Ivy Pull

Keith and I volunteered to help pull English Ivy at Mary S. Young Park in West Linn (which is a town just west of us, across the Willamette River). The only people there to do the job was a troupe of Boy Scouts and then Keith and myself (and the few event coordinators, of course). Seriously, where would this world be without the Boy Scouts? We worked from 9 to noon, and it was a dirty and tiresome job (in other words: very glamorous!). I actually really enjoyed crawling around in the duff and caking myself with dirt. I literally had to put a towel under me during the drive home, I was so mucked up after it all.


The Boy Scouts seemed to have the most fun. Little boys love anything destructive. They were yelling, "DIE, IVY, DIE!" And pretty much ripping up anything green (not just the ivy). There was one tender Boy Scout, who discovered a pair of salamaders on the forest floor and he went completely soft over them. He hand-delivered them to a small, trickling stream, out of harms way, and talked softly to them, as if they were kittens. It was too cute.

Most passerbys on the trail said nothing to us, but seemed mostly curious about what we were doing. For the record, the section we were working on clearing would be a future "bird sanctuary." I'm not sure if that's true, but that's what the even coordinators said, and it was enough to motivate us. That's what mattered.

One guy walking through the park barked at us as if we were up to no good, "What ARE you doing?!" When we explained, he seemed confused (and still mad) and wandered off without a response. But it was not an entirely thankless job. Two polite hikers said, "Thank you, volunteers!" as they marched past us.

My hamstrings hated me for several days following, but it felt good to help out in an area we cared about. All the work we did was a drop in the bucket, but every little step toward improvement helps.