They worked Friday amid the aged cabins, sheds and tangled apple trees of the Moon-Randolph homestead, which lies at the end of a narrow, winding dirt road amid Missoula's North Hills. They turned the earth in the decades-old garden, mended crumbling sheep fences and trimmed branches from the ancient orchard.
"The best thing is it's a hands-on historic site," said Molly Moody, a community organizer with the North Missoula Community Development Corp. "It's not a 'do-not-touch' place. They can really engage in it and get their hands dirty, get the feel for what it takes to manage a farm."
"It's going pretty good," said Becky Heino, 18, taking a short break from hand-turning the earth in the garden. "I'm learning to appreciate a lot of what they did back then."
She and her classmates were digging, weeding and sweating with other youths across the nation as part of the 17th annual National Youth Service Day, actually a three-day celebration continuing through Sunday.
"It's really a day to celebrate the amazing things that youth do for their communities year-round," said Karen Daniel, director of National Youth Service Day.
Sponsored by Youth Service America, the day is set aside for 5- to 25-year-olds to volunteer in their communities. This year, Daniel said, "several million" volunteers in the United States will work in soup kitchens, adapt alarm clocks for the hearing-impaired and organize disaster relief for tsunami victims, among other activities.
"We know that this generation of young people is serving at record rates," she added. "We've never had a generation serving as much as this one, and yet many people don't know that."
Six years ago, National Youth Service day spun off into Global Youth Service Day, which helps organize volunteers across the globe.
"Our youth are really important to a healthy community. High school students kind of get a bad rap," said Mary Cannon, whose $1,000 State Farm Good Neighbor Service-Learning Award funded the Missoula project.
A coordinator with Sentinel's Flagship Program, Cannon was chosen by Youth Service America to be one of 100 award recipients for her proposal to involve teens in the homestead's spring preparations.
She had brought a smaller group of Sentinel students to the homestead for National Youth Service Day last year, but was able to spend only a few hours there. They had time to work in the garden and build a scarecrow, but Cannon left feeling she could do more.
"I wanted to make it bigger and better," she said.
The Moon-Randolph homestead was one of Missoula's first homesteads, and now it is Missoula's last, Cannon said. That makes it the perfect place for students to learn about their local history and how to preserve it, she said.
The history of this homestead began in 1889, when Ray F. Moon filed a 160-acre claim in the hills north of Missoula. The place was sold to the Randolph family in 1907 and remained in their hands until 1996, when the city of Missoula bought the property using open space bond money.
A few years later, Caitlin DeSilvey founded the Hill and Homestead Preservation Coalition, which operates under the sponsorship of the Northside development group. DeSilvey, author of a history about the homestead titled "Butterflies and Railroad Ties," will become the ranch's full-time caretaker starting in July.
"The goal is to go back to the way it was, to make it a working farm again," Cannon said, adding that the coalition works with Missoula's Parks and Recreation Department to manage and maintain the historic site.
Because repairs and maintenance are funded through donations, the orchard is vital. That's where the community is invited every fall to join in the harvest.
"Oh, Dan, be careful!" cried Sentinel teacher Kris Owen, watching a student perched among the branches of an apple tree with a long pruning saw in hand.
Owen teaches career preparation, a class that requires each student to log 15 hours of community service. She and fellow teacher Karen Stegner usually encourage their students to find ways to serve the community on their own - but when Cannon approached them with the homestead proposal, they found it too good an idea to pass up.
In preparation for the project, students were asked to research native plants, learn how to do some farm work and organize task groups.
The orchard is home to nearly 50 trees, half of which had been trimmed by the time the students broke for lunch.
Dan Drazan, a 16-year-old junior, said he learned how to prune trees during a class visit to Caras Nursery. Despite having no prior pruning experience, he talked about tree-trimming like an old pro.
"Fruit trees are different from pine trees because you want the branches to grow down so they're easier to reach," Drazan explained.
The teens also learned about what kind of plants would thrive in the garden: hardy, native varieties that require little attention. They decided on bitterroot, smooth aster, scarlet gila - and catnip, to attract cats that would keep ground squirrels at bay.
Part of the gardening crew in charge of turning shovelful after shovelful of earth, then raking it smooth before burying the seedlings, Caitey Fraiser, 17, was cheerful about her first-ever gardening experience.
"It's been a lot of fun - a lot of work, but fun," she said.
The plants her class chose will line only a small portion of the garden, soon to be filled with hardy vegetable crops like onions, potatoes and carrots. Around the same time, the adjacent pasture will be filled with a flock of sheep.
But sheep won't stay put on their own. Given the chance, they'll escape - as they did two summers ago, Moody said. That's why another group of Sentinel students went to work on the fences surrounding the homestead.
Fortunately, a few students already knew how to fix fences, either through their involvement in agriculture education programs or from prior experience. Fencers had the added help of a community volunteer, local carpenter and contractor - and Cannon's fiance - David Morgan.
For Matthew Olivarez, 18, the fence project was a piece of cake. He'd already researched and built a fence for a historical project last year.
"My Eagle Scout project was rebuilding a parameter around a historical ranger station in the East Fork," he said.
Unfazed by the technical aspects of fencing, Olivarez explained that much of the day's work was self-evident: "This is what it's supposed to look like - do it."
But before the physical work could even begin, three students set about organizing a media blitz. Student Raina Pruyn helped track down the phone numbers and addresses of elected officials and media groups so her group could send letters to everyone from Gov. Brian Schweitzer to Missoula County Commissioner Bill Carey.
While Schweitzer didn't make it to the homestead, Carey accepted the invitation to spend a morning with the students. The opportunity to work with some high school kids appealed to him, he said. Also, he'd never visited the ranch before, and was pleased to discover the ranch is only four miles from his home in Missoula - just the right distance for a bike ride.
"Hopefully, it'll become a nice resource for people in the community to come see what this way of life was like," Carey said.
Having had a dose of what early 20th century life was like, the students seemed eager for more. Already they're planning a return trip to the homestead to see what their work has wrought.
"It's just really fortunate that the Sentinel students could be here to jump-start the season - 'cause there's a lot of work to be done," said Moody.
Cannon's hope is that the students' involvement with this particular project will spark a lifetime of volunteerism. And always, the Moon-Randolph homestead will be there for these students to return to, a place where they can physically see the difference they've made in their community.
Said Cannon: "I like the idea that you can come back up here and see how it's progressing, see how it's growing."
Tyler Christensen is a journalism student at the University of Montana and an intern at the Missoulian.
The homestead
The Moon-Randolph homestead will officially open for the season May 1 and remain open until Oct. 31. During that time, the public can stop by the ranch for a tour. There is still plenty of work to do - the hope is that the homestead will one day support a museum and retreat, and serve as an educational tool not just for students, but for the entire community.
|
 |
 |
Add your comment now! Write your comment in the form below.
(Email address is for verification only. If you'd like to email a story, look for the link above)