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July 29 2023 Work Party
New elders, teens known and new to each other, all new to me. You trickle in, each of you right on time, growing us from six to twenty at our peak. We disentangle layers of black plastic sheeting from roots, wrestle blackberry canes from a conifer and elderberry, activate the pungent sent of Herb Robert as we pull it from the ground. Goats arrive, stunning slot-pupilled eyes pulling us from shade to sun. Our happiness increases by 50%. In the end, reed canary grass stands tall, thistles sharp, there is a sea of blackberry before us, but there is only discernment, no discouragement. This is the work before us. We…
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July 22 2023 Work Party
You send your heartbeat 100 feet. Water sloshes from pails. You smile, your gaze steady, encouraging. I pull out tiny English hawthorn, ferret out fast-growing black locust hiding in the shade of towering cottonwoods, dig a horse chestnut on the verge of adolescence. We bear the heat and sun for the good of our first native plantings. There is refuge in the shade and in being with you.
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July 8 2023 Work Party
Nature is all around us.
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July 1 2023 Work Party
Cleaver seeds ride along. English hawthorn fall. You point out the musical clatter of dry canes and sticks as they rake across the ground. Now I delight in it, too.
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June 24 2023 Work Party
I made a mistake. And you made it work out anyway. Thank you, thank you for the grace.
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June 17 2023 Work Party
A song for you.
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June 3 2023 Work Party
Love matters.
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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.
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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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May 6, 2023 Work Party
A song for you.
