"Guns N Stuff? I'm going to go in and ask for a lemonade!"

Yesterday was our first service project and I was very excited. We were told we'd be doing some gardening at a local school for about 8 hours. I'm sure many of you know how amazing my green thumb is (more like, what is a green thumb?) but I was pumped. I got to break in my new work boots and garden gloves like nobody's business.

We showed up to the school which turned out to be an Adult School for adults with special needs. We started doing some light gardening in one of the classroom gardens by pulling weeds, raking leaves and composting. Midway through our leader found a black widow spider. I had thought that these deadly spiders were huge but it turns out that they really not that big at all. Which means I could have been digging around in them the whole morning. Sure enough, the more we gardened the more we found. THREE black widow spiders. Three. ::shudder::

We did the most we could without working in the flower beds after that and moved onto the larger garden. It was a huge area...walking trail, picnic tables, wooded area, bocce ball courts, greenhouse, etc. They walked us over and pointed to this monstrosity. A blackberry/pricker bush from hell which was 16 feet long, 8 feet tall and at least 6 feet deep. The man from the school asked us to get rid of it. I was fricken pumped. I grabbed some big bad ass clippers and just dove in. I was such an awesome feeling to throw yourself into something really difficult and new. I mean, this beast had ridiculous thorns and vines and just ripped my leather work gloves to shreds. You couldn't rip out a section wtihout hitting another team member and ripping their skin off. By the time our project had finished, I looked at my arms and it was as if I'd had been dragged on my forearms across razorblades. I mean, my war wounds are pretty impressive. (they're not too fantastic today as all the redness, swelling and blood is gone from the wounds so a photo wouldn't do it justice!)

After tackling the bush came the hardest part of the day. It felt like a Biggest Loser challenge (if you're familiar with the show). There were three pallets of cement blocks of 50lbs each. It was our job to carry them from one end of the garden to the other and restack them in pallets on that side. This was also when the hot California sun decided to show up and hang out for a while. Intense sun, 50lb cement blocks and a nice stroll through the garden. But we did it. Hell, I even did it. The head of the garden said that he and his two helper boys move one pallet a month while we moved three in one hour. The feeling of accomplishment and having helped so much was overwhelming. Our team is just so amazing. Without planning or anything we just fell into a fully functioning system with each person taking a roll and helping each other out. I spent the entire three hour pricker bush removal time just laughing because our group is so funny. We've got a pretty diverse group with two from Michigan and our leader from Minnesota so I'm among friends. Most of our group is pretty young (at least four of 12 being just 18 out of high school and more still under 21) and we figured out last night I'm the oldest. OLD LADY!

Our sponsor was surprised with how quickly we worked and sent us for the last hour to remove some invasive species from their nature trails. (Oh Blazel, how you would have LOVED this work!) However, the invasive species wasn't something like garlic mustard, they were trees! I grabbed a shovel and started digging those suckers out. I did about five on my own and after the guys broke about two of the shovels, they took mine from me and I just carried out the trees to the rubbish pile.

We were exhausted, dirty and all cut up but it was so awesome. Our team leader rewarded us with a stop and In and Out burger on the way home. I heard so many great things about it but seeing as how I don't like beef hamburgers too much and that the fries were so natural they didn't taste good to me, I'll keep my opinion to myself. :) However, the chocolate milkshake was GREAT!

Today we have some time off because our classes are scheduled for Monday/Tuesday and then we have our physicals today. Which pretty much means uncomfortable violation of personal space and team bonding time. Nothing like that to bring a team together. :) Tomorrow is a free day which I will be spending catching up on sleep. I only get 6 hours a night even after all the work yesterday so I think I'm allowed some time. Our schedules change hourly and we only know 1-2 days in advance so I can't preview too much of what's to come.

I miss you all and hope everyone is doing well!

Cheers!