Hylebos Stream Team

How 'bout that weather???

While the storm may not have been good for us humans, it's done some great things on our restoration sites.  Trees falling near people's houses-not good.  Trees falling into Hylebos Creek-yay! 

See if you can spot what's new here. 

I'll give you a hint. 

It's the log with attached roots.  The logs without attached roots we put there.  I haven't explored West Milton yet, I only ventured in as far as I could go in my street shoes, and that wasn't far, but we had a tree come down, right across the stream.  Yay for large woody debris.  I'm excited to see what happened further in (when it's a little drier).

Spring Valley Ranch saw some excitement too.  Another tree came down out there, along with many, many branches and duff, so I spent some time yesterday making sure that all the new baby trees we planted were okay, and unburying the ones that had branches on them.

New Volunteer Days Scheduled

Good news!  We've got a couple volunteer days coming up in January.  Please email [email protected] if you want to attend any of them.

January 15-  Come volunteer with Friends of the Hylebos and the Washington Conservation Corps in honor of Martin Luther King, Jr. and in service to your community.  We will be removing invasive plants at the Lower Hylebos Marsh in Fife, from 9:30am-2pm.  We will have coffee, tea, hot chocolate, bagels and cream cheese at 9am, and lunch will be provided.  This is Fife's first park, and we want it to be as successful as possible.  This will be prepartation for the planting to come.

January 20-  The next wave of planting begins at the Lower Hylebos Marsh.   We will have bagels and cream cheese, coffee and other hot drinks at 9:30.  We'll get started planting at 10am and go till 2pm, with a pizza break at noon.   

January 27-  We're finishing up the planting we started in the fall at the Spring Valley Ranch.  EArthCorps and volunteers from REI will be joining us as we get started on planting and mulching 2000 native shrubs.  Bagels and hot drinks as we sign-in at 9:30, we'll start planting at 10am.  Lunch and tools will be provided, and we'll finish around 2pm. 

All volunteer events will go ahead as planned regardless of weather, unless the ground is too frozen to plant.  Hope to see you out on the Hylebos!

I forgot to mention...

I have a window in my office now!  No more little dark cave that is full of boxes and coffee air-pots and dirty gloves and wading boots...I have a floor and natural light and a window. 

New location, seeds and other random thoughts...

I christened my new office today.  I went out to the wetlands, and brought back mud and dirt and pieces of Himalayan blackberry in the cuffs of my jeans, then proceeded to dump all this stuff onto the fuschia carpet.  Oops.  But honestly, that's a weekly, if not daily activity for me. 

I was out at the Lower Hylebos Marsh, looking at the work the WCC did for us a couple weeks ago, and they have dealt with the H. blackberry and field bindweed beautifully. 

We will start planting out there in mid-January.  Today the seeds arrived that will be sown all over the site-around 17 lbs of seeds, and they're so pretty.  Of course, I opened the bag in the office, and wetland seeds are very light.  I think I seeded my chair a little. 

Stay tuned for volunteer days...