Week Two- Project Log #1
Total Hours:6 1/2
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Partners: Suzzane
Date: Wednesday 24th 2007
Times: 3:30 - 5:30
Activity: Meet with Suzzane, Alina, andDerek. We talked about the site and their work they accomplished last quarter as well as hopes for the future of the site. We spent time just talking and observing in the site. walikng through Forest A/B. All my site partners were able to help me with some Plant Id, and Twig Identification. Of course I was journaling as well, drawing new plants.
Learning Gained: Plant Names and medicinal uses, better understanding of my area and partners.
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Partners: Alone
Date: Thursday 25th, 2007
Times: 11:00- 2:00 .. 5:30 -7 pm
Activity: Tincturing Oregon Grape root
Learning Gained : Finding a good spot to harvest Oregon grape where it was abundant and healthy was important to me. I have read in a few places that Oregon Grape is to be gathered carefully as its populations are dwindling. I believe that late fall to early winter is the best time to gather the root of the plant as most of the healing constituents are the most potent. I harvest four plants from a place in the capital forest. I had a rough time cutting up the roots after washing because I think I let them sit out for too long. I had to get a knife with a perforated edge in order to saw off little pieces of the root. Thankfully Rebecca has a license to purchase Everclear so I was able to get I think 99 proof alcohol which is helpful in extracting all of the goodies. I did my tincture in the traditional wise woman way--- not to be confused with the scientific ratios and all of the rest of that mumbo jumbo with which at this point is too confusing for me to understand. So once I finished hacking off all of the little pieces - trully a labor of love- I found a jar that suited the amount I had cut. I filled the jar and covered an inch or so over the top with the Everclear. By the following morning The alcohol was the color of the roots when I first harvested them- a bright yellow. The next day the tincture became darker.
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Week Three- Project Log #2
Total Hours : 6 hours
Accumulative Hours: 12 1/2 hours
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Partners: Shanna
Date:Tuesday Jan 30th, 2007 my birthday!
Time: 12:00p.m. - 5:00p.m.
Activity: Hike around Lake Cushman, sharing stories about being in nature, twig identification, plant I.D. For my birthday I had to be outside! IT was a beautiful day - crisp but crystal clear blue skies. After filling up with ginger chocolate chip pancakes we packed Pojar and Mackinnon and our hiking boots and went for a drive. We parked next to a boat ramp and spent almost an hour walking down to the water. Shanna was really interested in the plants and I felt like I had a little bit more of a grip on what was what, names etc. and it was exciting to be able to share what knowledge I did have with someone else. We walked a ways around the lake- picking up different materials rocks, wood, and made elaborate stories about their origin and uses. I jumped off a log, straight into the freezing water and that experience concluded my birthday hike- I felt enthused, and charged- happy to be able to spread the information about plants and their uses with a friend on my birthday.
Date: Wednesday Jan 31st, 2007 11 a.m- 12:00p.m.
Activity: I walked around my neighborhood trying to recall the plants that are in the Longhouse garden site- for some reason these plants and the way they look and their names- stick in my head. When I look at plants outside the LHG, I am comparing them to their known counterparts in the LHG. I feel like I may have the plants in the LHG cataloged in my head- so i must take them where ever I go. I spent an hour walking around my neighborhood looking at the twigs and trying to indentify them. i journaled some that I found.
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Week Four -Project Log #3
Total Hours: 4 1/2
Accumulative Hours: 17 hours
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Partners: Alone
Date: Feb. 6th 3:00- 3:20
Activity: Sitting with Plants in my site, getting rained on, talking to them!
Learning gained: I got my hands dirty and felt more comfortable in the space, like I could begin working there once that had happened. I began to feel connected and excited to be working there.
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Partners: Suzanne and Alina
Date: Tues Feb. 6th 3:20- 5:15
Activity: Plant I.D., Clearing of fallen leaves, removing dead fronds of the sword fern, taking debris to compost, general maintaince.
Learning Gained: Decided when I felt comfortable pruning a plant, to what length, began to get a feeling for where I wanted to plant new species.
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Partners: Alone
Date: Wednesday Feb 7th 2:30- 4:45
Activity: On internet looking at work that has been done in the past on our site, looking for articles that were related to the plants in the site, printing out work for other members to view, taking notes.
Learning Gained: plant associations, what plants in our site liked to be planted with other species, mentally cataloging what species we have in our site.
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Week Five- Project Log #4
Total Hours: 5 hours
Accumulative Hours: 22 hours
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Partner: Suzanne, Derek, Alina
Date: Feb 12th 2-4
Activity: Cleared out more dead leaves, made space for new plants, cut back ferns etc.
