Returning to the Spring Work Party Area

Jim, Gordon and I worked in the area we planted at the spring work party. We worked on pulling out morning glory and young blackberry. Gary was elsewhere doing his usual snipping.

Jim and Gordon work around the cedar.

This is basically the fireweed area but after the spring planting, there's been new blackberry growth and a lot of morning glory. Last fall, we had planted a donated cedar which was hidden among both the fireweed and unwanted growth. (According to my notes, the cedar was planted 10/18/15.) On our way out of the park, Jim and I stopped by the mulched area and pulled out few new blackberry shoots and morning glory.

The Camper

Gary and I worked today. Rather than go to the Southern Forest as I had planned, we stayed close to the Jobox, primarily tackling Herb Robert and morning glory. I did walk to the poor young cedar that was uprooted by the "camper."

The cedar was planted by the trail and awhile ago when it was leaning, we had staked it. In the following months, I thought it was doing well. After Jim found the tent in early June, one Sunday, when he and the guys went to look at it, they found the cedar being used to camouflage the path to the tent. Then we noticed the stake was no longer staking anything.

I must say when Jim told me about the "camper," I found myself feeling guilty because when I got the news, I was about to go out to dinner with friends. There I was about to have a very nice meal and some poor soul had no roof over his/her head so pitched a tent in the park. However, at the discovery of the uprooted cedar, most of my sympathies for this individual evaporated. Jim noted the camouflage also used the lower branches of a conifer near the tent. That tree will live, even though it was assaulted. I do think each of us has some responsibility to society to somehow ease homelessness. But I have low tolerance for tree damage in the park. This individual had also cut the cable securing our wheelbarrows and "borrowed" one to transport his belongings. I could overlook that but not the killing of the cedar. It takes time for trees to grow and not all of them survive the elements once planted.

The poor tree we tried to save. 

We took the uprooted cedar and replanted it near where it had come, but further off the trail. It's been over a month and it is dead. Jim said last week it didn't have much of a root when it was replanted. So, basically uprooting it yanked it off of its root system, killing it.


***

Gary and I were merrily pulling out Herb Robert by hand when Gary decided to tackle an area that was thickly blanketed by Herb Robert with no native plants intermingled. He thought raking would make the task easier so he used a mattock as a rake. I joined him, using an actual rake. We were getting quite large piles of Herb Robert when Gary suddenly noticed wasps. Needless to say, we abandoned that operation. This is in an area just east of the Jobox. We were raking below the red cedar. Gary thought the bees had a nest on the other side of the trail, beneath a hazel.

We then worked in the area north of the trail. I took a peek where a side trail goes to the Trail of Cedars. I remember working there with John years ago--in the late 90s or early 2000s. I remember the area as completely bare after blackberries were removed. It now has a healthy grove of salmon berry and beneath, wild strawberries. Gary and I ate a few. Not particularly flavorful but they make wonderful ground cover.

On the upper left you can just make out the plank that's used as the bridge from Trail of Cedars. The photo would be more colorful had I taken it before Gary and I picked ripe berries to eat.

The Reason I Wanted to Start a Blog...

The reason I wanted to start a blog is that so much has been happening in 2016.

*The City's Parks department received a grant which is funding a vegetation management plan. Actually, the EarthCorp proposal is titled, Proposal to provide habitat mapping, vegetation surveys, wetland delineations, and management planning for Twin Ponds Park in Shoreline, WA.

*It is extremely significant that as a result, the wetlands in the park were officially delineated for the first time.

*There was another unrelated report about both Twin Ponds Park and Paramount Open Space created by Otak, as an addendum to the environmental impact statement for the 145th Street Station Subarea.

*Of course, the big rezone (AKA "subarea planning") is nearing completion. Dare I say that this will create THE biggest impact on the park for the future?

*We had probably the wettest work party ever this spring. We called it Earth Day/Arbor Day Work Party, to acknowledge the City's celebration of Arbor Day. It was preceded by a short ceremony with a representative from Washington State Department of Natural Resources.

*Jim and I were recognized at a City Council meeting for Arbor Day.

*There was a person who camped in the Southern Forest. Of course, there's been others who've stayed in the park but this one uprooted a young cedar killing it and yanked off branches of another healthy conifer in order to fashion a barricade/camouflage.

*Then, there's this:

Who would have thought John's arboretum would be part of a game!?!

First Post: A Chronicle of Our Activities

Today, Jim, Gary and I worked. Earlier in the week, Jim had noticed a large cottonwood branch had fallen blocking our path into the Southern Forest. This is where the path from our Jobox meets with the path from Trail of Cedars.

Note the size of the fallen branch!

The main branch was quite large, as you can see from the photo of Jim sawing. The guys managed to dislodge it from a hazel; we cut up what we could and distributed the pieces nearby, including on the trail. Instant (somewhat) mulch!

This is what the area looked like before we started to remove the debris

Cleared the path!