SO Service Outing at Squalicum Creek 10-24-15

This is what Community looks like! Wow! The Silver Salmon and the Spotted Owls joined hundreds of people on the fresh new banks of Squalicum Creek for Make a Difference Day this year. MADD is an effort on the national scale. We joined hands with millions of people all over the U.S today! Big gratitude for the Bellingham Parks Dept (especially our restoration mentor, Rae Edwards and her staff) and the Nooksack Salmon Enhancement Association staff for coordinating this enormous project. Collectively, there were 1500 trees and shrubs to plant, a mountain of mulch to move, and all the tools to make it so. Our new collective noun for both our groups fit naturally into this outing: The Spotted Salmon!


We met on this chilly cloudy day to plant salmon friendly habitat along the new route of Squalicum Creek behind Sunset Square. Why did they need to re-route the creek? Squalicum Creek spilled into Sunset Pond and Bug Lake, two shallow bodies of water that just get too hot for salmon to breathe in. Salmon need cool, clean water with lots of shade and places to rest to survive! Here's a link to the City's info so you can get a grasp on the enormity of this project.

These girls were totally up to the task at hand, and couldn't wait to dig right in. During our opening circle we checked in about the girl's preparedness (which was great preparedness today looked like plenty of layers and raingear, check!), played a quick game of Firry the Fir Cone, held opening circles to ask the important question: Who's "cups" are we filling today? Resounding answer, SALMON! After a buddy-check, we were off. Here are some pictures, but please browse our Photo Album for more visuals of our day!

Thanks, Renee (Explorer's Mom!)! She helped us understand the scope of the day and our specific role in the project. How many plants, again?? No problem.

Let us just grab our partners, shovels and buckets and go. We stopped at mulch mountain to fill those buckets, of course. And found the old railroad line, which brought a quiet moment as we fell into a single file line on out to our site.

Many hands, people. There are many pictures in our photo album of these girls digging hard, breaking up rootballs, chucking rocks, planting and mulching. They only needed encouragement when our work flow stalled due to tiredness and a pause in direction from our MADD leaders. They were kind of busy! A conversation about Walk Your Talk and we were right back at 'em. By noon, we had planted ALL our plants already! Now what do we do? Time for a little play with clay session. Clay is truly magical. We waited, practicing patience as we waited for further instructions from the Stream Team (B'ham PArks & NSEA). Snack happens, as it always does. And then, we moved mulch mountain.

Moving a mulch mountain a 1/4 of a mile required one long mulch bucket brigade as we passed buckets hand over hand, firefighter style. For 1/4 mile from mulch mountain to our individual baby plants. It was kind of epic, really.

Now it was time to make the donuts! Here's how you properly mulch baby plants. Please ask your Explorer all about it.

After lunch and a few fun rounds of the game Bear, Salmon, Mosquito, our Closing circle reflected our Motto: All Things Are Connected. Although not specifically identified, each girl's words of gratitude included salmon, helping, birds, humans and all of nature. 

Words of the day: Restoration with mulch, trees and salmon. Teamwork for the Spotted Salmon!

We didn't plant these! But we wanted to.

Home Connections: Ask your Explorer for a demonstration of our Motto, Our Cup Overflows.
Have a conversation on why service is important, not just for salmon, but for yourself and others.
What kind of plants did your girl plant?
What did she enjoy most about our day?
Why are mulch donuts important?



To view the full album of the day, click here