Successful GiveBIG

Posted on May 17, 2013 by Luke McGuff

Thanks to the generosity of our donors, Friends of North Beach Park raised nearly $200 during GiveBIG on May 16th. This was very successful, considering our modest efforts.

A portion of these proceeds will be matched by the Seattle Foundation, for which we are also thankful.

The money raised will enable us to buy youth gloves and monitoring equipment, both of which will help us continue to restore North Beach Park.

You don’t need to wait for GiveBIG, though. You can make a donation to Friends of North Beach Park at any time, by following this link, and selecting “Friends of North Beach Park” from the Donation Designation drop-down list.

Monetary support will help us continue the work to help the forest, help the sound, and help the future.

Give BIG today for North Beach Park

Posted on May 15, 2013 by Luke McGuff

Today, join Friends of North Beach Park, and friends of parks all over Seattle, as we give BIG. The Seattle Foundation will match online donations made to member organizations. The Seattle Parks Foundation, our fiscal sponsor, is in that group.

If you give $20, that is $10/year for the first two years, and it will become $10/year for the next two years as well.

To GiveBIG for North Beach Park, go to the Seattle Foundation website:

Click the “Donate Now” button.
Select the “Make a credit card donation” option.
Fill out the donation form.
Here’s the important part: In the comments field enter “Friends of North Beach Park.”
Click “submit” and you’re done!

Your donation to The Seattle Parks Foundation is tax deductible. All donations to North Beach Park will go toward purchasing equipment and crew time to continue our volunteer restoration efforts. We’ve gotten a good start, but there’s much work to be done.

Here is a link to the front page of the Seattle Foundation website, so you can investigate a little further.

If you want any further information about our restoration efforts, or have any questions, please don’t hesitate to email me at lukemcguff@yahoo.com.

Thank you for your support and interest in this project.

Apples!

Posted on April 29, 2013 by Luke McGuff

Why Your Supermarket Only Sells 5 Kinds of Apples

This is more than just the headline may lead you to believe. The article does touch on industrialized agriculture, but it also talks about breeding apples in the 18th and 19th Centuries, why agrarian biodiversity is a good thing (and how it’s being lost) and much more. Including a handy guide to being on Earth.

April Work Party Report

Posted on April 28, 2013 by Luke McGuff

We had 14 volunteers Saturday morning, for a total of 27 volunteer hours. It was an excellent turnout and we had a great time. The first thing we did was finish mulching Knotweed Hill. We’re glad to get that done!

David, Loren, and David deliver mulch while Drexie pulls ivy.

This was the result of all that effort:

Another crew built platforms for the ivy that EarthCorps cleared two weeks ago. I didn’t get pictures of them, unfortunately.

We had enough time left over to do some ivy pulling at the base of the Headwaters Bowl slope. (Yes, this picture looks very similar to the picture of EarthCorps volunteers pulling ivy.)

And we got a lot of trash out of the park — quite a bit more than usual these days.

That’s about half the trash — for some reason, I never took a final picture of the trash pile.

Our next work party is June 22nd, but we will be in the park a few times in May. And there is always Golden Gardens on May 11, and Carkeek STARS on May 18.

If we don’t see you then, we’ll see you in June at North Beach Park.

Flickr has a few more pictures of the work party.

Lies, Damn Lies, and Statistics

Posted on April 24, 2013 by Luke McGuff

As we begin our third year of restoration in North Beach Park, it’s nice to get an overview of what we’ve done so far.

But first: Don’t forget the 4th Saturday Work Party, THIS Saturday, April 27th, from 9 a.m. to noon. We’ll meet at the main entrance to the park, 90th St. and 24th Ave. NW. We’ll provide tools, gloves, and guidance; you wear weather-appropriate layers that can get dirty, and bring snacks and water as you need it. Have a question? Email lukemcguff@yahoo.com or leave it in a comment here.

Now back to the statistics. If anything, these numbers are low — I know I’ve sometimes skipped reporting some work I’ve done, and that sometimes planting parties don’t quite count accurately.

Work Parties

First work party (photo by Drexie Malone).

Since we began, we’ve had 53 “work log events” — which includes school groups, work parties, and the days when a couple of the forest stewards got together to hang out. This accounts for 379 adults and 165 youth, for a total of 1276 hours. And let’s not forget the 16 paid staff, for 48 hours — they do work that volunteers can’t, such as clearing fallen logs and removing woody invasives.

