I made a mistake. And you made it work out anyway. Thank you, thank you for the grace.
June 24 2023 Work Party
June 17 2023 Work Party
A song for you.
June 3 2023 Work Party
Love matters.
May 20 2023 Work Party
New friends, familiar friends. The Molina Crew. We know each other by our names, by the water nearest our homes, by our popsicle flavor preferences. We find shade. Popsicles drip. Mango is deemed best. Pogo shovel jumps, you move downed trees and bond over tech burnout. We collectively fall in love with the weed wrench, you discover it pulls up blackberry as well as anything else. The sun embraces us, the work is everything all at once, we are right where we are meant to be.
You were all so very kind and generous. And I thank you for it.
May 13 2023 Work Party
Gently pulling blackberry canes away from baby ferns, tending to a rescued Douglas fir, moving in and out of the coolness of the shade. A field trip to the west side of the creek to visit with goats in the unsheltered heat of midday. Pulling brambles out of trees, the smells of English hawthorn and Herb Robert mingling in the air like death. A root ball ferried away to become something else, perhaps art, as we drift apart until next time.
May 6, 2023 Work Party
A song for you.
April 23 2023 Work Party Earth Day
“The economy is a wholly owned subsidiary of the environment, not the other way around.” –former Wisconsin Senator Gaylord Nelson
In 1970, Gaylord Anton Nelson, a United States Senator from Wisconsin, organized the first Earth Day as a national demonstration to raise awareness about environmental issues. At the time, there was no Environmental Protection Agency, no Clean Air Act, no Clean Water Act, no legal or regulatory mechanisms to protect the environment.
People across the country rallied on April 22, 1970, spurring the United States to create the Environmental Protection Agency by the end of that year, and that day, April 22, is now an annual celebration that honors the achievements of the environmental movement, reminds us of the importance of protecting and caring for the earth, and calls us to action.
This Earth Day we reflected and shared with one another:
What are some of the environmental issues you care about the most? What environmental issues can you see playing out in your community? How can we protect and restore local ecosystems?
I am so honored to be in this work with you. Happy Earth Day!
April 12 2023 Work Party
What a joy and delight to meet such heart-filled people and work alongside them for a better today and tomorrow. What a balm to now know that they are out there living their values of community and connection in all they do.
Thank you Jim, Teresa, Noah, Peyton, Sid, Karen, Cameron, Kaitlyn, and Alby. Your hearts are now forever part of mine.
To lean more about these fine humans, visit Tinte Cellars.
April 8 2023 Work Party
We rake dead canes, push into the sea of brambles, unearth gnarled root balls dense with energy from 93 million miles away. The goats show up, eat the apples, eat the cedar leaves, eat the reed canary grass, eat the blackberry leaves, too. Three black-tailed deer wander through, slender necks curved curiously toward us, their gaze reverently returned. Two Canada geese noisily converse as they flap by. The piercing cry of a hawk turns heads to the sky.
What a gift to know you on this earth, you who drew twelve orcas last week, you who are fuzzy on your company motto but certain that you all hold the best morals. Where else could I have met you who live in Lake Stevens, you whose home I have lived blocks from all these years? Where else would we find scuffed and faded cartoon figurines and wonder at the story? Where else is there to be but here?
Pictures above by a kind and generous volunteer. Pictures below by Tracy Banaszynski.
April 1, 2023 Work Party
A song for you.