Healing Gardens

Body:

Total Longhouse Garden Project hours to date: 25.25

Total Community Garden Project hours to date: 13.5

 

10/4/06

Activity: Journaled and chose plant from streambank area for my plant study (Yarrow). Sat quietly with the area for a while.

Time Spent: 1 hr

Learning: Found out that it is enjoyable to sketch plants, you get a better grasp of their form then just by briefly looking at them.

 

10/6/06

Activity: Went to Wetlands area with my dogs; took pictures; did a journal entry; looked at plant ID books

Time Spent: 2 hrs

Learning: Journaling in the rain is hard! Not yet super comfortable with writing in the journal at this point but enjoying drawing the pictures.

 

10/9/06

Activity: Met with Adam at Longhouse and did site work

Time Spent: 1.5 hrs

Learning: Got to know Adam a little better; learned a few of the plants from our area

 

10/10/06

Activity: Met with Adam and worked on planning for and describing our area; journaled for an hour.

Time Spent: 2 hrs

Learning: Got a better idea of the physical layout of the area by walking through and measuring the garden area size; ID'ed various plants today

 

10/11/06

Activity: Met with whole wetlands group in the computer lab

Time Spent: 15 min

 

10/12/06

Activity: reviewed plant ID book at LH Garden area; journaled.

Time Spent: 2.5 hrs

Learning: Found out how amazingly medicinal devil's club is and also found out that scotch broom was supposedly brought to Vancouver by a Scottish immigrant but he got the seeds from Hawaii and there were only 3 seeds that germinated and these three got totally out of control to the point they are today. Sounds like a fable to me but who knows! Also found out that Daddy Long Legs like to sit in Yarrow flowers as though the flowers are lounge chairs.

 

10/16/06

Activity: Walked around Shotwell's landing, harvested Viola adunca seeds, planted Viola adunca in seed starters.

Time Spent: 5.5 hours

Learning: Lots. Daeg is a walking plant encyclopedia. He told us about the relationships of the prairie plants to each other, told us all the scientific names of the species there, a little about each species if possible, and just described generally the way their program is run. I learned why the town I have lived in much of my life, Littlerock, is called Littlerock! There is a little boulder in front of the first house that was built here and it still sits there today. It is square and people used it to step off the stage coaches. That was so cool to find that out!

 

10/17/06

Activity: Journaling at Longhouse

Time Spent: 1 hr

Learning: Found out this guy Birch is installing resonation tubes in the side area of the longhouse (see journal entry)

 

10/19/06

Activity: IDing plants and sitting with wetland area

Time Spent: 2 hrs

 

10/22/06

Activity: Adam and I pulled Dandelions and horsetail; journaling

Time Spent: 3.5 hrs

Learning: It is going to take a lot of effort to pull out all that horsetail! Also, got to hear Birch's resonation tubes in action today at his grand opening. Couldn't really hear them though ...

 

10/23/06

Activity: Made hair wash from site vegetation including horsetail, rosehips, and a little yarrow.

Time Spent: 2 hrs

Learning: You have to refrigerate this stuff or in a few days it starts to smell kinda funny! Fun to make. More rose hips next time and perhaps more instruction ...

 

10/31/06

Activity: Planted Viola adunca starts at Shotwell's Landing; walked around the prairie picking up trash.

Time Spent: 5 hrs

Learning: Got a better grasp of the area by walking through the whole site. Found out there are lots and lots of rose hips out here! Meant to pick some but never did. Filled seedling containers with dirt, deposited seeds in them, and then put a little pea gravel on top. Did this for most of the time I was there. I like Daeg and the other people who work here, looking forward to internship next quarter.

 

11/3/06

Activity: Photographing our LHG site.

Time Spent: 1 hr

Learning: I realize that I still dont know what type of rushes and sedges are in our site and also that the little birds there fly off if there are too many people around (in this case a whole troupe of loud children). I did not realize they were that skittish, especially since they are somewhat used to people on campus. Saw one of the little birds taking a bath in the creek.

 

11/9/06

Activity: IDed more plants with Adam; planned for future work

Time Spent: 2.5 hrs

Learning: We have 21 plants identified now.

 

11/14/06

Activity: Went to Glacial Heritage Preserve with Daeg and the rest of our community garden group.

Time Spent: 3 hrs

Learning: Learned to plant fescue with dibbers. Dibbing took a little getting used to but like most things in life, after I got into a rhythm with it things started to flow along. Found a preying mantis egg on the ground, burnt from the prairie fire but still identifiable. Strange looking casing with little seed looking eggs inside it. Ashley found a vole skull.

 

11/18/06

Activity: Putting together all the loose ends with Adam, such as working on our habitat research, writing descriptions of the plants in our area, and posting photographs of the plants.

Time Spent: 4 hrs

Learning: I learned a lot about the various plants we have IDed while working on their descriptions (this was one of my primary responsibilities today).