Short Work Day

We only worked for an hour today. Jim was under the weather and the rain wasn't particularly inspiring me to do a lot of work.

Jim said on email he wanted to remove ivy from tree trunks but I talked him into going to the Southern Forest. Back on December 4th, we had cut back blackberry canes that were growing and covering trees and I wondered about removing more blackberry. Here's the area in question:

Jim expressed concerns about taking away bird habitat since this "grove" of blackberry shrubs is actually quite high--probably 10 feet or more at places. He suggested a more reasonable project for this area, looking in the other direction:

Looking eastward standing in the same spot, Jim pointed out blackberries growing amid the salmonberry. Since this is very close to the wetland, he suggested just removing the blackberry on the periphery. At about this time, Gary made his presence known by tossing couple of twigs high in the air and they landed in front of Jim and me, as if branches from the trees were falling. Gary said he's been in the park by himself but not on Sundays, primarily pulling up holly and laurel starts. After some conversation, we got to work. I finally removed my compost "experiment" from November 13, having come equipped with a bag. I also took out more creeping buttercup and Herb Robert while Gary worked nearby taking out more ivy. Jim stayed with the blackberry.

A Clear Sunday Morning

The morning of Sunday, 1/15/17 was beautiful. At 9am, it was a little on the chilly side but the sun was out. We decided to work on the east side of the south pond. The photos above show the beginning of our efforts and the photo below is a close-up of the task at hand, namely, to remove ivy climbing up trees.

The ponds are almost entirely iced over. Below is the south pond, seen from the area of our morning's work.

Jim and I were joined by Howard, who saw us working the previous Sunday, stopped by to ask if he could help, and I had given him our email address. Jim and Howard are below on the left, as we were wrapping up our work. The photo on the right is of the trees Jim tackled first. It was about this time that Chie and Yuto found us. Since our work in this area was finished, we headed to the North Woods, right along 155th.

            

We primarily clipped blackberry and pulled any ivy mixed in with it. I found myself working on a particular spot because I could see there was a sword fern beneath the blackberry. Here are the before and after photos:

Ivy Removal by North Pond

We actually got some real work done today. Jim, Nancy and I pulled ivy off of a number of trees east of the north pond. This was the first time Nancy joined us.

I took the photo above after we began and the photo below when we were done for the morning.

The photo below is taken from the other direction. We basically removed the ivy at the base. I have to say some of the trees were easier to work with than others. The ivy came off easily from the pine trees but the first tree I tackled (cottonwood? No leaves so I'm not sure) had a lot of moss and the ivy was really embedded in the moss and bark.

Jim also did the same near trees near 155th. We called it a day after it started to rain but at least it was warmer than it had been. There was still ice on the ponds and we saw some seagulls ice skating.

Happy New Year!

We are into the new year. I had very ambitious plans when I started this blog but I never did write about most of the events that occurred in 2016 that provoked me to start blogging. Irritatingly, I've spent more time fiddling with formatting this blog than actually writing. And, I'm not sure if I like the way it looks currently but I'm afraid of trying to "fix" it since it may end up looking worse. I've also tried different ways of getting the photos on my phone to this blog. All this to say, even though I've spent some time figuring out Blogger, the content of this blog thus far is not what I had in mind. I do think it's an useful way to keep track of our weekly activities. But enough of this.

There was a light dusting of snow in the early hours of New Year's Day. Jim and I met at 10, an hour later than usual, and walked through the park. We started on the Trail of Cedars and the arcs of the salmon berries were nicely frosted.

We went to the Southern Forest. The gully has a fair amount of water in it now. I'm not sure how John created the side trails but it seems to me that where the trail from the Trail of Cedars meets the trail from our Jobox, is a natural continuation of the gully and so that junction is quite soggy right now.

The gully near the Southern Forest.

Jim and I looked at our recent work removing blackberry canes and discussed the possibility of doing more in the area. Also, Jim would like to tackle some of the young black locusts that are cropping up. After this short visit to the Southern Forest, we took our usual trail back to Meridian and walked once again on the Trail of Cedars.

We looked at the puddles on the north side of the trail. Diane Brewster, who delineated the wetlands, concluded this area is not a wetland. It is close to the stream buffer (for Meridian Creek) but the puddles (I don't know what else to call them) are actually closer to the trail than to the stream. Judging from the maps, I think these puddles are outside the stream buffer.

I did notice some bulbs are coming up.

Below are more views of the puddles. We had planted some ferns in the area in the fall of 2015. Obviously, a few are now submerged.

This last photo below is taken from the trail, to give you a sense of how close the puddles are to the trail. The ground does dip down, so perhaps the area just collects water and the puddles are nothing more than that.

We then looped around the ponds to the north, where we again looked at the oil absorbing fabrics in Thornton Creek by the north parking lot. They had been changed but we don't quite understand their purpose now. We didn't see oil and the fabrics appeared to be just picking up mud. We walked on the east side of the ponds, noting locations of ivy, particularly when they are climbing up trees. We then went to the arboretum. Someone has been yanking off the lower branches of the redwoods. It appeared that there was a "fort" or shelter in the making using both redwood and cedar branches. I don't know where the cedar came from. Jim speculated this was more of a kid activity than a "camper" seriously trying to create a shelter. But even kids should not be breaking off branches. Would signage help? I don't know.

We ended the day in the Arboretum Annex. It was nearly noon.