Rare Sight

Yesterday was one of those beautiful Spring days.  All week the dreary rain and clouds made the weekend look unpromising.  I had land trust duties to attend to.  Cleaning up junk.

It may not sound like the way to spend a bright Spring morning but a small group got together and set to work on a heavily impacted unit with the Nisqually Land Trust , Wilcox Flats.

This parcel came to the Land trust at pennies on the pound.  Originally platted for over 40 homes, a series of floods quickly showed developers that this was a flood zone with great power.  These floods brought down river a mountain of tires and house debris.  They also wiped out a few houses already build.

You would not know such devastation happened 20 years ago.  Trees have grown up the land looks healed.  Close up,however it is a different story.

The soil has a thick layer of sand in many areas.  Sand is a trick soil to plant in this region but certain areas of planting are doing well.  Shore Pine is taking hold and growing well.  Elk, however are making sure the Shore Pines of a certain size must be worthy of growing to maturity.  Established trees about five to eight feet high are fine scratching posts.  The Elk rub them for grooming and territory marking.  Many of these trees have bark stripped off and branches broken.  Those which completely snap off will eventually return to the soil but others have a sort of bonsai look to them.

We tackled a mound that had litter at the base and pretty quickly established that the mound was largely household junk.  It looks like they had established a burn pile and a garbage pile and eventually pushed them together.

There were large number of toothbrushes and combs, cosmetics and medicine bottles.  Tons of broken bottles and left over stuff from a workshop.We could have kept going like mad archaeologists but since the mound was well covered over by soils we smoothed over the area we cleaned an will likely let nature hide the rest.

Over on a side channel of the river the  tires present a bigger challenge.  many of the tires that were left up on land have already bee cleared by several work parties.  Now tires which line the channel must be got at.

The shrubs, the fallen trees and the water all equal a challenging task.  Tires line this channel at all levels and we were able to get about a dozen taken out.  It was a trek out to the water from the staging area so folks had to run the tires through the woods on what can barely be called a trail.

Dig the tire out of the bank

Bring it back and up the fallen tree

Toss it down to me

I pick it up out of the water and roll it up the bank and down to the staging area for the woods runners.

You cannot complain about doing work like this with nice people.  Sunny day , singing birds and a fun discovery.

Beaver skull

Molars, not something you see everyday.

It is going to take a strong group from the military base to get at the tires that are in deeper water along the bank.  I suggested ropes tied to the tires which those on shore could haul in.  Chris said it was a good reason to finally get hip waders.

There Was No Partridge

I spent the morning with the Nisqually Land Trust working on the historic Van Eaton property in Eatonville.  This property borders the Mashel River and consists of the old farm barn and pond along with forest and tiers of land which run down to the river.  The Land Trust donated the historic barn and pond to the town.

Today we had a great turn-out.  A group from Edmonds Community College was with us.  These students were not traveling during the holiday break and had the option to do community service and have experiences related to their school work.  They were staying up the road at Pack Forest and had already done a full days work there.

We have visited this property several times over the last few years focusing on Scots Broom.  My partner and I were assigned the clearing where major work had been done before.  We were to scout for new growth and grab up as many as possible.

It was challenging work as the grass is well grown up and finding the green growth within the tall grass meant we did a lot of slow walking back and forth, scanning for unwanteds

My shoulders ache

As I was prowling along I found this shiny brown object.

At first glance I thought it was a mushroom of some kind but looking closely I tipped up the chewed on side..

It is a pear.  A very large very substantial pear.  Around this area I found more, some were just skins with all the flesh eaten out.

These wonderful trees ringing the opening are the remainders of the original orchard.  Most likely these moss and lichen covered pear trees are at least 100 years old.

If you look very closely at the top of that right arching branch you can see one pear hanging on.  I bet they would make great cider.

After gleaning the meadow we moved on to tackle the blackberry that has invaded the shoreline and backwater areas on the river.

Saw plenty of evidence of deer, Elk and Coyote in the meadow...

but not a single Partridge.

Live Stakes

Saturday I returned to a project area I talked about last Spring.  We had spent a fine Spring morning burlapping to supress Reed Canary grass.

Now is the time to get native plants placed in this area.  Fast growing plants to fill in this open side channel will help to further choke down the Reed Canary grass.  The cold, crisp weather continues and I ventured a look at the Mesonet weather report for the area.  Seventeen degrees Fahrenheit with no wind (thank goodness).  This is a terrific site and for planning a day out it cannot be beat.  Temperature Wind High/Low rainfall all in one handy place.

http://www.wrh.noaa.gov/mesowest/

Didn't need the Mesonet to tell me what my car window could.  Armed with a nice cup of coffee in my thermos mug I drove down to Yelm, enjoying a lovely clear blue sunrise.  I was early, as usual and wandered around the meeting area.

