Volunteering, etc.

This fall the volunteering in my life really picked up. I signed up to do Wordstock where I will be helping out as a stage assistant, and I've done two work parties for the Nature Conservancy so far. I also signed up to be a SMART volunteer which means that I go to an elementary school once a week and read to two little kids. It's way more fun than I thought it would be.

I am typically not a person who likes to do hard labor (especially for free), but I have to say that for some reason I find tons of expendable energy when it comes to doing things for the environment. Earlier this month I went with a group from the Nature Conservancy to the Camassia preserve. If you haven't been there, I highly recommend it (in spring there's an amazing blanket of wildflowers throughout). It's a small plot of oak savannah that the conservancy bought way back when there were no houses in that area. Since then, the residential neighborhoods have grown around it, and houses can be seen from almost anywhere inside the preserve. The task I had to help complete was spreading compost over a small area where they are planting some hedges to keep out the trash that floats in from the neighboring apartment complex. I was sore for about three days.

The second work party I went to I took my good friend Josie, and we had a blast. We went to the Kingston preserve near Stayton. The caretakers have been working very hard to bring this area back to its original state by eliminating the invasive species and harvesting the seeds of the native ones. They do this in a number of ways including controlled burns, but on this particular day we were lopping the heads off of Queen Anne's Lace and collecting the fluffy seeds of some kind of aster.

Here are some photos from that day:

I liked the way this lichen contrasted with the drab of the fall prairie.

I don't know what this plant is, but I like the fluffy, curly seeds.

We were collecting the seeds of this plant.

Just another sign of the times...

Cannon Beach

It's been a while since I've posted. I've been busy with my classes and volunteering (more on that to come), and just enjoying this lovely October we've been having in the Portland area. A couple of weeks ago Colleen and I went to Cannon Beach, it was probably the last "nice" day we'll have in a while (the air temperatures were in the high 60s, low 70s and it was so sunny, not a cloud in the sky).

I will be thinking back on this day for the next several cold months to come, for while it may be sunny from time to time, the cold has begun to settle in.

If you haven't been to Cannon Beach, you should go at least once in your lifetime. While it is a tourist trap with huge crowds on the sunny weekends, it does have a quaint charm all its own. The downtown streets are lined with taffy and ice cream shops as well as a library (they sell some great finds cheap) and clothing stores. There's a great yarn shop if you're into knitting, and kite shops for the kid at heart.

For more info go to: http://www.cannonbeach.org/

Once you make it down to the beach, walk over to Haystack Rock. I would reccomend going at low tide.

Haystack Rock

Mussels and starfish in the tide pools.

Starfish and anemones in the tide pools. I'm not sure what the difference is between purple and orange starfish.

Mussels and large barnacles. They were making a fantastically weird sucking noise as they tried to keep all of their moisture in.

Friends!

Anemones look very strange when they are not in the water.

The sea, for once, was calm.

This little guy was doing his best to hide, but I saw more than one person who wanted to snap him up for supper.

It is a strange landscape.

I loved the reflection on the water from this lonely mini haystack rock.