HyleBlog - Friends of the Hylebos

I was just mentioning to someone last week that we were approaching the Ides of March. They didn't know what that meant, which kind of surprised me. Who hasn't heard, "Beware the Ides of March."? So, in case there are others out there who aren't down with the Ides, I repost this from my Visual Thesaurus Word of the Day e-mail:

You can probably credit Shakespeare ("Beware the ides of March") for the survival of this word from Old English (and originally from Latin). All months in the Roman calendar had ides, or middle days, but only the March ones have a grip on the popular imagination. Ones? Why the plural if it's only one day? The word (idus in Latin) is of obscure origin but it can also refer to the middle section of the month, thus giving it good plural credentials.

Here, locally, who has to beware the Ides of March? Given that Lili is running an ivy assault program this Saturday at Dumas Bay Park (contact her to sign up), I'd say it's that invasive English ivy that'd better watch out!

Day at the Beach

This is pretty  cool. Last week, I was down at the beach at Dumas Bay to shoot a "commercial" for the Dumas Bay forest health project. The project comes about because of the generosity and talent of MJ McGalliard and Mary Longhurst from Retro Productions.

Mary, you may know from her recent work producing a documentary of the Hylebos called, fittingly, The Hylebos: Discovering A Hidden Jewel. (she's extremely talented, though she will deny it, in her usual self-effacing way.) 

The commercial will be available soon. Stay tuned for details. We will also be debuting Mary's Hylebos

documentary in late January/early February, so watch for details of that as well.

December Bereft of Bloggings

Wow, I didn't realize how long it'd been since my last blog post. I've been caught up in the end-of-the-year madness that, while typical in the nonprofit world, seems somehow accelerated and enlarged this year.

In fact, it's been so busy that I haven't even shaved since my last blog post. (I'll have to put a photo up later) moreover, i've already grown a beard and lost it in a bet with my daughter who absolutely hates the beard. I have to shave the rats nest off this week. Easy come easy go.

But, to business! Our latest issue of the Highlights is in the mail as we speak (or blog, that is). A PDF is online at our website. 

If you've checked into the Stream Team blog you'll see that the forest health work has begun at Dumas Bay. The volunteers made a great start! They braved near-freezing temperatures and rain to clear 37 trees of ivy, thus saving those guys from a slow ivy death. Read about that and more on the Stream Team blog.

Remarkable Day in The Hylebos

Today, Lili Allala (New Restoration Coordinator) toured several key Hylebos sites, including Lower Hylebos Marsh, Spring Valley Ranch, West Milton Nature Preserve and the Spring Valley Open Space. While I thought we would likely get rained on hard like the day before, the weather let up, and we were treated to sunshine and relatively warm, dry conditions.

Here is Lili at the Lower Hylebos Marsh. You can find out more about Lili on our Staff page.

Also, Wednesday's paper has a front page article on the forest health problems in Federal Way. It's nice to see the word getting out about this challenge.

I'll get some photos up later in the day from Lower Hylebos Marsh. The beavers appear to have been busy (surprise!). I counted at least 5 structures on the mainstem and around the marsh area. Water flow, though, was high and all dams were overtopped. Also, the beavs are taking out some of the excess alder trees on the site, so I'm very pleased with that. If we can just get them to focus on the alders, they'll actually do us a big favor.Remarkable Day in The Hylebos

At the Spring Valley Open Space, we surprised a great blue heron that must've been in a nearby tree. I didn't notice him until I heard a repeated sqawking and looked up to see the bird flying over us, insistently sounding his displeasure with our intrusion on his private Hylebos.

Usually herons are rather reticent with people, but this guy was so mad, he circled back to land in a tree nearby and casatigate us. I told him that we were sorry to have surprised him, and would leave shortly, but this didn't satisfy the heron. He blew a a few more rasberries our way, then took flight and headed south to Spring Valley Ranch.

Hylebos In The News

The Federal Way News has a piece online about our recent forest health news.