You know it is DARN cold out when a glacier fed river is warmer than the surrounding area and sending up wisps of warmer vapors.

The ground is covered in Big-leaf Maple leaves and samaras.

This one is a science experiment in the making as the seed is down in a hole in this post.  The surrounding moss guarantees that it will stay insulated and moist.  I wonder if it will sprout?

Today's group included 20 gentlemen from McChord AFB.  Young troops and their leaders, these helpers from the base are always eager to work and work hard.  One was from El Paso Texas and had never experienced woodlands like we have here.

The backwater area still has burlap in place and the grasses were tamed down.  The beavers who contributed to some of this side-channels construction appear to have moved out of the area in the last season.  They left behind an empoundment deeper in the woods that made out usual woodland trail no longer available.  We hiked about 1/2 mile along a service road to access the property area.

Today we are driving live stakes of three native Salix willow species; Pacific Sitka and Scoulers. These stakes were cut from growing plants.  The beveled end is plunged into the ground half the length of the stick, which was about 2 feet long.  Nodes that make contact with the moist soil will sprout roots, above ground the nodes will send out branches.

The ground is soft here and there are hardly any stones.  A drive bar starts a hole and you simply plunge it in.  A few good whacks with the mallet and the live stake is planted.  Charlie and I placed the stakes on the steep portions of the creek bank.

Charlies neoprene hip-waders made this pretty comfortable duty.

Others working in teams of 4 or 5 placed the willows along the top of meandering bank.  There are hidden pitfalls in this area thanks to the handy work of the beavers and the coverage of the Reed Canary grass.  Occasional jeering and hoots were heard from the troops when someone came afoul of a slippery place.  Happy to say there was only one soggy leg and I believe it was that of an officer which no doubt delighted the younger airmen.

The live stakes were driven then protected with the usual tubes and wooden stakes.  This keeps rodents from chewing and enjoying.  A further application of latex paint mixed with sand followed. This can be a good beaver deterrent.

It took about 2 hours to plant over 450 stakes.  What a treat to have such a good turn out of help on such a cold day.  No one really felt the cold, the sun and activity once again made this a pleasure.

Added bonus is that it is a pretty peaceful place.  It is going to be fun to watch this area quickly transform into a more complete habitat.  Willows grow fast and they are wonderful habitat for many of our native songbirds like warblers and flycatchers.  We will be returning in a few months to place transition plants like Salmonberry and roses as well as some tree species.

Within a few years this place is going to be totally transformed.

Back in my car, the thermos mug did its job and my morning coffee is still warm.  Isn't technology grand.

Berry Cold

A combination of a typhoon remnant running into Alaska and the benefit of high mountains to our east we have been socked by the first cold snap of the season.

The pressure of the storm in Alaska has shifted a low pressure mass out of the Arctic and into the east.  As this mass comes south the pressure differences set up.  East of the Cascades, cold high pressure to the , warmer low pressure over us in the west.  Gaps in the Cascade range sets up a funnel for the high pressure to run into the low.  Columbia Gorge is famous for the fierce winds which come with these events.  The Enumclaw Gap is another.  Wednesday people awoke to downed trees and power lines for 40 - 60 mph winds.  This high wind and its cloudless sky has removed our insulating blanket and overnight we have gone from typical 50's to barley making it out of the 30s.

So heading out to a land trust work party, the mornings rising sun could not do away with this.  I love the feathery ice patterns on the glass.  Happily it defrosts in a jiffy.

Driving south the freeway was fine but rounding the corner at Kent I met the outpouring of winds from the Enumclaw Gap.  They were light, relative to what had passed through overnight but trees were whipping and bending and my car danced a bit along the road.

I stopped for hand warmers to share with co-workers

This new property was donated by a private citizen.  It is her hope that in the long term we can return the 40+ acres to what it was in her youth.  Today we got started by attacking the blackberry that has over-run this clearcut land

I left my work gloves at home, they need a bath from last weekends work party.  I pulled a leather and fleece combo, just a thing for a cold and sticker filled day like this.

Blackberry can rapidly overtake cleared areas.  Here we have a lot of native plant mixed in so one has to be careful about attacking anything with thorns for good natives like Salmonberry and Snowberry  are desired.  Even our native Trailing Blackberry is here.  It was doing a good job of running and blending in with the undesirable Himmalayan and Mountain ( cut-leaf) blackberry.

We attack the job.  I use a shovel and a pair of clippers.  Trim down the long vines and try to get it into some kind of pile, then dig out the root ball.

Two gas powered cutters were deployed to really attack the bushes that were growing thick and high.

Those Alder trees are totally engulfed by these plants with vines growing up and over the limbs at lease 12 feet up.  The safety gear is needed for sure.  There is nothing that saves you when you go hand to hand , however.  Even the leather gloves did not save my hands from punctures and my arms and legs are covered in little scratches where  thorns got through.

