Saturday 19 April 2008

Work Experience Week Two


Day one lush green weeds.

Day two looking a bit barer.

Day three almost cleared our small patch.Day four not much left.

We finally reached the river that runs beside the property. Yahoo.

What a week. The place that we did work experience needs to be napalmed. It was full of weeds, there were hardly any natives if any, it was dreadful. Our first day most of us wished that we could breath, the pollen, spores and dust were awful. It was like working in a jungle, the heat and humidity were intense. We all left on the Friday feeling very disheartened, the Trust that owns the land are not going revegetate as the land is cleared, consequently the weeds we just removed will be back in 6 months time.

Needless to say I have not had a very educational or moving experience in the field I thought was for me.

I have decided that working with animals and their habitats is where I want to be. I will finish my course and hopefully pass then I will move on.

Friday 11 April 2008

Work Experience








This week I had the experience of working in the environmental industry. Oh what a shock I spent the week mulching a park full of hundred of year old fig trees. It was back breaking work. We had 19 trees to mulch around the park, the first day was pretty easy as we had the assistance from a posy cat (it was like a small bobcat) then it broke down, after that we had to do every thing by hand. In the photos it shows the park and just one of the mounds of mulch (we had seven like that). We had to pitch fork the mulch into wheelbarrows and spread and rake it around the trees and the surrounding area (most days we had 6 people). It was hot and sweaty work but I did enjoy it, I just don't know whether I am capable of doing that sort of work on a full time basis. I am still trying to grasp what I actually learnt from this experience though, I already have learnt through age and time hard work, humility, working as a team etc. and I already know about mulching, I have done that for years so maybe I have learnt that the council gets lots of free labour from volunteers and work experience idiots like me.