Day 5 Garst Springbrook Farm

Just another day saving the bay, The Alternative Break Chesapeake Bay 2016  continued our mission to replant trees such as Dogwood, Oak, Sycamore to repopulate the riparian buffer which aids to filter the non-point pollutants that enter into the waters leading into the Chesapeake Bay. The best day in terms of weather, we were able to bask in the sun at Garst Springbrook Farm and take off the five layers of cloths which we all had on habitually during the week. It was a great day for tree planting! We even had a guest planter Patricia, an Alternative Weekender who made the trip to help us today. We finally came full circle, at Clagett Farms we potted saplings, Today we planted year old trees, and yesterday we did maintenance on more than one thousand trees planted last year on Earth Day. So now we have a well rounded understanding of the tree planting process that occurs at CBF, hopefully we'll be able to see some full grown forests planted years ago. Soooo.... as much fun that was had today at Garst, there were MADDDDD spiderrs yo! Think Harry Potter, Ron Weasley spider scene.. it was sticky situation to say the least but it goes to show you how many creatures survive the same environment and play a roll in the ecosystem. As we went through out the field hammer back down the wooden stacks which held the tree and its protective casing, we quickly learned how fragile these trees were. Having a little under 10 percent of the trees that were previously planted unfortunately didn't make it. It only made us wonder how much time it would take for such a regrowth project to occur naturally. Though today's task was a reiteration of yesterday's service it was a completely different experience. Being the first day in which we camped out on the beach we woke up to a stunning sunrise, this natural alarm clock pleasantly woke  everyone up without any hesitation or without begrudging feelings. Today we worked really well as a team, we finished each task really efficiently in teams and some even had enough time to have a javelin throw competition. We even had a pretty awesome assembly line to pack all the shelters and stakes into D. Tanas' hoopty.  Even the cows were feeling our energy today! We have some hands licked, mucus covered noses pet, even the cats wanted to check us out. We made our last pit stop on our way back to the Merrill center, hearts were set on trying a McShamrock shake for St. Patty's day and they were out, we had to console some of the team on that one! Oh! before I forget, I'm gonna leave my lunch in fridge, and if I forget it.. I'm blaming y'all! ;D

- Chris + Ya-Maila
P.S Dem Spiders doe..
P.P.S Thanks CBF for having us!