Weekly Projects Log

week 2

time: 1 hour
date: 10/4
activities:
communication with my longhouse partner about how we want our high and med. elevation area of the Longhouse garden as well as general project planning. we exchanged contact info and discussed how to get a hold of some of the plants we desire for our habitat
learning:
the habitat of higher elevation and what plants grow there

date: 10/6
time: 1/4 hour
activities: called Daeg the coridinator contact hat Laura provided about the prarie plant restoration. I talked with him for a while and was excited to find out that someone had already organized what I had been dreaming of: and endangered plant nursery! These plants would make it back into the wild after we grew them from seeds collected on the prarie. This sounds like a project I could dig! (ha ha)

cumulative hours: 1 1/4 hours


week 3

time: 1 1/2 hrs. date: 10/11
activities: site description and site map, more brainstorm about what we want the high/med elevation (Midigh) to look like.
learning: plant names, latin names, what plants will like the Midigh area.
snowberry (Symphoricarpos albus): a native likes high to medium elevation and often grows at the edge of rocks
foxglove (Digitalis purpurea): a non-native, long time known medicinal but grows at low elevation, not in our Midigh area, maybe we'll trdae for some snowberry with someone.

cumulative hours: 2 3/4 hours


Week 4

Time: 9am to 2:30 pm 5 1/4 hrs. date: Oct. 16(monday)

Today I met with the people interested in the prarie restoration garden project. We all met at Otto's Bagels downtown with the director of the project and specialist at the prarie plant nursery in Littlerock, Daeg. He is also an Evergreen grad. We then carpooled out to the nursery which is on at the old Rainbow Valley festival grounds. We got a walking tour of the acerage including Black River which connects with Black Lake. We met all the nursery plants and began to know more about them.

Learning: We especially got to know Viola adunca, a purple violet of the South Puget Sound Prarie that butterflies love as well as me! They taste so good. We planted seeds and collected seeds of the violet. We also learned about how the nursery works. The best part of the day was seeing the Lomatium. At the nursery there are three kinds of Lomatium. Soon we will get a plant list so I can learn them all.

Cummulative hours: 8 hrs.


Week 5

Time: 8am to 11:30 am 3 1/2 hrs. date: 10/24 teusday

Activities: Today we met at Bagel Brothers and car trained it out to Shotwells Landing (the new name of Rainbow Valley) for some more fun with the plants. We did some more weeding today. We also planted some violet starts.

Learning: Late for this violet, a winter annual that is self fertile reproducing in clone seeds. Viola adunca specialists know that the plant must be sowed before mid october for best germination. Also rainwater, not even well water, is best for this plant. There were other volunteers there today. It was nice to learn from their knowledge. Some of them brought some dog bane which I never had seen before and we set some fluffy seeds free in the parking lot. By the time we left we had weeded almost al the weeds and planted a new bed of violets!

commmulative hours: 11 1/2 hrs.

Time: 2hrs. Date: 10/25

The long house garden has been feeling neglected. So me and my partner took to it with shovels today re-excavating the high elevation "lake" to discover the pond liner is quite destroyed. None the less we began to re- establish its existence and put rocks done for a "seasonal creek" that might represent the drainage of a high elevation glacier or snowfield. We also cut down and pulled out lots of bracken fern. This immediately made the space look less like the low elevation climate inwhich it really exists. We noticed some pearly everlasting hiding in the ferns as well as fir trees , snowberry, and red huckleberry bushes.

commulative hours: 13 1/2 hrs.


Week 6

Time: 8-11:30 am Date: 10/31 halloween

Today we helped an Evergreen Student, Misty, at her prarie demonstration garden at the Forestry Service. She is doing an internship there. She gave us a tour and we learned about the 22 different plant species in her demonstration garden which is by the patio outside the ForestryService building in Tumwater. We then took to some tearing up the grass with shovels. thsi wasn't very much fun at all because the ground was frozen. Still i learned a lot about plants today. Lomatium utriticale has lacy leaves and the other two kinds have more wide leaf blades. Of those one is small and one is big.

communalitive hrs: 17 hours


Week 7

Date: Time:

Activities: plant id @ lh garden

Learning:

Cumm. Hours:


Week 8:

Date: Teusday Time: 2 hrs.

Activities: Today I went to the Prarire demonstration garden at the Forestry Service to help Misty again. Since It was jsut me and her I got some time to ask quesitons and learn more about he prarie plants. We made holes for fescue grass in the lawn tarp mulch area. We also palnted camas bulbs.

Learning: Camas bulbs are just like any other bulbs, they need ot be planted in the fall for next years growth. I learned the name "fescue."

Commulative Hours: 19 hrs.

Date: Saturday Time: at least three hours

Activities: During this time I walked, drove, took photos, identified known/ unkown plant friends and experienced the middle and high elevations of the Mount Baker Sno-Qualmie Forest. I plan to go back and spend more time experiencing this habitat first hand.

Learning: I could see the dramamtic change of character in the plants as they grew up the slopes reaching for the sun. The middle elevations have regualr sized trees and rather hardy looking. But higher up I could see the trees get smaller and hardier yet! The rivers are very hight this time of year.

comm. hours: 22 hours


Week 9 Thanksgiving Break- Not- So -Much

Date: Time:

Activities:

Learning:

Commululative Hours:

 



Week 9  back to school

 

Date:  Wednesday

Time: 8am -5pm  9hrs.

Activities:  Brainstorming, research, and poster making.  I wrote a conclusional speech for my independent project presentation as well as planned out notes on what I would like to say.  I practiced speaking to my room mates and dog. 

Learning: Organizing skills on specefic points to be able to communicate to an audience, what will be engaging? I used hands on and nose on by showing examples of essential oils.

communalitive hours:  31 hours.

Date: friday

Time: dusk to computer lab closing  about 5 to 10 pm.

Activities: plant id, picture taking, brainstorm and presentation forming.  Presentation practice coordination.

Learning: Plants' latin names, I learned the differences between middle and high elevations from my partner.

communalative hours: 36 hours.

 


 Week 10   suppossedly done this week but I went back out there....

 

Date: teusday the 5th of december

Time: 9:30 am -12:18 pm  2 hours 45 minutes

Activities: Today I went back out to The Nature Conservacy nursery because I had helped Daeg and ended helping Misty and wanted to conclude things with Daeg because I think he is a special person.  I helped him to check the viability of plant plugs,  first Lomatuim tritunatum then Lupinus albicus.  I was glad to get some independent time with Daeg.  He also took me to the Glacial Hertigae prairie restoration site after we loaded the truck with the plants.  It was great to see the unusual landscape of the mounds!

Learning: I learned that Lomatuims (at least the three varieties at The Nature Conservacy) do better in large beds than small plug pots. The roots become hundreds of times larger in the same amount of time and therefore have better survival oppurtunity when transplaneted. Furthermore the roots can be divided and propigated that way, like any other bulbus like plant.  Could I do this in the wild?

Communalitive hours: 38 hrs 45 mins.

 


Conclusion:

 

I have posted most of my work here.  Still I feel like there were hours of project work that have gone unaccounted for.  I have learned so much from the projects.  The community service project was especially beneficial for me. 

 

 

Erin Dowling
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