Work, Wood, and Bald Eagles.

So My time here at Vashon Island is coming to and end. We only have a week and a half until we leave. My feet are getting a little itchy to move on but at the same time I really have loved my time here. My activities have been pretty average, basically every day we take out the chainsaws and go to work on clearing all that defensible space I was talking about earlier but the place we live is so beautiful and the people we work with are so awesome that I am a little sad to leave.

There are five other staff living here on camp grounds too and three of them come down to our hang out place (we have a basement that is our dedicated chill place, it has kitchen, a fire place, lots of mice and could also be called a museum of couches through the ages) and chill with us all the time.

I definitely will miss hanging out with all of them but even more I will miss the landscape and community. It is the most amazing thing to be able to wake up in the morning and see bald eagles flying over the ocean as soon as you walk out your front door. Because there is rain and moderate temperatures all year round the forest grows all year round and is lush and green. The wilderness rises up on a ridge and really dwarves the camp. The forests here are full of fir and cedar trees three to four feet in diameter, ferns taller than me and the beautiful tropical-like broad-leafed evergreen, Medrona, which i think is my new favorite type of tree. Paths wind in and out among the trees, and there is enough land that you could hike all day and probably not see it all.

The best thing about being swallowed up by all of this nature is the amount of wildlife that I see daily. On average I probably see 10 deer, 2 raccoons, 2 otters, 2-4 Bald eagles, and a bunch of different bird species, daily. I love it.

Last week I saw something that I don't think I will ever be blessed enough to see again. It was about 7am and I was just finishing up my PT and stretching. I was inside our basement hang out place (its called Shutanka) and as I stretched (I think specifically I was stretching my quads), I was looking out the back windows of the room, which opens straight up onto the beach and the puget sound and as I stretched I noticed a little otter head swimming through the sound towards me. I watched it and as it reached the beach I saw that it was carrying a big fish; he struggled to pull it up on shore. Almost a soon as he was on the beach, there was a a fury of movement as a huge male Bald Eagle swooped down right in front of my window and started battling the otter over his fish.

I knew bald eagles are huge but I don't think that anyone knows exactly how big huge is until they see one up close. His wing span was wider than mine, his talons bigger than my own fist, he could have easily picked up a small dog in each of his feet. The otter, in seeing his enemy sweep down, sort of dropped and rolled out of the way, clutching his precious fish. The eagle, beating his wings so hard in order to stay hovering, so hard he was probably making the sand under fly around, dived and grabbed out twice for the otter but the otter escaped safely into a drainpipe that was sticking out the rocks onto the beach. The eagle flew away empty handed, no fish.

Ok well from request from the commenters of my last post (which I now was almost a month ago) I was asked to define why I like chopping wood. Ok well first off chopping wood is a lot better than using the chainsaws because the saws are so loud and heavy and there is so much exhaust. But that point aside, chopping wood is like a challenge and also there is such a feeling of satisfaction when you split wood. Because each stump is a puzzle kind of. You might have a big log a foot and a half in diameter and two feet high and depending on where you place your wedge or where you hit the log with your maul you could split the whole thing in only a couple whacks or you could spend like 20 minutes on it if you can't find the weakest spot. I dunno I just like watching the wood pile up next to me ahha

OK Well I have a lot more to so, about planting trees, murals and my next project so I promise I will write soooon!