Call it the newest rave in youth bling: mesh wristbands.

Yellow, cool, lightweight, big enough to cover a youth's forearm from wrist to elbow, and, best of all, they keep deer and elk from nibbling on you.

OK, the mesh tubes that area youths placed over seedling shrubs at Canyons of the Ancients National Monument recently weren't manufactured to adorn young forearms, and they certainly weren't crafted from anything glittering like bling. But tell that to youths in the Southwest Conservation Corps; in their zeal for a day spent outdoors, they tried wearing the tubes on their arms anyway.

Three youths helped put protective mesh tubes around seedlings at the national monument June 27. Bethany Eblevy and Michael Allsup of Cortez, and Gavin Taylor of Pleasant View, are part of the SCC.

Southwest Conservation Corps trains youths to complete conservation projects for the public's benefit, according to the corps' website. The projects promote personal growth, social skills and an ethic of natural stewardship.

The conservation corps has offices in Durango and Salida, Colo., and in Acoma, N.M., and Tucson, Ariz. SCC projects are done in the three respective states.

The project at Canyons of the Ancients started back in April when two crews of 17- to 24-year-old SCC members planted woods rose, curlleaf mountain mahogany, serviceberry, bitterbrush and other native shrubs.

The 14 youths planted 2,000 seedlings. DriWater, a time-release gel comprising 98 percent water and 2 percent food grade binders, was used to help water the seedlings for up to three months in the arid landscape.

After the seedlings were planted, officials with the U.S. Bureau of Land Management, which oversees Canyons of the Ancients, noticed the young shrubs provided a treat for wildlife.

“We planted the shrubs and were kind of watching them, and they were getting nibbled by the deer and elk,” Heather Musclow, a natural resource specialist with the BLM, said last week. “We knew we needed to put protectors on.”

Musclow recruited Eblevy, Allsup and Taylor through the SCC's summer work program. Younger than the April crew that planted the seedlings, the school-aged summer work program youths placed about 500 protective tubes around the tiny shrubs on a 140-acre parcel near Pleasant View.

“It was excellent,” Musclow said about the three local youths' participation. “They just bring so much energy to any project we tie them into.”

SCC youth leaders Meghan Shanahan, of Tucson, Chris Woods of St. Louis, Mo., and Jared Larson of Columbus, Ohio, also helped place the protective tubes. Participants in the conservation corps' Crew Leader Development Program learn leadership skills.

The youth leaders provided a positive experience for the younger, local SCC participants, Musclow said.

SCC doesn't pay youths, who volunteer for the program. That didn't dampen their enthusiasm.

“They thought it was great. … They have that energy,” Musclow said. “They just get into whatever project we give them. They just like getting outside.”

The June outing at Canyons of the Ancients included an unscheduled tour of Lowry Pueblo, a Native American site constructed about AD 1060 on abandoned pithouses from an earlier period of occupation. Archaeologists note Lowry's 40 to 100 inhabitants farmed, hunted small game, made decorated pottery and wove cotton obtained through trade.

BLM archaeologist Natalie Fast conducted the Lowry tour. The youths enjoyed the tour and asked lots of questions, which Fast answered, Musclow said.

“They crawled inside where you can go to the kiva area of Lowry,” Musclow said.

The local SCC youths who volunteered to help native shrubs grow at Canyons of the Ancients National Monument, along with other projects they're working on this summer, are gaining an outdoors education for their efforts. At Canyons of the Ancients, they were fortunate enough to receive a bonus tour of a Native American site guided by an archaeologist.

In this era of couch-potato kids, it's good to see some youths burning calories to feed their brains, and in this materialistic world, it's good to see those same youths learning that volunteer work has its own special bling.



Sources: Southwest Conservation Corps, http://sccorps.org; Canyons of the Ancients National Monument, www.blm.gov/co/st/en/nm/canm; U.S. Bureau of Land Management, www.blm.gov.



Russell Smyth is managing editor of the Cortez Journal. He can be reached at 564-6030 or russells@cortezjournal.