This past Saturday the Pikas, Silver Salmon, EMA's Iris & Klara, and volunteer, Lindsey all joined forces with Greenways to help maintain the Whatcom Creek in the heart of Bellingham City. Having gotten to know Whatcom Creek upstream, on Saturday we learned more about this special waterway’s history and the ways in which we can work together to preserve this river ecosystem that winds between buildings and streets. We talked about whose cups we fill with a service project like this, and girls offered the following ideas:
-We help nature and plants.
-We help humans because we all live better when we take care of the earth.
-We help the animals that live in this habitat.
-We help the animals that live in this habitat.
After a rousing game of Who Am I? on the green behind the library, we met up with Rae at the service tent. The groups divided and went straight to work with clippers, loppers, pitch-forks, and a mission to remove Rose, Horse Tail, and Snowberry to name a few of the plants on our “weed” list. This assignment at first seemed strange: These were native plants we were removing from their rightful place! Rae, the Greenways coordinator, explained that these plants want to grow too big and tall for their small, pavement bordered patch of earth. The Pikas dove right in to their assignment, using their eagle eyes skills to spot plants slated for cutting, and great coordination to avoid getting poked by Rose thorns! This project proved a great opportunity for teamwork, and the girls collaborated to find, pull and collect
all of the weeds in their path. During our work we discovered:
all of the weeds in their path. During our work we discovered:
-Mushroom Mycelium growing throughout woodchips
-Worms, millipedes, and spiders
-An old flip phone buried in the dirt (unfortunately it no longer worked)
-An old flip phone buried in the dirt (unfortunately it no longer worked)
-How fun it can be to clip and rip plants out of the dirt!
The girls pushed through to finish pulling all of the plants they could and clean up their area, even as attention spans strained. They demonstrated true integrity in continuing to work, and exemplified the motto: Walk Your Talk. It was truly gratifying to stand back and look at our transformed area when our job was finished!
When the work party wrapped up, we descended back to the library lawn for a lunch in the sun, some hilarious headstand competitions and yogi sessions, and then GAMES GALORE!
We practiced our "MOOOS!" and got silly during a game of Tipping Cows, used our Owl Eye vision for a game of Owl tail tag, and became exceptionally sneaky as hiders and seekers during a few rounds of Spiders Web.
To view the full album of the day, click here.
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