On Friday, August 1 the Arizona Elk Society returned to Apache Maid to continue work on the log worm fence. We had 8 volunteers show up on Friday to help us out. We set up camp and then went out to the project site to get started on the work. We decided to not build any fence on Friday, but instead to move logs that were left over to the end of the project in case we needed more further down the line. We also decided to build some tabletops, which is essentially the bottom of the fence. After 6 hours of work, we headed back to camp and grilled up some burgers for supper, and in addition cooked some French fries for the first time ever at a project. This past weekend, we had EmpoweRanch joining us led by Jessica Vossfor their annual Veterans campout. As each one of them arrived, we sat around camp for some great conversations.

Saturday we woke up to breakfast burritos before our weekly safety meeting and paperwork, then headed out to the jobsite. As part of their weekend, the veterans joined us on the project site for half a day. We were able to build ¼ mile of fence before lunchtime, then retired for some brats/hotdogs. After lunch, just our project team headed back out, and the veterans camp did their own activities. It was quite hot in the meadow, which offered no shade, so we did not get a lot done for the rest of the day. We built about another ¼ mile of fence. Total fence build for the weekend was ½ mile. After working for the day, we retired to camp to have cowboy beans and garlic toast. Then we sat around in a huge circle and everyone got to tell what they got out of this weekend, and got to thank one person for an act of kindness or something else they had done on the weekend. This was an EmpoweRanch activity that we all took part in, and it was a great time listening to each person. We have one more day left on this build, and in 2 weeks the AZGFD has scheduled the Friday as a work day, so we should be able to get the fence completed.

Sunday morning, we woke up and had some great breakfast of French toast, sausage, and eggs, and then packed up camp before heading back down the hill. We would like to thank each veteran and EmpoweRanch who came up to share our camp this past weekend. The comradery, conversations, and amount of work accomplished was great and made for an amazing weekend in the pines.