6-22-2026 Glenwood day 3

 Today I slept in a little longer even though I didn't think I was going to, but time goes on. We had what felt like a very slow morning even though I slept in. We kind of took a bit of time to eat our cereal and get our lunches ready before we had to head out to the gas station again. We left a little early after cleaning everything up to use the wifi here at the gas station. We met up with Jeanette Burkhart, David Lindley, and Gerard Foley to go into the closed area for the Yakama Nation and go start putting up man made beaver dams and help restore this stream to get beavers to come back to the area. Where we parked we could see this tree that was dead and burnt and they told us that the Cougar Creek fire ran through there and that it was started by a lightning strike near here at Glenwood then it made its way to the meadows there. After we got to the site we sat and did introductions, Jeanette said she is the Watershed planner then David Lindley said he is the Habitat Coordinator, and Gerard Foley said he is a Habitat Biologist but sometimes his title changes with what he is doing. Then we got to work.

Some of us put on waders and the rest of us were in charge of cutting the trees branches, making stakes out of some of the thicker branches, and giving them the cut branches and trees when needed. It was going to be a long day but this is what I was made for, to do work and whatever I can to help. We started building this dam and we all did really good splitting the work and figuring it out, Jessica even got in the water to help at some point. We were trying to help the best we could to do each job diligently, I got to help Jeanette when she would ask if anyone wanted to help do a new task. I got to learn how to cut stakes, what to do with the small willow branches, and what to do with the long sticks we had to put together to put near the dam to see if they would sprout. After a while of doing work and learning new things we had lunch and Jeanette talked to us about what would be the biggest tributary near us, but we all had our conversations. Then before lunch really ended we had to get some soil samples from behind the stream in the wetlands, which was really hard at least for Lovey. We all went over there to help collect and do the tests that don't require actual kits for testing, and it was actually kind of nice. There is me, Lovey, Leah, Sergio, Phabian, Dallas, Gavin but we also had Jessica, Monet, Salvador, and David with us. After we sampled we came back and kind of just got right back to work, Jeanette needed help bundling and putting together these willow trees to put in the water to try to grow it and see in about a year if they do grow anything at that point. After a while of working Gerard and David ended up coming to also help finish what we were doing, and after a bit of time Jeanette talked about the dam they had built the year prior and Jessica went to check it out and see how it was doing. It turned out that it wasn't really made properly so we went down to touch it up a bit before we left. 

After a bit of packing up and moving to the previously built dam we packed up our stuff and headed to the trucks they brought us in. When we got back we shook hands, hugged, and thanked Jeanette David and Gerard for showing us the dams today and showing us how they were working to restore the dams for the beavers. Now we are back at the gas station and trying to do these blogs and shower while we can before we leave for Deschutes tomorrow morning. So stay hydrated and enjoy the pictures I took today. 






















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