Plants of all kinds

Wetland trees and shrubs

We’ve planted more than 322 trees (conifer and deciduous), 189 shrubs, and 125 herbaceous plants; in many cases, these were native plants reintroduced to the forest. We’ve greatly increased the diversity of native plants, while we’ve been DEcreasing the diversity of the invasives. The first planting party was March, 2012. That’s pretty late in the planting season, but we had a long, cool, wet spring that year, which gave the plants plenty of time to establish before the long drought later that summer. This meant we had a pretty good establishment rate — lots of those plants are rebudding quite prettily.

Survival Rings

Successful Ivy Rings

One statistic that doesn’t show up in the report is the number of survival rings we’ve put around trees that are being choked by ivy. A “survival ring” involves cutting through the ivy roots at about four feet off the ground. The roots above the cut are left in place; they’ll die. The roots below the cut are pulled back off the tree, and pulled up from the ground as much as possible. If it’s feasible, a 6′ ring is cleared (and then mulched) around the tree. The Ivy Ring Crew has removed ivy from more than 50 trees. This is sometimes quite an arduous process; it’s the hardest physical job we do in the park — other than hauling out large trash items.

Trash

Rite of Passge

This is my favorite picture of a trash pile. No, the kids aren’t trash. They’re an 8th grade class from a University District alternative middle school. This was the largest single trash pile we got out of the park, and it includes tires, wheels, shopping carts, bags of cans’n'bottles, and more. It was large enough for more than 20 8th graders to pose on, after all. Other notable finds have included water heaters and oil tanks, a vacuum cleaner, a washing machine body, a couch, a playhouse for dolls, and tires. Lots of tires. In a more densely populated area of the city, the trash would have been much higher.

The amount of trash that comes out of the park on an average work party is visibly decreasing. We used to send groups into the park just to get trash; nowadays we might not find anything.

All this is just “a good start.” There are still many trees with ivy growing up into their crowns, still lots of blackberry, still plenty of areas of the park we haven’t gotten to — and might not for a few years.

The work is great fun, and we hope you can join us. It’s physically demanding and psychologically rewarding. Plus, shared work is a great way to meet people. If you can’t make it to North Beach Park, go to Green Seattle Partnership’s website and find an event near you.

EarthCorps Work Party at North Beach Park

Posted on April 16, 2013 by Luke McGuff

Last Saturday (April 13), EarthCorps joined Friends of North Beach Park for what was the first of four work parties that will happen in 2013. It was a great start to our third year of restoration.

EarthCorps brings in a crew, supplies, tools, and experience. Lots of groups looking to do community service go to their website, so their events usually have good turnout. We had about 50 volunteers, making this twice as big as the next-largest work party that North Beach Park has ever hosted.

Here’s the crew (left to right): Jessa (Philippines), Masha (Russia), Alex, Ethan, and me (USA).

(Note: The time stamps on the photos are wrong — didn’t notice until looking at these I’d forgotten to change to PDT. Onward!)

The official start of the work party is 10 a.m., but for the EarthCorps crew it’s a lot earlier. Their day starts about 7, loading the trucks and vans at EarthCorps headquarters. (For an event in rural King County, they’d probably start even earlier.) They were on site at North Beach Park and had done a good bit of unloading by the time I showed up at 8:45.

The plan for the morning was that one group would transport mulch down into the park, staging it for a bucket brigade in the afternoon. The other crew would do some planting on the slope we would be mulching. Then crews would switch, and transport crew would do some invasive removal and the planting crew would do transport.

Here are the EarthCorps folks inspecting a possible worksite that turned out to be relatively invasive free. Also, as you can see, it would have been crowded working in there. We found another spot.

People started arriving a little before 10, so we were able to get going pretty promptly.

Masha explaining the plans for the day.

The attentive group. It was cold in the morning, but soon enough everyone warmed up.

Jessa gives a planting demonstration. The planting crew planted quite a lot: sword fern and red flowering currant on the hill, sitka spruce and oregon ash in the wetlands.

Ethan leads a group cleaning up the mulch staging site.

And here comes the mulch! Some of it came by bucket, some by wheelbarrow. It was about 450 feet down the trail. Getting it down there was easy, the walk back up the trail was the hard part.

Once all the planting was done, the planting and mulch transport crews switched tasks.

Here’s a sign of success: All those people all over the park, and only a small bucket of trash came out. And one tire. As an example, everything to the right of the blue tarps is a trash pile from two work parties a year ago. That’s what we used to find every time we worked in the park.

Invasive removal crew, at the base of the slope in the Headwaters Bowl. Note: The man in the t-shirt is probably working harder than the people in hoodies and jackets. But we’re not here to judge.

