Category: Photography

A Surprise Gift

On Friday, I spent time working in our Greenbelt restoration site. As I turned to go back home, I heard a loud sound. It took a moment for me to figure out what it was. When I looked ahead of me, I saw a woodpecker pecking at a dead tree. It was unlike any woodpecker I’ve ever seen. One of the remarkable things about it was that it looked huge.

I used the burst setting on my phone camera and was able to capture a shot of it in the action of pecking.

I wish I had thought to take a video so you could hear the loud sound it made when it was pecking.

Later, I learned that it was a Pileated woodpecker. which is similar in size to a crow. One of their most notable features is their bright red crest. The males have a red streak on their cheek, so the one I saw must have been a female.

These birds are often found around dead trees, foraging for carpenter ants. They are known for the triangle shape holes they create in trees, holes that become habitat to “swifts, owls, ducks, bats, and pine martens.”

Pileated woodpeckers  apparently have bright white underwings. I hope that someday I have the opportunity to see one in flight!

 

Reference:

Pileated Woodpecker

 

Greenbelt Restoration Work Party: Tree Planting Day!

For many years, Amma has been encouraging us to plant trees as a way of healing the Earth. This year, devotees in the Pacific Northwest decided to honor Amma’s 64th birthday by planting trees. We asked everyone to let us know how many trees they would plant and to complete the planting by November 5th. We were hoping at least 64 trees would be pledged. At the time I am writing this post, the pledge count is up to 211!

Seattle Parks Department gave us 37 trees to plant in our Greenbelt site. That work party was held last Sunday, October 22nd. Thirty-two GreenFriends members participated. Many of them had never seen the site before and others hadn’t been there for a long time. I enjoyed seeing and hearing their reactions to the work we’ve done over the last year.

The work party began with an orientation to the site…

and then Pujarini Meera conducted a series of rituals asking Mother Earth for permission to plant the trees and to nurture and protect them after they are planted. I thought it was a beautiful ceremony. (Click on any of the galleries to enlarge the photos.)

After the rituals were over, Ananya and I gave planting instructions…

and then came the fun of planting the trees.

Amma’s birthday project will be over on November 5, but our work in the restoring this Greenbelt site will, of course, continue. We will finish preparing nine planting areas at a work party on November 11 and then will plant 360 shrubs in those areas on November 15!

Greenbelt Restoration Work Party: October 14, 2017

Last weekend’s Greenbelt work party was our biggest ever. Thirty-four people participated. That included 4 GreenFriends members, 4 neighbors, 22 students from the University of Washington’s Introduction to Environmental Science class, 4 friends and a Forest Steward.

Our goal for this work party was to finish preparing the land for the 35+ trees that we are going to plant on October 22. We created a  bucket brigade and then carried 10 cubic yards of wood chips from 25th Avenue S into the Greenbelt and dumped them in piles around the site,

We also removed blackberry root balls that were located close to the planting areas and placed burlap around each section where a tree will be planted.

The work party may have only lasted three hours, but as you can see from the photos above and below, we have lots of memories!

And last, but not least, thanks to my neighbor Marine who took most of these photos.

(You can enlarge any of the photos by clicking on the galleries.)

I Am Not a Sightseer

I am not a sightseer. I haven’t liked sightseeing for as long as I can remember. That attitude was firmly entrenched by the time I was in 10th grade and we lived in Hawaii. There, my brothers and I were expected to go sightseeing with my parents every Sunday. I’m sure I moaned and groaned and pouted.

During our year in Hawaii, I remember resenting that I couldn’t run away from home.  I knew if I made it past the guard at the gate of the army base where we lived, it wouldn’t do me any good because we were living on an island. I’d never be able to find a way off the island.  Continue reading “I Am Not a Sightseer” →

Greenbelt Restoration Work Party: October 1, 2017

On October 1, we held our first forest restoration work party since the end of July. Participants included five members of our GreenFriends group, twelve students from the Introduction to Environmental Science class at the University of Washington, a neighbor, a high school student, a Green Seattle Partnership Forest Steward and two other Seattle residents.

In less than three hours, we …

removed blackberry, bindweed and ivy vines and dug out blackberry root balls from 2050 sq ft of property that had previously been cleared…

cleared 750 sq ft of land for the first time… Continue reading “Greenbelt Restoration Work Party: October 1, 2017” →