The last time that Margery Godfrey (Friends of the Hylebos Wetland), Steve Dubiel (EarthCorps), and I had a meeting, Margery asked me how I'd feel about visiting local High School classes and talking about the park. I told her that I really wouldn't be interested in doing that. I live right across the street from Saghalie Middle School and often run into the kids going to and from school. Whenever we have a chance encounter, my overall impression falls in the range of, Egads! I'm so glad I don't have to deal with that! My forte is Elementary-aged youngsters. When I was young, I was interested in everything that crawled, walked, slithered, swam, or flew. My idealistic dream was to give birth to a flock of children who would bond with me over bugs. In reality, my flock became two and, although I took them to play in the tidal pools, camping, and hiking, I really can't remember a single moment when we actually bonded over bugs. Children are individuals, after all, not carbon copies of their parents. When I lead groups of elementary school youngsters, though, every now and then....the magic happens. A young child will lay eyes on me and we're instantly on the same wave length. In two shakes of a lamb's tail, without any effort at all, we've spent two hours together, side by side, discusssing bugs, birds, snakes, fish, plants, frogs, herons barfing salmon eggs, raccoons coming along and eating the barfed eggs, touching octopi, what a sea cucumber feels like, petting a Steller's jay, cannibalism, and digging through scat. Those moments don't happen all of the time, but when they do, they make all of the work that I do in the park absolutely worth the effort. Those magic moments are why I keep on doing what I'm doing. Today was one of those magic days.
Once again, Margie Shea brought the Summer Camp kids from Snake Lake, in Tacoma, to West Hylebos Park. Only one of the kids had ever been to West Hylebos Park before. I met Margie, with another Snake Lake Summer Camp group last year and we had such a good time together that she asked me if I'd do it again this year. Of course I would, said I. I met them near the old cabins at 1 p.m. When I arrived, they were already settled down east of the Denny Cabin and were having a picnic. The kids had just come from the M.A.S.T. aquarium at Redondo Beach, where they'd gotten to touch an octopus, among other things, and they were eager to share their experience with me. To be frank (Good Afternoon. You can call me Frank.), I was a little jealous. I've never touched an octopus and wish I'd accompanied them on their earlier trip. The kids told me all about the crabs and the sea anemone's and fishing and the demonstrator's arms being grabbed by the octopus, and how she had to yell "No!" at it, and how it let go and zoomed away, leaving suction-cup marks on her arm. They were so excited that I wondered whether the park would pale in comparison. The young people had studied the environment around Snake Lake and had come to Federal Way to see how the environment at West Hylebos Wetland Park differed from that at Snake Lake.
We visited Marlake first, where they took a sample of the water and tested it's Ph using a paper test strip. The kids learned that you always take a sample and dip the strip in the sample, rather than just dipping the strip in the lake, because the strip is treated with chemicals and we don't want to introduce chemicals into the lake. It looked like the Ph of Marlake was about 7, so we discussed why that might be. On the way to Marlake, we found a pile of scat and stopped to examine it, to determine what might have left it in the park. The kids decided that it either had to be a fox or a coyote and, after I told them about the pack of coyotes that lived in the park, decided that it was coyote scat. On the way to Brooklake, we stopped at the Deep Sinks and discussed peat: what it was made of, how it was formed, what it was used for, and other interesting peat facts. We could hear a nearby frog singing loudly and discussed what kind of frog that might be. On our walk, we stopped to investigate spirea (hardhack), salmonberries, Nootka roses, Pacific water parsley, foam flower, Pacific trailing blackberries, and other plants that grew along the way.
At the Brooklake viewing platform, we talked about the life cycle of salmon, the salmon ladder, how last winter's storm changed the environment, encouraging frogs to live where they hadn't lived before, the great blue heron I'd seen eating a snake on my last visit, cedar waxings, barred owls, and, of course, the graffiti carved into every inch of exposed wood on the viewing platform and the tree shot full of bbs.
Coming back down the short end of the boardwalk loop, we discussed how the old boardwalk was built, how the new boardwalk was built, the damage done by last winter's storm, and how much easier it was to repair the storm damage to the new boardwalk than it had been to repair the old boardwalk, and stopped where a huge tree had fallen over, leaving it's rootwad sitting up in the air. That's where they spotted two red-legged frogs sitting in the mud. I was so glad that those frogs made an appearance, because I was beginning to fear that we wouldn't see any frogs at all. We stopped and listened to the bird song and discussed the different kinds of birds that live in the park.
Everyone stopped at the tree-well near the owl tree to see if they could spot any frogs. I talked about the frogs that live there and how I had spotted salamanders mating there in the spring, as well as juvenile salamanders with their big gill ruffs. There weren't any frogs or salamanders around to see today, but they did find a big slug. On the way back to the old cabins, the youngsters got to compare the difference between evergreen blackberry, Himalayan blackberry, and the Pacific trailing blackberry that they'd seen before. When we reached the old cabins, everyone had a chance to take a bathroom break and participate in a couple of games, then it was back aboard the bus and home to Tacoma. You couldn't ask for a better day than we had today. It wasn't too hot, or too cold, but about 68 degrees F. and overcast. The sky was threatening, but it did not rain. The youngsters had a good time, burned off a little steam, learned some interesting things, took some one-sheets home with them, and said they wanted to come back and visit the park again. I consider this day well-seized!
Teri I. Lenfest
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