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January 27 2024 Work Party
We whisper our worry about displacing neighbors who have found shelter behind blackberry brambles not many blocks from where anger shouted away the possibility of permanent homes for them. Rain. We do everything we can. We clip, dig, call, write, lay down cardboard, haul mulch, bare hearts, show up, plant trees, hold on to hope. It is what we can do and it is not enough this time. Everything comes tumbling down, grey clouds settle in. Rest. The world will be reordered and then we will start again.
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November 24 2023 Work Party (four years)
This is what it looks like to be four.
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October 28 2023 Work Party
The first trees of this planting season are in new homes, tucked on the east side of Swamp Creek before it bends to find the Sammamish River. Douglas fir, Western hemlock, Grand fir, and Sitka spruce removed from pots, roots unbound and draped over mounds of soil in deep holes, rocks sifted and piled nearby, compost mixed with the earth we found and pressed firmly down. Gentle tugs at the base of 30 trunks confirm they are all securely tucked. One tree in not quite the right home. We decide to move ki a foot over, safely out of the way of passing wheelbarrows full of Himalayan blackberry and English…
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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.
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March 4 2023 Planting Work Party
“We don’t see things as they are. We see things as we are.” –Rabbi Shemuel ben Nachman The feedback feels personal and harsh, landing hard after more than a year of working diligently to be present to partner needs and desires. The path with this child feels dark and thorny. And this world. We cannot seem to change in the face of overwhelming evidence that things are not well. Delusion gets in the way of clear seeing, of knowing the questions to ask, of discernment. We grasp for the one perfect something we believe will erase all our suffering. We cause ourselves so much suffering. “This moment or this place…
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January 7 2023 Work Party
Cut English hawthorn hauled. Cozy rooms carved out of a tangle of Himalayan blackberry. Wondering who might dwell under a small mound of decaying wood. We met here in this new year, full of possibility, under the blessed, wondrous rain, to give each other the gift of being alive together.
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Watering Our Baby
It has been hot, hot for people, hot for salmon, and hot for trees establishing their roots in new homes. I’m so glad you are with us, little Doug fir. It is such an honor to care for you through this blistering hot heat. I love you.
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June 18 2022 Work Party
I am grumpy. I am grumpy about the parking lot. I am grumpy that I am grumpy about the parking lot. I am grumpy about the leaked motor oil shining iridescently in puddles on the seasonally wet field. I am grumpy about the proposed development a stone’s throw to the north. I am grumpy that the plans have changed and I don’t know why or how. I am grumpy about the flooding. I am grumpy that not even my phone can distract me, that it points my attention to the hundreds of unsheltered humans who have died in the extreme heat. I am grumpy about the heat, that all those…
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One month!
It’s been a little over a month since we planted a Douglas fir in our original restoration area at Wallace Swamp Creek Park. Ki is growing well! We are so delighted.
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Our Newest Family Member
We call trees like you volunteers. You are that, you came to us without our choosing, you opted to be here, alive and thriving where you landed. For this, you are a volunteer, and you are so much more. You are a serendipitous gift, the hope we need, more than we deserve. You are the best kind of example. You are connection and unconditional love. Thank you for being here. May you thrive in your new space.
