in California it chokes out the native species that actually belong here.

There were about eight of working the river, and we removed over nine hundred of these plants!

Why did I enjoy it?

1. For years I've been trying to help restore the environment. I've been doing that by cutting checks to non-profit organizations, never quite sure how my funds are used, or by writing letters to politicians always afraid that the letters would be immediately thrown away. It was fantastic to make a difference with my own hands and to see a actual results at the end of the day.
   
   
2. I had fun! I enjoyed meeting the other volunteers, I enjoyed camping, I enjoyed being in a remote beautiful location. It was fantastic!
   
   
3. I got to do some exploration. We discovered the undocumented "Lazy Jack" gold mine, along with some amazing artifacts from that mine. We found mountain lion tracks, bob-cat tracks, and black bear scats.

I really recommend checking it out!

Check out this tree -- it has a pipe through it! My guess is that in the 50's a pipe was laid to pump water for mining purposes. The tree grew up and around it. We saw pipe fragments for miles.