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July 16 Work Party
A low current of anxiety hums through at least half the days, sometimes even the days I go to one of our restoration sites to prepare for you. And then I see you. My heart grows a bit every time–when you arrive, two kids and dog in tow; when you walk across the parking lot toward me; when I find you sitting in the dirt, digging out the finest filaments of knotweed root; when you offer to sharpen our tools from the back of your truck; when you embrace the root slayer I offer; when you grow the circle we stand in; when you come for the first time; when…
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July 2 2022 Work Party
“The principal point of this book is not that the salmon is a magnificent animal that holds its own compared to anything on the Serengeti–beautiful in its many phases; thrilling in its athleticism; moving in its strength, determination, and courage; poetic in its heroic and tragic life story–and it would be sad if it were to disappear. All that is true, but a more important point is that if the salmon does not survive, there is little hope for the survival of the planet.”–Mark Kurlansky, Salmon: A Fish, the Earth, and the History of their Common Fate If the forecast this year is correct, 10,165 Cedar River sockeye will pass…
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June 25 2022 Work Party
Rain, rain, rain and cool for weeks and weeks and now heat. We dance with the edges of the shade, find refuge in a cool pocket of air held by trees. We identify snowberry, marvel at the fitness of Himalayan blackberry, dig out root balls the size of beaver kits. Hard topics broached, we listen and share with openness and grace. We create the medicine we need in these times: Connection with the earth, with plants, with each other. We fall away with gratitude and warm hearts, knowing we will come together again.
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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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June 5 2022 Work Party
Presence. Love.
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May 28 2022 Work Party
We came with gifts, with missions, with generous hearts. We were present to the next right work. We were together. It was good.
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May 21 2022 Work Party
Giddy with excitement, we sawed an old Scotch broom, exhumed its roots, and packed it lovingly out of the park. In its place, a smattering of brilliantly saturated yellow petals lay at rest on the mulch. The moment before we started, I watched those yellow blooms, delicately folding in on themselves, dance with a bumblebee in the breeze, and I felt a pang of regret for what we were about to do. To take the life from this particular plant in this particular place was good for the whole, on balance. But to disturb the soil, to take the flowers from the pollinator–these things still don’t settle easily in my…
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May 8 2022 Work Party
What constitutes success in habitat restoration? Number of volunteers engaged? Collective hours logged? Cubic yards of invasive plants removed? Number of native plants put in the ground? Yes and. How to measure the compassion for the earth cultivated with each work party, the value of hearts turned toward the work of making whole again what we have broken, the deepening of connection to place that comes from revisiting the same small plot of earth again and again, month after month, season after season, noticing when the first leaves fall, the first buds form, birdsong erupts, frogs take up their chorus, the first sleepy detritivores uncurl. How do you measure the…
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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.
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April 23 2022 Work Party
What beauty is in our care! Thank you for showing up for the earth and for us.