In the afternoon, EVERYONE participated in the bucket brigade. This is exactly what I wanted a large work party for: the slope needed to be mulched, and the best way to do it was with a bucket brigade.

This picture is taken from very near the start of the bucket brigade. The people in the background are at the end, about 200 feet further down the trail.

The slope has been covered in two layers of burlap, and now receives a finishing touch of 6-12″ of wood chip mulch. This will help suppress ivy resurgence and prevent soil erosion.

High fives at the end of the day!

Here’s what the mulched area looks like. Nice! There are about ten trees and several shrubs in there.

I want to thank EarthCorps and everyone who attended the work party for all the great work done. It was truly a pleasure.

Friends of North Beach Park will have our regular 4th Saturday work party on April 27. The next EarthCorps event will be in June or July, but don’t worry, we’ll give you plenty of fore-warning.

4th Saturday Work Party!

Posted on April 14, 2013 by Luke McGuff

Saturday, April 27th, 9 a.m. to Noon
(details below)

April has been a busy month so far for North Beach Park!

April 7th was the Groundswell NW Annual Meeting. There were two inspirational presentations, by Dawn Hemminger (about the 14th Ave. NW park) and Milenko Matanovic from the Pomegranate Center (http://www.pomegranatecenter.org). Very nice!

On April 13th, we hosted the first of four EarthCorps-sponsored work parties. About 50 volunteers moved several cubic yards of mulch into the park, and then up onto a previously-cleared slope. There was also a great deal of ivy and invasive removal at the bottom of the slope in the Headwaters Bowl. By the time I had a chance to send an announcement email, the event was full! But we’ll have a few more in the upcoming months.

Last but not least, April 17th will see publication of an article about North Beach Park in the Ballard News Tribune. Keep an eye out for it, online and in print!

As we begin our third year of restoration, we’re really beginning to see results. We’ve planted nearly 700 plants, ranging from Douglas-fir to woodland flowers. Lots of trash has come out of the park. We’ve removed lots of ivy and blackberry, and as the ground is uncovered from the ivy, we’re finding out that there are lots of beautiful native plants underneath.

There’s still lots of work to be done, we’re just getting started.

So, join us Saturday, April 27th! Here are the details about the work party:

Meet at the main entrance to the park, 90th St. and 24th Ave. NW.
Wear weather-appropriate layers that can get dirty and MUD BOOTS.
Parking available on 90th st. east of 24th.
We’ll provide tools, gloves, and guidance. Bring water and snacks as you need them.
All ages welcome, children must be kept under supervision of guardian or responsible adult.
This work qualifies for community service credit.
Register online at http://cedar.greencitypartnerships.org/event/gsp/1787/

If you need more information, contact Luke McGuff at lukemcguff@yahoo.com

Descriptive and Prescriptive Norms

Posted on April 4, 2013 by Luke McGuff

Remember a couple weeks ago when nearly everybody on Facebook was using the red equals sign to endorse marriage equality? Here is an article posted to Scientific American blogs looking at that from the angle of prescriptive and descriptive norms.

A prescriptive norm tells you what you should or should not do. Don’t drink and drive. Don’t litter. Pay your taxes. Go to church on Sunday. Don’t steal pebbles from the Petrified National Forest.

A descriptive norm tells you what other people are already doing. That’s when you notice none of your friends smoke tobacco any more (or maybe few ever did). Or the sign, instead of saying “don’t steal pebbles” says “most people leave the pebbles to preserve the natural integrity of the forest.”

This isn’t a joke; in fact, it’s a “classic study” that showed how using descriptive norms has a stronger influence on behavior than prescriptive norms. When the signs said “Don’t steal the pebbles,” thievery increased. When the signs said “Most people leave the pebbles,” thievery plummeted. The blog post lists several other ways that descriptive norms have a greater effect on behavior than prescriptive norms.

But what I want to think about here is the use of prescriptive norms to attempt to influence positive environmental behavior. I think there is entirely too much of it.

The crisis mentality of most environmental exhortations I think actually alienates us from the possibility of anything we do having a positive effect. Sure we can drive less, but when the bus you’re on goes slower than all the single-occupancy cars, the next day you’re in a car. On the other hand, we recycle more because we know our neighbors are. And we know our neighbors are recycling more because we see their bins on the street on pick up day.

This is another way in which I think that the tangibility and immediacy of urban restoration comes into play. When we see people working in the park, we see the effects of their actions; when we join them, we see the effects of ours. And from that action we can make the connection to the rest of the world. Working on a small park will have little or no effect on the world, but it will have an effect on the people who see the work, who participate in it, who share the benefits.

