Common Ground Haikus

Drove back from dinner,
But there was a road block.
Herd of 30 elk.

Worked at a food bank,
Broccoli bagging races.
The best ISP.

No Shave November,
hairy people everywhere.
Saving h2o.

Independent Service Project at Turtle Ridge Wildlife Center

 

Michael, Sarah, Taylor and Matt spent time working in the Waterfowl Reserve spreading dirt and river rocks.

Blue 4, excluding Team Leader Michael Green, with Jess and Villain the deer.

Carolyn, the coordinator of the day's project at Turtle Ridge, is feeding an injured red tailed hawk.

The Tour of the Oregon Department of Fish and Wildlife Fish Hatchery at Milo McIver State Park

While we took a break from pulling Scotch Broom, the staff gave us a tour of the fish hatchery.

Feeding the salmon.

Planting in Luckiamute

Sydney Lawson and Sarah Gadomski install native plants at the Luckiamute State Natural Area .

Alyssa Pun takes native plants from the trailer bed to place them where they are to be installed at the Paddler's Access area of the Luckiamute State Natural Area.

Taylor Burback and Michael Green place plants where they are to be installed at the Luckiamute State Natural Area.

Progress in Oregon

Amber Anderson clears overgrown weeds from around a young native tree at the Willamette Mission State Park.

Last week we worked at the Willamette Mission State Park and the Luckiamute Natural Area, each for two days. Arriving at the work site required a ferry crossing over the Willamette River. At the 1,600-acre Willamette Mission State Park, we worked with OPRD Park Rangers Jeremy Aloha, Bonny Shepard and Natural Resources Specialist Andrea Berkley to identify specific locations at which native trees were planted in a restoration effort that took place two years prior. Native trees were planted alongside a trail on the boundary of a farm area that is leased by the OPRD. Invasives and overgrown weed populations outcompeted approximately 50 percent of the trees that were planted. Our job was to find all locations where trees were planted and clear a 1.5-foot radius around the tree, whether it was dead or alive.

For the trees that are still among the living, clearing weeds from this space will help the trees to attain a stronger hold and eventually grow to parallel the mature trees just on the other side of the trail. In the distance you can see a towering 276-year-old black cottonwood tree, the nation’s oldest, its growth having begun circa 1735. It is an example of what the natural area would have looked like before much of the area was turned to farmland.

Sarah Gadomski carries red dogwood segments for installing in the Willamette Mission State Park while Alyssa Pun plants the segments in the ground.

The state park itself is on the National Register of Historic Places. It is the former site of the Willamette Mission, established in 1834 by Reverend Jason Lee. At the mission’s height, buildings included a blacksmith shop, granary, hospital, school and dining hall in addition to the mission house and chapel. In a flood in 1861, the mission was significantly damaged. Today, the Willamette Mission has been rebuilt as a ghost structure with metal beams replicating where the mission once stood.

After clearing weeds from a radius around all the native trees that were previously installed, we planted new trees at spots where the last restoration effort didn’t go quite as planned. New trees that we planted included black cottonwood, dogwood and a type of willow. The latter two trees, clearly species that are very much interested in survival, were much easier to plant. We simply lopped two-to-four-foot sections of limbs from trees that were already established and then essentially stuck these severed branches straight into the ground. Given time, water and ample nutrients, roots will eventually sprout from the subterranean segments of the limbs.

Work was carried out under heavy fog, visibility in the morning usually not exceeding about 150 feet. Equipped with our bright yellow rain gear bottoms so as to prevent dew from soaking our NCCC-issued kakis, we planted over 100 trees this week at the Willamette Mission.

Working at Willamette Mission

 

Blue 4 spending the day at Willamette Mission, digging and planting new trees for the state park.

May is hard at work grubbing and searching for surviving trees.

Brad and May plant new dogwood trees at Willamette Mission.

Common Ground Haikus

Removing Scotchsbroom
Blue 4 planting lots o' trees.
Time to get things done.

The blackberry thorns
make excellent hat snatchers.
always watch your tens.

Settling in Salem

Team Blue 4 will stay at this house, owned by the Oregon Parks and Recreation Department, at the Maud Williamson State Recreation Site for six weeks.

AmeriCorps NCCC Team Blue 4 is teaming up with the Oregon Parks and Recreation Department in a six-week ecological restoration and monitoring project that began on Thursday, Nov. 3, 2011 in the Willamette Valley. The NCCC team is working in six natural, recreational and historical sites to restore conifer forests, oak woodlands and riparian forests, and to conduct ecological monitoring of endemic and invasive species within the valley.

The NCCC members will start off the project by planting oak trees in the Champoeg State Heritage Site near St. Paul, followed by removal of the invasive English ivy in Tryon Creek State Park near Portland. In a task that will benefit the local flora and fauna of the sites, the NCCC members will also decommission unauthorized trails that run through ecologically sensitive areas.

Some of the most rare habitat types and scenic vistas are found in Oregon state parks. The team will help to protect and restore these natural resources while ensuring that the sites remain accessible and open to all park visitors. The plant and animal communities found in and around the parks will directly benefit from the team’s activities by having adverse habitat conditions corrected and habitats enhanced to a more fully functioning condition.

Corps Members unload the cargo van at the Maud Williamson House.

May Duong, Sydeney Lawson and Amber Anderson set up their cots inside the Maud Williamson House .

Corps Members continue to unload the vans.

Food shopping for the week.

Alyssa Pun stands outside the Salem Public Library in Oregon.

Sarah Gadomski, Alyssa Pun, May Duong and Sydney Lawson frolic in the leaves outside of the Salem Public Library.