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March 14 2026 Work Party
Famous by Naomi Shihab Nye The river is famous to the fish. The loud voice is famous to silence, which knew it would inherit the earth before anybody said so. The cat sleeping on the fence is famous to the birds watching him from the birdhouse. The tear is famous, briefly, to the cheek. The idea you carry close to your bosom is famous to your bosom. The boot is famous to the earth, more famous than the dress shoe, which is famous only to floors. The bent photograph is famous to the one who carries it and not at all famous to the one who is pictured. I want to be famous to shuffling men who smile…
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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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July 5 2025 Work Party
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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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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 8 2025 Work Party
You are a gift.
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January 25 2025 Work Party
Crisp cold bright blue sky. Himalayan blackberry canes cut. Reed canary grass trimmed. Tree climbed. You hid. You were found.
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January 11 2025 Work Party
“Compassion practice is daring. It involves learning to relax and allowing ourselves to move gently toward what scares us. The trick to doing this is to stay with emotional distress without tightening into aversion; to let fear soften us rather than harden into resistance. We cultivate bravery through making aspirations. We make the wish that all beings, including ourselves and those we dislike, be free of suffering and the root of suffering.”–Pema Chödrön, Comfortable with Uncertainty And a song for you.
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December 7 2024 Work Party
A song for you.
