Today, April 5, 2025, was a bright and sunny day. After a recent stretch of rainy weather it was great to get outside and connect with each other! So, it was wonderful to have 23 volunteers gather together for our Invasive Pull. We had a record amount of kids & youth at an invasive pull today, with 7 of our volunteers ranging in age from 6-15 years old. We also had many new volunteers, with 14/23 volunteers removing invasives for the very first time!
We all gathered at the Douglas Fir Teaching Garden. Both Grace Nombrado & Catherine Munn, were co-leading the event today. We made a circle to welcome everyone before sharing names, pronouns, and a stretch. After we were all limbered up and ready to go, we grabbed our gloves and bright vests and headed down the Red Alder Trail.
Catherine guided a small group clearing wild chervil, while Grace guided a team clearing common periwinkle. The kids had a lot of energy for clearing invasives. They also helped with clipping back cedar branches and cutting down several small dead trees. It was great to see their enthusaism and we shared lots of laughs together.
We also made an interesting find – discovering a vintage washing machine (“Speed Queen”) pannel completely burried in the dirt. Grace joked, “you can call me the Speed Queen now!”
By the end of the pull, we had cleared an impressive 960 L of invasives! Nearly all the wild chervil was removed and most of the periwinkle. We look forward to our fall planting in the area!
After all the hard work, we all enjoyed a well deserved rest, sharing juice and snacks back up at the Douglas Fir Teaching Garden. It was nice to be able to sit toether at the carved sacred circle.
Many of our volunteers then helped with packing up our gloves, tables, and snacks and wheeled everything back to be stored in our garden shed.
What a friendly, hardworking group of volunteers we had! Thank you to everyone who helped: Aakritee, Anna, Anne (w/ set-up), Barbara, Catherine, Ellie, Emaline, Grace, Graham, Heidi, Janet, Jeannine, Johanna, Julie, Kealani, Lev, Max, Moira, Natasha, Nohea, Rani, Sahil, and Skylar.