After the canes were cut through in the base two of us went in and worked out the puzzle of pulling the canes out of the high branches.  Sometimes it was pretty straight forward pull this and it comes down.  Other times it was sort of figuring out the layers and the ways they entwine.  We succeeded, however in getting 5 trees cleared of they vine burden.

A Robin nest was inside this mass.  They will have to make do next season with one of the areas nearer the woodsland

This property needs a lot of work and some plantings are already planned.  By liberating the trees and freeing up the soil and light penetration for the native shrubby plants we already have a head start.

A cold sunny day and hard work go together.  Much easier to work hard when you don't fight the rising temperatures.

Landtrust Magic

It is the time of year when my work with the Nisqually Land Trust shifts over to weekend volunteer events.  There is ongoing work every day of the week with volunteer Wednesdays staying popular with school, corporate and some members.  I have been able to join on a couple of Wednesdays due to over accumulation of vacation days.  I have to use them or lose them, so occasional days off, mid-week, keeps me on par.  When I feel caught up, I will take something more afield.

We work, rain or shine.  I can only remember one event cancelled and that was for frozen ground, a rare event here.  I joke that there is a bit of magic in the Nisqually basin that makes the rain stop at 9am and resume again at noon. So often threatening weather seems to pause for the morning.  When it is bad weather, it always seems to be not so very bad.  The few times it has really rained, it did not matter for we were in deep woods.

Last Saturday I joined a small work party on a new property in Eatonville.  This little wedge of land goes right to the edge of the Mashel River and the old pasture was starting to support Scots Broom. School children were going to come and plant native shrubs and trees but first we wanted to get a head start on pulling broom.

It was raining fairly well when I left at 7am but as I got further south, it was lightening up to a simple sprinkle.  Arriving at the site I donned my rainproof pants and discovered I had left my jacket at home.  Somewhere in the recent weeks I had brought in the supplies for washing and never returned them.  Ah well, I thought, I was going to get wet and sweaty anyway so why bother.

We got ourselves together, had a warming cup of coffee and bravely pushed on across the road.

And the rain stopped.

Scots Broom, introduced and encouraged for some foolish reason is a foul invasive that seems to have no normal enemy.  Fire will not suppress it for the seeds endure.  To make the task of getting these beasts from the ground we use everyone's favorite gadget, a Weed Wrench / Root Jack.

Clamp the base, pull the lever, toss uprooted invasive aside.  Great therapy for whatever frustration ails you.

We worked for about 15 minutes then stopped.  Layers were coming off for the sky went from rainy to this

The property, facing full east, quickly warmed up and before long we were sharing a gallon of water.  Everyone got slower and slower and by noon we had a pooped out, over-dressed work party and four huge mounds of broom.

We returned to the cars and sure enough, it began to rain.

Yesterday was the annual Ohop Valley planting.  This is my favorite property and I have featured it several times.  This day we are planting further south in the valley.  The plants from prior work in the area are still quite small, not the impressive regrowth of the areas planted five years ago.

 Having worked on these projects for some time it is rewarding to return to this property  in particular where you can see the beautiful red barn up the valley disappear behind the luxurious regrowth of bottomland trees and shrubs.

Volunteers of all ages and experience join.  There was a lot of coffee and Halloween candy for all.

This year seems like a smaller crew than usual but no matter.  There is plenty of hands to get the job done.  Once again the weather threatens, but never happens.   It remained foggy and cloudy the whole morning.  People were pulling off waterproofs and dragging them along as the army progressed.

We planted cedars, firs, pines, rose, willow, snowberry and cottonwood.  The soil was mercifully free of rock and was perfect for digging and planting.  The plants were beautifully done in one gallon pots.  We found plenty of worms in the potting mix and some plants had little mushrooms and good bugs like spiders and springtails to add to the ecology.

We started at the far end of this section and worked our way back to the vans.  There was a reason for this, the area near the vans was quite wet and every hole dug quickly had water seep in to the bottom. Shovels and gloves were covered in mud.  When you stepped in your finished plant, it seemed to sink into the ground a bit further, which is not good for the plant.  But they will love the wet rich soil.

If you think this is impressive , you should see the rest of the elephant.

It was a great morning of good work, good cheer and silly jokes.

Wilcox Flats Clean-up

I spent a wonderful, warm sunny morning working with the Nisqually Land trust cleaning up the Wilcox Flats property.  This parcel is on the far side of Wilcox Farms and just north across the river from where we burlaped the end of last December.  This parcel was inundated several years ago with flood waters which washed debris downriver.  Today the focus was cleaning up and clearing out.