Learning Gained: To create a garden takes a lot of maintenance work! It can become quite tedious. Had lots of laughs with suzzane, alina and derek,
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Partner: None
Date: Feb 13th 4-6
Activity: Researching plant habitats, looking at information already gathered in order to compile information into some sort of signage text. I needed to find out as much back ground information about the plants as possible to get a sense of why certtain plants co-habitate etc.
Learning Gained: Lots of "oh so thats why thats there and that is over there....I get it" I have begun to see the forest not just as random trees but as plants having a particular place and being in a spot they are needed and for a particular reason. Also it is great to be able to corrolate this information to our site I can start to see a theme. Very eye opening.
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Partner:none
Date: Feb. 14th 4-5
Activity: Journaling in Site
Learning Gained: Began to feel more "at home" in my site, begun to see what marja meant when she said "begin a relationship" with the plants.
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Week 7 -Project Log #6
Week Hours: 5 hours
Accumulative Hours: 27 hours
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Tuesday Feb 20th : 11:00- 1:00
Activities:
Went to the Henderson Trail to walk through the forrest. I noticed what was budding, what was in our forrest site and what was absent. Is that the osoberry I see sprouting everywhere? It looks almost like a laurel tree or something similar- but my hunch is that it is the indian plum- a plant located in forrest site A! I have begun to realize what good we did to our site by cutting back all of the dead parts of the sword ferns and the elderberry. A much more mature forrest like that over and under the Henderson trail does not have so much of everything. I saw some new nettle breaking ground as well as some western coltsfoot.
Wednesday Feb 21st: 11:30- 2:30
Activities:
Today once again I could not resist but to venture out to see what was blooming and to see some more examples of what our forest desires to be. I drove for about half an hour out to the capital forest and took a walk around a lake. I foraged up and off the trail and once again found myself surrounded by coltsfoot. I decided to pull out Michael Moore and see what this has been used for and syncronistically it is harvested and made into a tea for bronchial conditions, bad coughs etc. This whole week I have been suffering from the flu where I experienced a bad chest cold, a deep cough and sore throat. I laughed to myself and my green friend. It had shown itself to me two times in a row. I began to feel a little bit more connected to the green world. Off of the trail and up the hillside I was amazed at the influence the Big Leafed Maples had in this forrest- the presence of logging is here too. The Maples grew back first and the firs and cedars grew back rapidly- now they are competing. Reminance of the wind storm from early dec. is still here. There are fallen trees in a few different spots. I refrained from picking an of the coltsfoot as it was not big enough.
Still shaking my oregon grape tincture!
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Week 8 Project Log #7
Week Hours: 5 hours
Accumulative Hours: 32 hours
Tuesday: 5:30pm-7:30 - 2 hours
Spent time in the computer lab checking out information for my site introduction. Spent a couple of hours writing something that I thought was a good representation of mixed forest A and B. Learned more about plant associations, soil types, and forest ecology.
Wednesday : 1pm- 3pm
Snow!- Journaled in my site about the changing seasons, late snows and the frozen buds- what does this mean for the buds in the Longhouse garden site? What would the traditional implications of late winters be for people who lived in this area pre-contact? Would this means people going hungry? Met Ciara in garden. We talked about our sites and decided to go for a walk together in the forest before class- thought it would be more therapuetic than writing things down in the computer lab - We wanted to be outside experiencing this bizarre weather.
3:30p.m. - 4:30p.m. Walk to Eagle Tree--
After spending time talking and sitting in the garden Ciara and I decided we needed to get our blood moving. We walked through sprinkles and snow flakes out to the eagle tree- along the way pointing out mushrooms, and plants we did not know. By the time we returned- class was about to begin and we were soaking wet from being out in the snow- it was an amazingly refreshing experience that added both to our energy levels and to our feeling of connection to the forest and animals here in the Pacific Northwest.
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Week Nine, Prject Log #8
Weekly hours: 5 1/2 hours
Accumulative Hours: 37 1/2 hours
Wednesday 3/05/07 2 1/2 hours
Activities: Working on my section of the group presentation- gathering information for the site introduction, some cultural information. Lots of looking online and comparing information about different plants.
Date: 03/06/07 (Wednesday)
Time Spent: 1 hour
Today we shared what we have been working on. Suzanne showed me the outline for the power-point presentation and we touched base about what still needed to be worked on prior to our meeting tomorrow.
Thursday: 03/07/07 7:00- 9:00
Worked on finalizing my project site information- spent a little extra time gathering some cultural information to supplement site introduction. Met with suzanne and derek. They gave me a "how-to" instruction on the power-point and we added my information to the presentation.