See How You Can Help Do you want to experience nature, and learn about imperiled species and wild habitats, all while meeting and working alongside others who love nature? The Nature Conservancy has many volunteer opportunities across Oregon. Find out how you can help! Leslie Reynolds hopes her story of working at Dunstan Homestead Preserve motivates others to action. Along with eight of her closest friends, she's been a Wildthing since the group's founding six years ago. Read more about the Wildthings Learn more about the Wildthings and the important habitat restoration work they do at their Web site, wildthingsgroup.org. The Inside Story on Protecting Nature, our Fall 2008 newsletter, also has more information about this inspiring group, plus updates about the Conservancy's work across Oregon. Download it today!

by Leslie Reynolds

I spent a portion of the summer before my senior year in high school in a way that any girl my age would have loved—on a road trip with seven of my best friends. And while the loud music and superfluous girl talk were still manifest, we traded out string bikinis for overalls and our mascara for machetes, and decided against the sunny beaches of California in favor of a destination with a few less strip malls but a few more stars—a Nature Conservancy preserve called the Dunstan Homestead in Central Oregon.  

We departed for Oregon, our bags bursting with dingy work jeans and pita chips for the car ride. We returned home with similar goodies filling our luggage, plus a few interesting pine cones we had collected, and minus a few t-shirts too sweaty and muddy to salvage.

But the difference in us after our brief week in that small barn in the Oregon wilderness had nothing to do with the tangibles that we took with us. It had everything to do with the new appreciation we had for every native tree struggling to take root; the fresh passion with which we drove fence posts into the ground in the name of protecting a feeble willow; our newfound satisfaction gained from a gratifying machete-chop to an invasive teasel stem; and, the strengthened bond we could only attribute to the absolute togetherness that such a secluded and incredible spot offered our group.

Everything about that lonely wilderness seemed the antithesis of our hometown, the comparably bustling metropolis of Austin, Texas. The endless, clear skyline, unobstructed by buildings and bridges. The 150-mile radius between us and the nearest Starbucks. Even the view from the quaint little outhouse looked out upon a rippling grassland, lit ablaze in gold when the sun set.

Our goal had been to select a location in which we could be put to use removing invasive species or doing habitat restoration. We could think of no place more deserving of a kind human hand to protect its natural beauty and untouched splendor than the Dunstan Homestead Preserve.

During our short stay in Oregon, we were fortunate enough to be able to share in the great responsibility of undoing some of the damage that we—our country and our species in general—had inflicted upon the surroundings.

We mixed mud to create straw clay slip to efficiently insulate a house on the property. We pulled clusters of weeds that blanketed the hillsides. We hauled piles of lumber until our backs stiffened and our gloves filled with sweat. And even so, Jerry and Margaret, the couple living on the homestead who had worked in forest management for years, always put our young bodies to shame by out-hauling, out-weeding and out-mixing us, without the slightest hint of a complaint nor a minute taken to rest. But for us, any injury we procured while working could be instantly soothed with a dip in the fresh stream that babbled in peace behind our house.

One night, we set our alarm for 4:00 a.m., and begrudgingly dragged ourselves out of bed at its caustic trill. With our sleeping bags and flip-flops, we watched a meteor shower, from the best seats in the house. This display of so many stars had become a rarity, as light pollution had caused even this celestial phenomenon to become seemingly endangered itself. “What a blessing,” we thought as meteors blazed down from the heavens in every direction, “that we are lucky enough to be in such a place at a time like this.”

When we left from Oregon, we were told that we had done great work. We were told that our efforts had helped to preserve this hidden Eden, and that we were “doing our part.” But to us, our work is not some self-aggrandizing means to feel fulfilled. It is merely what one does when confronted with such a splendid place in need of relief. Take it one step, one weed, one fence post at a time, and allow for a few breaks to watch the stars in between.

Leslie Reynolds is a high school senior and a Wildthing.

All photos this page © Wildthings