Blue Crew spent this week working on various rockwork projects on the Barton Greenbelt of Austin. We quickly learned that rockwork is much harder than we initially anticipated. What started off as excitement quickly became frustration and impatience as we found that fitting rocks together, especially big rocks can prove to be especially challenging. However, Blue Crew did not lose faith, after an evening to rest and reset we came back with a renewed vigor to knock these rocks out of the park.  And we did!

Our second day on the belt we kicked it into high gear, and boy did we get to work. We started knocking out project by project. What was frustrating on the first day became a motivator on the second, third, and fourth. We had people smashing rocks, placing rocks, lifting/rolling rocks (sometimes even boulders), digging holes, refilling holes and leveling ground. It proved to be a week full of fun and a week full of sore bodies.

Blue crew was able to knock out two sets of check steps, a water bar, repairing and rebalancing an armored drain system and creating a new armored drain system.  Our early frustrations ended up as feelings of satisfaction and accomplishment as we learned to love rockwork,,, even though rocks are hard.

Josh Perez – Disaster Response Team Member (Blue Crew)