When I arrived Chris, our coordinator said there were at least 15 soldiers from Lewis/McCord joining us.  They are great help as they are willing to put themselves to tough work.  I grabbed a knife and set out removing tubes and stakes from around plants which were planted several years ago.  I have done several of these plantings here and the results are a mixed bag.  The spruce trees were thriving and so were many of the roses and currant bushes.  In one area, however, most of the plants were dead or barely thriving.  It could have been a series of unfortunate weather events, a bad batch of root-stock or perhaps something bad in the soils from the flood.

Spring has clearly sprung.  All around there was bird song.  White-crowned sparrows have arrived here too.  Orange-crowned and Common Yellowthroat Warblers shyly took off when people started working.  Sapsuckers and Flickers were rat-a-tatting in trees.  I even hear a small group of California Quail.

Without a doubt, however, the domineering bird here was a noisy clan.

Several male peacocks noisily "eeeeYAH-ed" around the property.  They have been in the area for sometime, clearly escaped (or released) from someones farm.   How anyone would want to live with these loudmouths is beyond me.

As handsome as they are.

This fine fellow was really strutting his stuff.  He had four hens in his little harem and I have no doubt he was the A Number One fellow

The hens acted just like females of many bird species where the male struts and performs.  They wandered around and appeared to act just liked bored women strolling the counters at the department store.  Oh he tried so hard.

I found myself working quite alone pulling tubes and sacking them for disposal.  I found a few of these little fellows.  Woolly Bears, the caterpillars of Isabella Moth were having an early start to the season.  I usually think of them as a late Fall presence.

Little charmers.

You can see from the trucks that a large number of tires were pulled from the shoreline woods.  Chris said he had underestimated how many and said today he thinks there are at least 100 in and around the woods.

I found a broken lamp and a shoe (size 8)

What a great way to spend a lazy morning.  The good weather has arrived. There is promise of a few rain-free days and temperatures in the 60's.

More Burlaping

Last weekend I spent a morning with the Nisqually Land Trust placing burlap on a riverside property in Yelm.  This long, thin property has a home on it and staff members of the Land Trust have lived here over the years.  In its former life it was a riding stable.  Most of the evidence of that past life has gone.  There is one clearing where the old sand arena has given over to soil and supports a healthy growth of young Cottonwood and cedar.

Today we hiked in about 15 minutes and fanned out, placing burlap over the invasive Reed Canary Grass.  After letting this grassy area die back a bit, native trees and shrubs will be placed.

This area was a bit tricky.  It is near the river and there are a few small water paths cutting through it.  In the thick grass it is a little challenging to see.  Also buried under the grass are many small fallen trees.  Some I assume are wind-tossed but I would not be surprised to find that some local residents did some of the cutting.

Beavers, this property has beavers.  They love hardwood; alder, maple and the like.  They will not eat conifer.  This does not stop them from damaging the trees however.  They will methodically girdle the conifers in order to kill the trees and increase the sunlight, boosting the growth of favorable trees.  The Land Trust has tried to protect as many of the conifers along the property as they could, but resources are limited.

These roots and trunk have been girdled.  Some smaller, recently planted trees at the front of the property have had their trunks painted with a pasty mixture containing sand.  This makes a sandpaper like coating and the Beavers avoid it.  For this old tree, it is too late.

The work was easy and fairly pleasant.  There was a lot of dragging sacks from the stockpile out to the patch being worked on and back and forth again.  Throw them down and piece the edges together like a huge quilt.  Hands and knees crawling about type work.  At one point I simply took a break and lay down and checked out the clouds.  Pretty comfy.

We had a ton of singing woodland birds.  Spring is clearly in the air.  I heard many mating songs and chases.  Brown Creepers wound up and down tree trunks in courtship and territory display.

Highlight for a few of us was a visit from a little charmer.  He was in the grass and hopped onto the burlap we were in the process of placing.  I cannot believe I was able to roll over grab my camera and sneak back for this terrific shot

A teeny , tiny Tree Frog, Hyla regilla.  He is not much longer than 2 1/2 inches nose to bottom.  He posed quite nicely for us.  Chris, the volunteer coordinator observed that the bug life under the burlap gets quite robust and these frogs make a good living.

Three hours passes quickly.  I can feel it in my hands they are simply not as healthy as they use to be.

The walk to and from the work sight was time to enjoy the first hints of Spring.

Early Blue Violet ; Viola adunca

Salmonberry ; Rubus spectabilis bringer of Rufus Hummingbirds.

Impossibly tiny puffballs.  I didn't know what they were, for sure and after getting the pictures ventured to touch one.  They dent slightly and did not puff any spores.

The prize of prizes

We spotted two Trillium ; Trillium oviatum .  I don't remember ever seeing one this early!

The rains continue and the river runs high.  Right now it is hailing, crazy start to Spring

Ah well.  Sit back, stay warm and have another cup of coffee.