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March 21 2021
I intended only to move canes previously cut, but it is so hard to stop tending sometimes. I was mindful of possible bird nesting above and below. All things matter. Including you.
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nesting season
Our community work parties came to an abrupt pandemic pause at the end of February 2020 and did not resume until fall, so this year brings a new consideration: How to move forward with habitat restoration without disrupting nesting season? Work in our original area is slowing as we maintain what we have done, and we have just barely started on a new area overgrown with Himalayan blackberry. Birdsong–from chickadees, robins, juncos, and so many birds I have yet to learn–already fills the air, telling me I’m really too late to clear more canes, but I am desperate not to lose these coming months of work in the park. We…
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February 27 2021 Work Party
We’ve started removal of a second large patch of Himalayan blackberry at Wallace Swamp Creek Park! What satisfying progress can be made by small, dedicated groups of people. What a balm such kinship is during this pandemic time. We found gifts in every bit of earth reclaimed–Oregon grape growing all this time under the thick blackberry bramble, brilliantly orange witches butter on the side of a decaying stump, luscious green moss blanketing a fallen tree. And then a walk to the creek revealed another gift: a pair of hooded mergansers, surfing the riffle and then coming to rest in a pool created by sediment deposits, just being themselves, seemingly unaware…
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resting with the earth
I’ve been feeling sad these past days, so I went to Wallace Swamp Creek Park to ground myself in noticing: The roots of the Himalayan blackberry, so much in appearance like the arteries, veins, and capillaries of our own bodies, stubbornly holding life deep in the soil, waiting for the warmth of the sun to call it to the sky. The heat in my body generated by the work of digging and cutting and pulling. The rain cooling my skin. A round of robins skittering across muddy earth, red breasts carrying forth resilience and hope. Reed canary grass laid down in wetland water. Snowberries, oblong and opulent, dripping from delicate…
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hatching a planting plan
I met a friend and neighbor, Jeremy Jones, at Wallace Swamp Creek Park today to dream about planting in our restoration area. We surveyed the surrounding vegetation, noting which trees and shrubs were native and which were not. We assessed the existing canopy and assigned one area to shade and another to sun. I had squished through the clover-covered field to our mulched area, mud coating my boots, a trail of size 7 pools of water left in my wake, and I remembered what time of year the ground is saturated and what time of year it is dry. I learned that a simple hole can be useful to assess…
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November 12 2020 Work Party
One of us tends to a tree by unearthing the Himalayan blackberry root balls that have snuggled under its base. She follows the root balls to their smallest ends, untangling roots like filaments from the soil, excavating them with the care of an archeologist preserving what has been found. To watch her is to see love in action. One of us sings with the unbridled beauty and joy of the birds she calls by name, all of them family to her. To gather with her and her dear human family with purpose during this time, to hear her voice across the field as we work is to be held in…
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October 24 2020 Work Party
Sometimes I wish we could be there together, tending to place, healing wounds, connecting to the earth and to each other, forever. We are in my heart. A sincere thank you to all who came to help me build the kind of world I want to live in. You are all so needed. And so appreciated. Until next time. Love and grace, my friends.
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October 10 2020 Work Party
We unearthed root balls bigger than child-sized heads, bigger than my fist, not quite as big as my foot. In these root balls we saw brains and hearts and arteries and capillaries. We honored these roots even as we removed them from the earth, embracing it all. We were defenders of place, habitat, native ecosystems, and humankind. And then there was thunder, lightning, rain, and hail. If you stood still for just a moment, hail bouncing, rain pouring down, you might have deeply felt our inextricable connection to the earth and everyone and everything on it. It was good.
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September 20 2020 Work Party
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September 5 2020 Work Party
We admired the tenacity of the Himalayan blackberry as a species and its multiple reproductive strategies. We marveled at the beauty of roots working so hard, curling and twisting and winding, to seek light despite six inches of cardboard and mulch to suppress them. We devised strategies to remove prickly canes without falling victim to sharp thorns, and we did the math that told us that we had found a cane that was the length of 5,000 sisters head to foot if she were to lie down next to it. We stood six feet from one another and realized that was close enough to feel the warm presence of a…
