Feb 8th 2014

One of the driest winters in living memory puts a little stress on the planting that we have done lately

The multiple hard frosts have laid the sword ferns flat, conserving water until the rains come again. Tonight we have a unusually heavy snow for seattle, the first precipitation in two weeks, hopefully more to come in the next weeks.


A large group came from starbucks on the Martin Luther King day of sharing event January 20th, a new tradition of voluntarism that holiday has spurred.

About 50 people in all, moving 40 yards of wood chips up the hill into the deep woods, clearing english ivy on the clay lens area.

The physical work is accompanied by the shared memory of the site by our legacy forest steward Del, he has contributed the last 8 years of his retirement tirelessly advocating and working directly to reforest the Mt. Baker natural area.

Proof that you can't have a future if you don't have a past, Del is the inspiration for the next generation of forest stewards. Our lives as homo sapians are brief on this earth compared to arboreal life, the story of Mt. Baker park will be written in the trees and plant matrix that Del has planted here.

We had a visit from GSP biologist Gillian Weed to evaluate the site for the Natural Area Crew (NAC) to assist with special tools in cutting the Himalayan Blackberry  thicket in the middle of the site and removing large invasive trees like Holly and Hawthorn.  She also began her career in neighboring Coleman park as a crew leader and had several hard won lessens to tell us about making compost 'rafts' of weeds we pull and proper placement in planting.

The Next big work day is March 8th, with the NAC team assisting, and hopefully more mulch delivered.