A Very Wet February

At 8:30 this morning, it was showering a rain/snow mix and it was coming down pretty hard so we decided to cancel our work party. As it happened, a mere 40 minutes later, it's no longer raining or snowing. Oh, well.

A week ago (2/19/17), Jim and I walked over to the Arboretum side. We noted that spring is in the air with plants emerging.

At the same time, all the rainfall this month has made the wetlands in the area quite visible.

Back on the Meridian side, we were joined by Gary and the three of us worked along the Trail of Cedars. We also formulated a plan for the damage caused by the fallen poplar on the north side of the trail. We will take out as much creeping buttercup as possible in the area below, cardboard it and then chop up the branches to use as mulch. Gary removed some the easy pieces and placed them elsewhere. I started on the buttercup. The plan was to spend today doing this work but it's now been postponed until next week.

Back in the Southern Forest

Jim and I started the morning with a brief trek to the Trail of Cedars where Parks cut a fallen Lombardy poplar. The first photo is on the south side and the second is of the north side. We speculated that the fall damaged the evergreen, although it's also been deliberately limbed by someone.

When in arrived at the Southern Forest, we were joined by Braden (with Frances) and shortly thereafter, by Gary. I brought cardboard the the guys began by dismantling the compost we started two years ago.

The above area is where I had tried as thoroughly as I could to remove Herb Robert and creeping buttercup. Below is how it looked after spreading some mulch.

The smaller piece of cardboard was used in this area.

After finishing the mulching project and after Braden & Frances left, I continued to find more Herb Robert in the area. But Jim and Gary went toward the wetland, lopping blackberry canes and finding smaller holly and laurel. Somewhere in the photo below is Gary.

When we were finished and walking out of the park, Gary noticed that someone had tossed a Christmas tree near the street. He stayed behind to chop it into pieces.

Snow!

It snowed overnight. I walked to the park around 8am and wound up taking lots of pictures. The photos look black and white, taken under the snow clouds. I was not the first to walk through the park this morning. There were footprints in the Arboretum and north and south of the ponds, not to mention passing walkers (and dogs) in the soccer field and on the Trail of Cedars.

This is looking into the wetland west of the tennis court.

Looking through branches in the Arboretum.

Love the visual textures created by the snow accumulating on bare branches!

This is in the Arboretum Annex. The ground beneath the snow in places were puddles. This is in the buffer area, not the actual wetland.

The stone bench, where I have fond memories picnicking with John and the old crew.

Thornton Creek bubbling down into the north pond.

Mallards in the north pond.

On the Trail of Cedars.

Our fall planting area.

You can see little buds on the shrubs!

This is the gully that runs to the south of Trail of Cedars--one long puddle right now.

Southern Forest planting area.

This is the continuation of the gully, which is also our trail into the Southern Forest. It was too wet to walk on.

The other planting area in the Southern Forest.

Walked on the trail toward the south pond.

Again, where this trail meets the trail that runs around the west side of the south pond is nothing but a huge puddle. I turned back.

South pond.

South pond from between the two ponds.

North pond.

South pond.

North pond.

Cancelled Today's Outing

Gary and I chatted on the phone yesterday afternoon. At the time, rain was predicted for the morning followed by snow at 11am. Well, once again the decision to cancel was made too early! It was not raining at 9am. It may have started to drizzle around 11. Since it wasn't windy in the morning, I didn't even find the 36 degrees to be that cold. Snow is now expected to start at 5pm or so. Oh, well. I spent the morning grocery shopping, only to realize loading my car with food that my trunk is full of cardboard. I guess I'll be driving around with that for another week.

Continuing to Monitor Southern Forest

On the last Sunday of January (1/29/17), Jim, Gary, Howard and I worked in the Southern Forest. We each chose a maintenance chore. I selected removing creeping buttercup. The infestation isn't that bad in this area right now so it's a good time to tackle it.

The left photo is when I began. You can see the green of the buttercup leaves on the ground. The right is when I finished. At the end, the next step became clear: cardboard and mulch the bare ground! Unfortunately, snow is now in the forecast for tomorrow (Feb 5) so we'll see if we can get any work done.

On another note, Chie and I were both accepted into the Master Native Plant Stewardship Training Program organized by the Washington Native Plant Society. Our first session was yesterday at Shoreline Community College.