Jumping Mice put an exclamation point on spring service!

I’ve been writing blog posts about our service work for a few years now. After that much time, it begins to feel repetitive to write about uprooting Himalayan Blackberries and stomping down and covering the Reed Canary Grass with bark. In fact, until this season, it has been primarily the same work each time (I’ll explain it a bit why the work was a little different this time).

Notice the Reed Canary Grass? I didn't think so! (Of course,
it'll come back...but less seems to come back each season.)

So let’s refresh our thinking about why we do this work. Two Explorers Club mottos will help here. The first: All things are connected. "If you go off into a far, far forest and get very quiet, you'll come to understand that you're connected with everything." – Alan Watts 

On our outings, we point out and experience these connections as much as possible. In the course of our exploring, we come to realize that all things really are connected — mosquitoes and streams, cows and the Salish Sea, litter and otters, the skies over China and over us — and that all our actions have an impact.

We probably should've put more tiers of cribbing. Live and learn.

Notice - “all our actions” have an impact. The actions of others have caused significant degradation to a section of Happy Valley Park. We have committed ourselves to restoring the habitat for the sake of the mosquitoes, people, cows, the Salish Sea, otters and of course, salmon. Yes, the work is difficult and repetitive, but the positive impact is great.

The second motto: Connect and protect. When we’re exploring and playing games in the forest, we impact the land. We do this in service to what we perceive to be the higher goal of connection. "If we want children to flourish, to become truly empowered, then let us allow them to love the earth before we ask them to save it."-David Sobel 

I'll bet your Explorer can tells you the steps to place cribbing
in securely.

However, we do impact the land. So we work to restore it as a way of balancing the damage we do and because when we connect we recognize the need to also protect.

In Sunday’s case, we also got to learn a new technique involved in restoring riparian habitat. You see, we reached the creek this season! Years of hard work have produced visible, tangible results. It has also changed the work. On Sunday, we did little weeding and no bark shuttling. Instead, we built “cribbing”, or barriers to retain the soil and bark in place and not in the stream, where it degrades the water quality on which salmon rely.

Ask your Explorer for the 3 C's of a high quality salmon stream.

Connection happens when we're engaged directly
with the land.

Mentors and Explorers alike are learning as we go through this restoration process. Your boy’s work was inconsistent on this final service day of the spring, but when it came time to depart, each Explorer and mentor was able to see the good work he’d done — on Sunday and over the two years the Jumping Mice have been shouldering their share of the burden.

To give you an idea of the progress - here's a boy from another
group working on the Reed Canary Grass 3 years ago Compare with the
photo from Sunday below.

Blackberry - again, three years ago.

This was taken Sunday. The section of fence you see was
"discovered" in the midst of raging Himalayan Blackberry!

We meet again on June 4 at Lookout Mountain Forest Preserve. More photos here.

Townsend's Chipmunks and Jumping Mice Serve the Land

This weekend concluded our month long stretch of service outings at Connelly Creek. Throughout this time  we have had all fifteen groups (169 Explorers!) come out and give back to the land in a meaningful way. For this final weekend of work our main tool provider and partner in the project, the Bellingham Parks Department, came out to join us. Ray Edwards from the parks department has helped us immensely throughout the course of this project; from providing tools and starts to detailed guidance and instructions on how best to target our efforts. For this outing the Townsend's Chipmunks worked closely with Ray to learn how to use some new tools and techniques for planting species.

In our opening meeting the parks department had the Townsend's Chipmunks do something that was almost unheard of in Explorers Club, they were asked to take a test. The boys hardly flinched and quickly completed a short questionnaire on different species around our area and what it means to participate in Service Work. Leaving Paper and Pencils behind We gathered around Ray as she instructed us on our tasks for the day. That day we had Several different species to plant including; Ninebark, Red Osier dogwood, and sitka spruce. The Townsend’s Chipmunks did an excellent job giving Ray their attention and really engaging with the information.

At This time the Jumping Mice showed up and we all began the work of preparing the ground for planting. We dug blackbeary roots, racked up blackbeary trimmings, and packed it all out in trash cans. While most of us focused our work on the blackberry removal some of the boys worked on putting up a circular wire fence that would protect our new starts from the grazing deer that frequent Connelly Creek.  All the boys worked really hard during this time and we accomplished a lot. After about an hour we were ready to plant. 

Everyone Grabbed the starts and we began digging holes for each start. It was hard work but also very gratifying to see what had been a patch of blackberries turn into the beginnings of a native habitat. It didn’t take too long to plant all the species and get a solid 6” of mulch spread around everything. Standing back we all admired our work.

Throughout the whole outing I was continually impressed by the boys ability to work together as a group and communicate with one another even while doing physically demanding work. It was a really good opportunity for many of the boys to become good leaders amongst their peers and really support one another in their efforts. 

With our time running out we decided to focus the last part of our outing on spreading more mulch throughout the site to leave it in a good place for the next days group. As the Townsend’s Chipmunks Peeled off for their closing circle the Jumping Mice worked to tidy up any loose ends and organize the tools.

Explorers thank you for all of your hard work this weekend. It truly makes a big difference. Parents be sure to walk through this site with your Explorer so they can show you what they have been working on. It is truly amazing what the combined efforts of all these boys can do. We also have more photos from the outing in the Jumping Mice photo gallery and the Townsend’s Chipmunks photo gallery.