Amma teaches us to be like a bird perched on a dry twig, ready to fly at a moment’s notice. We certainly had an opportunity to practice that teaching during our March 17 work party.
At the beginning of the work party, there were five team leaders present and ready for action. The plan for the day took an unexpected turn when no one from the group who was going to do the March planting showed up.
The native shrubs and ground covers we were planting that day were bare root plants or plugs, so we didn’t have the luxury of planting them over time; they had to be planted that day. When it became clear that the group wasn’t going to come, the team leaders “rolled up their sleeves” and started planting the 65 plants themselves.
I called John (neighbor) and asked if he would carry the wood chips we use for mulch to the various planting areas. Thankfully, he was available and came right away. With his help, we were able to finish the project by 2:00 pm!
I was too busy planting and carrying wood chips to take any photos during this work party, but took pictures of some of the plants and planting areas later.
(You can enlarge the photos by clicking on any picture in the gallery below.)
Pacific Rhododendron
Coastal Strawberry
Blue Elderberry
Black Currant
Mock Orange
Davidson’s Penstemon area
Bunchberry area
Cedar Tree surrounded by Black Currant plants
If we were being “tested” on flexibility, persistence, letting go, accepting what is, doing whatever it takes, equanimity and/or being like a bird perched on a dry twig, I’d say we passed the test!
Now that he is back from working on Amma’s North India tour, Sreejit from The Seeker’s Dungeon is starting a new Guest Posting event. It is called From Darkness to Light. Everyone who reads this post is welcome to write for it. Feel free to tell your friends, family, colleagues and anyone else in your life about it! They are also welcome to participate.
Sreejit said: “It is about sharing your darkest times and how you were able to use it to find purpose in your life. Your words might be just what someone else needs to hear. And in sharing we can all remember that we are not alone in our struggles.”
Sreejit is in the process of writing a new song called This is What the Dream Looks Like. It is about his experience of living and working on Amma’s most recent North India Tour. The video below was taken when he shared the lyrics with a group in Amritapuri.
Lyrics:
Straw mat and a concrete floor, food in the corner from two days before, laundry hanging from a rope through the center of the room – this is what the dream looks like.
Callus hands but they weren’t always rough, sharp words but we weren’t always tough, one thing this life teaches is that, together, we are enough.
This is what the dream looks like, more than a struggle it’s a fight to be kind when you’re hungry and tired, ‘cause you don’t have any right to be tired
when people are coming to forget their problems, and maybe a little of your time could help solve them, maybe a kind word from you would absolve them of the feeling that they’re all alone – though sometimes we all feel that we are all alone – yeah this is what the dream looks like.
Beaten down by the work no one sees, ‘cause it’s always full-on behind the scenes to magnify the glitz and the lights – yeah this is what the dream looks like.
Getting home to see family at most once a year, and never bringing home the glam and the cheer – just wanting to hide in your bed, to watch tv just to get out of your head – yeah this is what the dream looks like.
Feet full of cracks and can barely walk, always falling asleep and so can barely talk, all eyes on you confused why you can’t form a sentence, let alone a thought,
always irritated by the smallest things, ‘cause that’s just what happens when you forget to eat, and that’s just what happens when you’re consumed with the work that you love – yeah it truly is a gift from above.
Straw mat and a concrete floor, kind of looks like the city before, but that place had water and this one you have to go next door,
but next door they have a kitchen and some home cooked food, and a friendly ear to pry out the blues if you choose to forget for a moment that you are not alone in the struggle – yeah this is what the dream looks like.
I woke up during the night with the song How Great Thou Art reverberating throughout my body and soul. It was one of those dreams that was so much more than a dream, or maybe it wasn’t a dream at all. I felt grateful and blessed.
I heard that song for the first time in 1962 when George Beverly Shea sang it during a Billy Graham crusade my mother and I attended. I was in 10th grade at the time and we were living at Ft. Shafter Army Base in Honolulu, Hawaii. That experience was a major turning point in my life. While it wasn’t the beginning of my spiritual life, it certainly was the beginning of a new chapter.
I woke up several times during the night with that “dream” in the forefront of my mind. Again, I felt grateful and blessed. My sleep ended at 4 a.m. when I started thinking of events that had occurred early in my life. I remembered being really young (5 years old?) and loving the Christian music my father’s mother sang to me when my family visited her in New Jersey. As I thought about those times, the words “church in the vale” and later “little brown church in the vale” came into my mind. I don’t remember if that was a song my grandmother introduced me to, but it certainly could have been.