Environmentalism is hampered by its heavy reliance on prescriptive norms. The doom’n'gloom drives people away. This is why I almost never post a link to more bad news here. It’s not that I’m Pollyanna/head in the sand. It’s because I want people to know what other people are doing. And as we see more of what other people are doing, we see more of what we can do.

Cities without Light Pollution

Posted on April 2, 2013 by Luke McGuff

One of the attractions of urban restoration to me is the way it breaks down the false dichotomy separating nature and the city. It forces us to connect with nature where we are, immediately. Nature is not something we drive to visit, not something remote photographed for the BBC or PBS, it’s right here. Ungainly, degraded perhaps, but still cracking through the cement, still living.

Thierry Cohen photographs cities and their night sky in a very meticulous fashion. He photographs a city during the day; nine so far, all cities large enough that we can recognize them at a glance — Sao Paulo, Paris, New York, Hong Kong. He then eliminates all signs of human activity, as if we had vanished completely.

He records the exact latitude of his position, the angle and direction of the camera, and then travels to a flat place free of light pollution at the exact same latitude. In the case of Hong Kong, that’s the Western Sahara, a distance of 7,800 miles. For New York City, it was the Black Rock Desert. He photographs the exact same night sky that would be visible over the city, even to the camera angle and direction.

He then carefully superimposes that exact sky over the earlier photograph of the cityscape. I’d have no idea if he used the right sky or not, but his meticulousness pays off, particularly when looking at several images in a row or different shots of the same city. We know the variation in climate and location of the cities, these photographs show us the night sky varies over them as well. Sometimes drastically different skies in the same city, depending on where you’re looking. He even works in the shadows of the cityscape, a detail that if missing would hardly be noticed, but when added is stunning.

There are several lessons I get from these photos. One is the distortions of maps and the world: I would never have guessed that New York and the Black Rock Desert, or Hong Kong and the Western Sahara, were the same latitude.

Another is the awesome majesty of the night sky that we’re missing. I grew up in Chicago, and there was so much light pollution that at best you’d see a few stars; the moon itself, if old or new enough, disappeared in the haze. I was 18 before I saw my first deep sky unscreened by urban light. I thought, if we live on spaceship earth, let’s build a few space canoes. And, if we could see this where we lived, if everyone in the world could see the night sky, there would be no question of directing our energies to going there.

A third lesson is that if humans did vanish magically, the world would abide. It would continue getting warmer for a while, but probably sooner than we think it would start healing itself and cooling off. I find that last reassuring.

I also find the photographs very aesthetically appealing. The oily darkness of the cities, the only color coming from the sky itself. The detail in both sky and cityscape. I could become entranced by these photos, look at them for hours.

Cohen’s photographs show us what we’re missing with light pollution. They provide another way of breaking down the city/nature lie. They show us another connection to the universe.

Links

Thierry Cohen Photography
Danziger Gallery
Smithsonianmag.com, “Collage of Arts and Sciences”: What Major Cities Would Look Like at Night, Minus the Light Pollution
NYTimes.com, Starry Starry Night

April in North Beach Park

Posted on March 28, 2013 by Luke McGuff

April is turning out to be a special month in North Beach Park. As well as starting our third year of restoration, there are some interesting events happening. Here is a listing of the events so far.

On Sunday, April 7, join us for the Groundswell NW Annual Meeting at Sunset Hill Community Center, 3003 NW 66th St. The event will be from 6 to 8 p.m., and feature guest speakers such as Pomegranate Center Founder Milenko Matanovic. Also speaking is Groundswell NW board member Dawn Hemminger on “How to Grow a Park.” Representatives of Groundswell NW-sponsored projects (such as North Beach Park!) will be there. Bring treats to share for the potluck.

On Saturday, April 13, join EarthCorps for the first of four sponsored work parties that will happen throughout the year. We’ll be doing a little late-season planting, but also transporting mulch from the entrance down into the park to make it more accessible. EarthCorps events happen from 10 a.m. to 2 p.m. EarthCorps provides tools, gloves, guidance, a lot of information, snacks, and great fun. We’ll see you there! To sign up, go to the EarthCorps website and select the North Beach Park event for April 13.

Last but not least, of course, is our regular work party on Saturday, April 27, 9 a.m. to noon. We’re still cooking up details, but it’s sure to be something special.

Spring is a great time to visit the park, with all the leaves budding out and some of the early bloomers showing off their colors. Lots of bird song and bright emerald green.