The Dalai Lama

I recently read something the Dalai Lama said about why he didn't fight back when China invaded Tibet. I'm paraphrasing, but essentially what he said is that when you choose to go to war, your mind can justify the fighting. However, your heart will always know that what you are doing is wrong. And so then your heart and your mind are in conflict and you've brought the war inside yourself. I found this to be incredibly insightful and profound.

why I love my neighborhood...

Within 6 blocks of my house is:

a great pub
a park
restaurants-Greek, Italian, Mexican, Thai, Chinese, North African-I haven't even tried them all yet
no less than 6 coffee shops (some infinitely better than others!)
the library
quirky shops

TGIF

Yay-it's Friday, and I'm so excited. I've had my coffee, I heard the Friday song, and life is good! Here's the funny thing...I work until 3 today, Bubba starts work at 3 and will be there till 11 tonight. Then I have to work tomorrow (unless it snows tonight).

So why am I so excited? As far as Fridays go, this one is kind of sucky. I can only assume it's 27 years of socialization.

But who cares? It's Friday!

The Business of Being Born

Last night I went to see the Business of Being Born with my badass future-mother-in-law. It was brought to Seattle by the Seattle Midwifery School, the first midwifery school in the United States. Afterward, there was a panel discussion by a local OB, a local midwife, and one of the women who started the Seattle Midwifery School, and Ricki Lake, who produced the documentary, and came up with the idea in the first place. The other two ladies had some serious credentials to their names too.

I would highly recommend seeing it. We all know that our health care system is broken. This looks at how that is affecting mothers, babies and families, and advocates for an alternative. The alternative that is generally accepted in almost every other developed country.

It all started when Ricki Lake had her first baby, and had a lot of interventions. When she got pregnant again, she started educating herself on her options, and found midwifery and homebirth.

I see the light!

So the really cool thing that I noticed a few days ago, was that as I was coming out of the bus tunnel at 4:46 in the afternoon was that it wasn't dark yet. Two weeks ago that was not the case!

Did you know that here in Seattle, we gain an average of 7 minutes of light per day? Wooooo.

Lower Hylebos Marsh

October 2005: This is the Lower Hylebos Marsh, as it was being created. This construction was happening as I started my job, and it is the first project I have worked on from the very beginning. This site is to mitigate damage to salmon habitat on Hylebos Creek, and those are side channels that are being excavated.

March 2006: This is the second volunteer event at the site. We had 25 people planting native trees and shrubs. I'm in the background helping our previous Board President's son dig holes and plant.

May 2006: This is just after all the planting was finished. We planted 30,000 plants on this site, which is 15 acres. You can see the plants starting to fill in a little.

April 2007: This is a similar view to the one above, but the site has filled in a lot since the previous year. I was out collecting data for a mini-thesis for the Wetland Science and Management Program I was in.

Goldfinch eggs at the Lower Hylebos Marsh. This is in spring 2007, and the site is now home to many species of birds.

My work

Aka: What the hell is a Restoration Ecologist???

I work for a non-profit called the Friends of the Hylebos, working to preserve and restore 740 acres along Hylebos Creek. I write restoration plans for sites, critique other restoration plans, manage up to 10 sites and 30 projects a year, hire crews, order plants, recruit volunteers to assist with planting.

My job is very diverse. It is really like 5 jobs wrapped up in 1, which is probably why I like it so much. I do some botany work, as I assess the plant growth and survival on my sites every year. It's funny, cause my experience has been in fish, and now I use all my fish knowledge to work with plants. I never thought I would be able to rattle off scientific names of native plants!

About volunteers: it is true that I work with up to 300 volunteers a year, and sometimes have work parties with up to 100 vounteers at a time, but volunteers only do about 10% of my work. I use volunteers for planting and for removing invasive species, and we treat them really well. We start off with complementary coffee and bagels (I also look for donations). Poverty Bay Coffee Company keeps my volunteers going! They donate coffee to every event I put on. We work for a couple hours, and then I run out and pick up the donated pizza. The Right Spot donates pizza to every event I have, also, sometimes as many as 15 large pizzas. After lunch we work for a couple more hours. At the end, everyone is surprised at just how much we accomplished.

The volunteerism is the public part of my work, and the easiest to understand, and the smallest part timewise.

I spend a lot of time in the fall, winter and spring outside managing crews as they install plants, or remove invasive species. I have one site that is 15 acres, and has multiple types of habitat. It was a restoration site to mitigate for damage to salmon habitat done over 25 years. Now a lot of companies that did the damage are being taken to court or settling out of court, and that money is used to create restoration sites that will benefit salmon.