I decided to write a post about my dream and the reflections that followed it so I got up. I looked for YouTube videos of both songs. The video I chose for How Great Thou Art was recorded in 1957, several years before I heard the magnificent song for the first time. It was probably recorded during a Billy Graham crusade. Wikipedia says the song “is a Christian hymn based on a Swedish traditional melody and a poem written by Carl Boberg in Mönsterås, Sweden in 1885.”
The other song is called the Church in the Wildwood or The Little Brown Church. The video I’m sharing for that one is of Andy Griffith, Don Knotts and Robert Emhardt singing it in a 1963 show. That song was written by Dr. William S. Pitts in 1857.
We will be planting 75 shrubs and ground covers in our GreenFriends forest restoration site on March 17. The March 10 work party focused on getting new areas prepared for planting. Almost all of our team leaders attended that work party as did seven members of the Franklin National Honor Society. In addition, friends of two of the team leaders worked with us. In all, 16 volunteers took part in the March 10 work party.
During the last two years, when we cut or pulled out vines such as blackberry, ivy and bindweed, and when we dug out blackberry root balls, we usually took the waste to the foundation of a house that exists on our Greenbelt site. Once there, we placed the waste on drying racks that we had built inside the foundation. We call that area “The Rack Zone” and we generally refer to the dried vines, branches and root balls as “debris.”
In January, we had taken apart the majority of the racks in The Rack Zone and spread the debris throughout the Zone. The debris will continue to decompose and in time The Rack Zone will become another planting area.
Not all of the debris is located in The Rack Zone however; some of it has been placed on racks that are scattered throughout the site. During the first part of the March 10 work party, we began the process of putting the dried debris in those piles on tarps… and then dumped the contents in The Rack Zone. Removing the piles of debris was the first step in getting those areas ready for planting.
We started by dismantling the racks on the south end of the site. The photo below shows what one area looked like at the beginning of the work party. Last Fall, that pile of debris had been four to five feet high but other work party participants had removed a lot of it. Our goal during this work party was to move the remainder of the debris to The Rack Zone.
Before
We would also be taking down a big pile of debris just east of it. You can see part of that pile in the middle left section of the photo above. That pile was much bigger than what you can see in the photo.
These two piles were located at the southwest part of the site. We also removed a pile of debris in the southeast section of the site and one north of the Hanford Stairs.
(You can enlarge the photos in any of the galleries by clicking on one of the photos.)
The southwest area looked like this once the piles had been removed. The debris that is still scattered on the ground will become mulch.
While most of the volunteers were clearing the section on the southwest part of the site, a smaller group worked in the southeast area. The photo below was taken of this space the end of September 2018.
The volunteers in this group moved the pile of dried debris to The Rack Zone.
In the photo below, a team leader is teaching the students how to dig out blackberry root balls. If you look up the hill from where they are standing, you will also see some of the larger group working in the southwest area. By the time this photo was taken, both groups had removed most of the debris in their areas.
This is what the space in the southeast area looked like once the pile of debris and the blackberry root balls had been removed. The land is ready for planting and the remaining debris will be used for mulch.
An hour-and-a-half into the March 10 work party, we took a snack break. Afterwards, we divided into three groups.
Group 1
Before I tell you about Group 1’s work, I will share some back story.
There is an area along 25th Ave S. that is part of an adjacent Greenbelt site. When we started to clear that area during the February 24 work party, blackberry, ivy and periwinkle vines formed a tight web over much of the ground. There was also a lot of downed trees, branches and other debris.
While we had accomplished a great deal on February 24, I felt overwhelmed by what it would take to have it ready for planting on March 17.
A few days later, I worked on my own and cleared enough space to feel some hope that we could have it ready by the 17th. My neighbor John worked alongside me the two following days. Since he uses a pick ax, we progressed much faster. The land suitable for planting was growing!
Before
After
During this work party on March 10, Group 1 removed a debris pile from the 25th Ave. S area and expanded the planting area. They also moved a lot of the branches and logs that were scattered in that area and dug out blackberry root balls.
