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December 20 2025 Work Party
Last work party of 2025. A fern freed from encroaching creeping buttercup, a willow from the thorny embrace of Himalayan blackberry canes. We find stories in a shard of glass, the metal cap of a fence post, a rusted hatchet. A snake rests in a gentle hand. We made a difference.
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December 13 2025 Work Party
Hide and seek with emerging Himalayan blackberry, digging a carpet of creeping buttercup, mulch newly blanketing a transect of earth where cut canes marked the spot of our latest root ball excavation. We use the first aid kit for the first time on a conifer, gently wrapping its snapped young trunk with a splint, an act of tender absurdity given the severity of the injury, but equally one of stubborn hope. Every being deserves care. We will not give up on this tree, this community, this land. The creek rushes by with news of the atmospheric river just passed. Hawks cry. I feel myself.
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November 28 2024 Work Party
This is what it looks like to be six.
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June 7 2025 Work Party
Boisterous clipping and digging of canes, pulling up a carpet of ivy, young people have brought their older humans along. We add our blackberry and ivy to the raft, ferry more to the field for pick up, get stung by nettles five times. A black-tailed deer grazes across the way. Hard rain starts to fall, scattering some of us, the rest of us carry on. The underground infrastructure of a very old Himalayan blackberry is exhumed, some concrete detritus moved. We leave with so much distance travelled in just three hours.
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May 10 2025 Work Party
We continued clearing a new patch of Himalayan blackberry, started on a patch of knotweed, the stalks of these like giants. Rescued a fern, excavated more trash, were stung by nettles. Fringe cup and large-leaved avens watched from along the trail.
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May 3 2025 Work Party
It feels good to see the tender bright green tufts of new growth on our baby conifers, to see you remove the blackberry regrowth from among them, to watch a black-tailed deer cautiously watch us, to be here with you. This is hope.
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April 12 2025 Work Party
It is always good to be with you.
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April 5 2025 Work Party
We took an excursion to the west side of ƛ̕ax̌ʷadis Park. It was good.
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March 22 2025 Work Party
Mallards, American robins, Spotted Towhees. An otter, a salamander. Raptors, maybe red-tailed hawks? Willows staked along the south bank just weeks ago budding, osoberry, red elderberry, and snowberry becoming green. We reached the tree that a month ago seemed so far away, revealed a goat track hidden by brambles, pulled barbed wire out of the ground. A collapsing empire, cancer, hospice. These things cannot be left behind, but despite their presence, for a moment that stretches to hours, I feel ease.
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March 15 2025 Work Party
The best problem to have is not enough root slayers.
