Volunteer Weekend

November 9, 2008
Tearing down the "blue house"

Arc of Appalachia Preserve System

All photos by Tim Pohlar, Cave Canyon Manager

Sunday. Thirty two sturdy people gathered at 9:30 am to begin the task. Anything seemed possible at this point!

Contractor Larry Brubaker and woods-craftsman Brad Gray described the deconstruction plan and emphasized basic safety rules to the crew while Dru Carr, from Great Plains Film Co, filmed the event for a documentary on the Arc of Appalachia Preserve System he is currently working on.

Larry Henry, Co-Director explained what house demolition has to do with nature preservation!! By the end of his talk, everyone was picturing the seeds sprouting in the old foundation and a prairie reclaiming the land, with crickets chirping and big bluestem grasses swaying.

Larry Brubaker took half of the crew to the roof and the shingles began to fly. Annie McAlpine  (left) gave a frisbee toss to her load. Sanctuary neighbors Kevin Bruce and Norris Carpenter took a break on the roof. Were they talking about politics or the weather??

Brad Gray took his half of the crew inside the house and they began to gut the interior. Slowly the crew worked to remove the mold-encrusted walls, tear up the carpets, and take out the electric fixtures and copper wires.

Whatever we could recycle, we did, sorting the materials into various piles after we carried them out of the house. Here Charlene Howison and Catherine Kendall get down and dirty! It was grim and dusty work at times!!

At lunchtime, Co-Director Nancy Stranahan, Cave Canyon Manager Tim Pohlar and intern Crystal Marvin fed everyone a delightful warm meal of hot Irish soda bread, corn chowder and homemade dream bars - served around a campfire. It was a cold day out there -- only around 40 degrees F. -- so the warm food and warm fire were necessary components to fuel our continued motivation!  Several students from Hocking College were part of the crew, and they added a lot of energy and mirth.

In the afternoon it was back to work. Several hours later the roof was gone, and so were the walls. Land steward Karl Peters (left) hauls a wheelbarrow load of drywall to the dumpster, while intern Teddy Eyster (right) surveys the demolition progression with satisfaction. Seconds later Teddy moved outside the front wall -- just before it gave way due to an undiscovered rotten sill.

With his back to the wall, Teddy had no way of knowing that the wall was slowly careening on top of him. At exactly that moment he bent down to pick up a fallen object -- just as the upper 2X4's went over his head. When he stood back up, the wall was down and he miraculously popped up in the perfect center of one of the framed window openings, completely untouched by it all!! He stared in wonder at all of the incredulous faces pointed towards him with their mouths hanging open. Thanks to Teddy's guardian angels, we completed our day with a perfect safety record!

By 4 pm the house was gone except for the foundation. The following week Tim, Crystal and Teddy returned to finish the job (below) . Mission accomplished!

Volunteer Weekend
November 8, 2008
Removing Cedar trees from Plum Run Prairie

Thanks to the generous help of the Ohio Division of Natural Areas and Preserves -- loaning both a chipper and significant manpower -- approximately twelve Arc volunteers helped to remove hundreds of cedar trees from approximately two acres of tall-grass prairie. Plum Run's approximately 140 acres are almost nearly covered with prairie communities in various degrees of  purity--making the Arc's Plum Run Preserve the largest tall grass prairie we know of in southern Ohio. The forty acre tract that we worked in this weekend has some of the best prairie remnants on the entire farm. Removing the cedars will allow us to maintain the prairie indefinitely by making an occasional round of mowing -- the mower standing in for the the wild animal grazing and occasional fires that would have kept the original prairie relatively free from trees in times of old. With so few prairies remaining in the state, we prefer mowing to fire so as not to destroy the insect, lichens, and reptile components of the ecosystem. In this photo volunteer Charlene Howison is dragging a tree to the chipper.