Group 2
John and Jason, who are both neighbors and team leaders, worked in an area where blackberry vines had pulled two trees to the ground. They freed those trees and cut down blackberry vines in the surrounding area. I wish I had been present when the trees lost their shackles. I love to see how the they snap up and reach for the sky in that moment .
Freed tree #1
Freed tree #2
This area will take a lot more work to clear. Here is what it looks like now.
Group 3
Prior to this work party, I marked the places where new plants will be planted. In each space, I placed a pink flag, a white sign that indicates the name of the plant and a stick with red and black flagging tape. The red and black tape indicates that the item was planted during the 2018-19 planting season.
On March 17, participants will look for the pink flags. They will then plant the specified shrub or ground covers putting the white sign and the stick with the red and black flagging tape into the ground next to the plant.
The third group of volunteers worked in the lower planting area that is on the north side of the Hanford Stairs and near Cheasty Blvd. Their task was to see that all three markers had been left for each future plant .
When that task was finished, those volunteers moved to a different part of the site and cleaned out leaves and wood chips from the “donut holes” around the trees, shrubs and ground covers that had been planted in previous years. (When we plant, we put a four inch layer of wood chips around each plant to hold in moisture. We keep the area close to the plant free of those wood chips. That area is referred to as the donut hole.)
The group also removed the leaves from one entire planting area. All of the leaves were taken to The Rack Zone. The areas looked so beautiful when the group finished their work.
Group 4
The group who had worked in the southeast section during the first part of the work party, continued working there after the snack break. They finished digging out the root balls and then cut back the blackberry vines that are on the south edge of the property. (We have to leave a buffer zone between the neighbor’s house and the Greenbelt so we will need to continue to cut back those vines throughout the year and for years to come.)
In the third photo below you will see both the buffer zone and that there is a mound of dried debris that goes across the planting area. That area of the site is hilly. Numerous strips like that one were placed there last year in an attempt to prevent or reduce erosion.
Buffer area
I encouraged everyone to walk in The Rack Zone as much as possible throughout the work party, hoping all the traffic would break down the debris faster. I was delighted to see a group of volunteers gathering there towards the end of the event.
As always, I was amazed by how much we had accomplished during the three-hour work party. I believe everyone had a good time and I appreciated that the new planting areas were all ready to receive the new plants.
An added bonus is that the Franklin National Honor Society students want to come back! I look forward to working with them again in the future.
February was the coldest month in Seattle since 1940. The weather was unstable with the forecast changing day to day and sometimes hour to hour. March started off cold too. I was delighted when the prediction for full sun on March 4 stayed steady.
This was the 8th year that the GreenFriends PNW Litter Project held a cigarette butt pick-up work party in support of Kick Butts Day, a day of activism sponsored by the Campaign for Tobacco Free Kids. Their vision:
The Campaign for Tobacco-Free Kids is a leading force in the fight to reduce tobacco use and its deadly toll in the United States and around the world. Our vision: A future free of the death and disease caused by tobacco. We work to save lives by advocating for public policies that prevent kids from smoking, help smokers quit and protect everyone from secondhand smoke.
The actual Kick Butts Day is on Wednesday March 20 but we had picked Sunday March 4 as our day to support their vision. Fifteen eager volunteers gathered in the International District at 10 a.m.
After signing in, the participants picked up gloves, bags to put their cigarette butts in, and litter grabbers if they wanted one. Once the volunteers were ready, they spread throughout the area.
Sign in
Cigarette filters are NOT made of cotton, they are made of cellulose acetate tow, which is a form of plastic, and they can take decades to degrade. Investigators in a past San Diego State University study discovered that if you put fathead minnows and a single cigarette butt in a liter of water, half of the fish will die.
We take the attitude that every cigarette we pick up is one less that could end up being swallowed by a fish, bird or other form of wildlife. By sending them to TerraCycle to be recycled into plastic pallets, we also keep them out of the landfill.
Some years there are more butts on the ground than others. This year, in some areas, there were more butts than I have ever seen. The photos below were taken in front of a building that was a block from where we we had gathered.
Every member of the group worked diligently.
One of our photographers!
Just before noon, everyone came back to the park. Once there, we each added the cigarette butts we had collected to the main bag.
We waited for everyone to return…..
… and then took the group photo that is at the top of this post.
