Journal Entry #6

Tuesday, Mar 24, 2026

Our first day at the Nature Reserve! It was a warm day, but it almost made it more rewarding. Sweating made it feel like we were doing some real hard work. I had a lot more fun than I thought I would. Watching our pile grow taller and taller was satisfying (our first pile pictured below).

I was thankful to be cutting bamboo of all plants. Some plants give me quite bad allergies, but bamboo was extremely manageable in the allergy sense. Additionally, it was not super pokey, which made it easier to work with and drag around. I have never seen small, baby bamboos so that was also interesting to see. It was crazy to see how much land they had grown over. Invasive species always spread like wildfire, so I can imagine it is difficult for them to manage in such a large area. I have another level of gratitude for my parents now who take care of our land in Montana. But I also can see how it can be sort of fun and like I mentioned earlier, satisfying. Unfortunately, in Montana, the invasive plants are not as easy to work with as bamboo. I believe their exact name is Yellow Toadflax, but we can them Satan’s Seedlings because they cause rashes on the skin and their seeds drop so easily when you pull them out. All that to say, I was quite thankful to work with just bamboo. 

Last quick note, after spending the day in a classroom, getting outside in the sun and fresh air was amazing. Even thought we were sweating and doing more manual work, it felt like a brain break which was quite needed. 



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