It had been another fun and productive cigarette butt pick-up work party. We won’t know how many butts we removed until they get to TerraCycle but we knew each one that was in our bag was one that didn’t end up in the landfill, waterways, or stomach of birds, fish or other creatures.
On a chilly but snow-free February morning, eleven volunteers gathered to work in our Greenbelt forest restoration site. Kelly, Antje and I served as team leaders. In addition, a neighbor, two students from Seattle University’s Environmental Perspectives class and five volunteers who had found us on the Green Seattle Partnership’s Event Page participated.
This was the first time we held a work party where the restoration work was exclusively in the Greenbelt site that is north of the Hanford Stairs. (Our main site is south of the stairs.)
After the initial orientation, we divided into three teams.
Teams One and Two
We have been having a problem with people dumping yard waste and trash into a section of the Greenbelt that we had begun to clear last fall. I wondered if we planted trees, shrubs and ground covers in that area if the dumping would stop.
Planting in that section would be no easy matter. Take a look at what the land looked like at the beginning of this work party.
(To get a better sense of the enormity of the task, click on the gallery)
Getting this land ready for planting will take many work parties. We decided to start in a section where the blackberry vines had been cut down but the root balls hadn’t been dug out (see the photo below).
Before
Our plan for this work party was to clear a small strip of land on the edge of the place where the Greenbelt becomes a steep slope. Once it was cleared, we would create a barrier along that strip. The barrier might be helpful in reducing dumping. Even if it wasn’t, it would make people more aware of the slope on the other side of it. [Note: barrier is probably the wrong word since the structure will only be 3-4 feet high, but I can’t think of a better one. Border is a possibility but that doesn’t seem right either.]
The barrier would be built from dried branches as well as materials that might slow down weed growth. All of the materials we will use to create it will decompose over time and enrich the soil. Once the barrier is built, we will plant the trees, shrubs and ground covers on the flat land that is east of it.
As the team began to work, they discovered that there were many layers of ivy and periwinkle vines both on top of the ground and under it. There was also a small holly plant.
The team worked diligently
While the first team was clearing the land in the strip, the second team did tasks that supported the first and third teams. For example, they filled buckets with wood chips and then took the buckets to the areas where the wood chips would be spread over cleared ground.
Once the buckets were empty, team two volunteers refilled them. They also filled several buckets with branches that would become part of the barrier. After some time, the second team joined the first team in clearing the strip.
These groups cleared a significant amount of land. This is what the strip looked like once the blackberry root balls, ivy and periwinkle vines had been removed.
After
During part of the clearing time, one of the volunteers cut cedar leaves off cedar branches that had been dumped in the Greenbelt. Sometimes the leaves were left on the thinner branches. Those leaves became the first layer of the barrier.
Next the team covered the cedar leaves with two layers of burlap bags.
Then a layer of wood chips was spread. The work party was almost over so we put a layer of branches on top of the wood chips. If there had been more time, we probably would have added a thicker layer of wood chips.
There will be many more layers in the barrier and in time the strip will be at least three times as long as it is now. I don’t know exactly what it will look like when we finish it. This project is definitely an experiment.
The first photo below shows the entire strip the team created that day and the second photo will give you a glimpse of the challenges we will face when we extend it.
After
Future work
Team 3
The third team started their day clearing an area near the Hanford stairs; an area that also had invasive blackberry, ivy and periwinkle vines.
Before
Before
As soon as a section was cleared, the volunteers covered the ground with wood chips. Here the wood chips serve primarily as mulch. I was excited to see the changes that were occurring before my eyes. When they finished the area along the stairs looked like this:
After
After
After a snack break, team three decided to clear invasive ivy, blackberry and periwinkle vines… and occasionally trash… in a part of the Greenbelt that was a bit further away from the stairs. One member of group two and I joined them.
I didn’t take before and after photos where this group worked except for the “after” photo below. It shows a section that is full of Dwarf Oregon Grape plants. The space between the plants used to be filled with ivy.
I give thanks to all of the volunteers who helped during this work party and during the work parties that proceeded it. It is due to the volunteers that this land is once again becoming a healthy forest.
***
I always enjoy writing these posts. Whenever I do that, I get to re-live the magic that occurs during each work party.
If you would like to participate in this restoration work, write me at hanfordstairsgreenbelt@gmail.com or you can find information about and/or sign up for our March 10 work party at: https://seattle.greencitypartnerships.org/event/15840/.
