Another Weekend of Reckless Abandon

Saturday morning I volunteered with my employer's Day of Caring. (It is a United Way thing where you go volunteer in the community.) We take groups of freshmen out and do some volunteering project. This is my 4th year and usually I love it, but then again after this year I might be over it. Actually after last year I thought I WAS over it, but like a moth to a flame, I was drawn in again. We went to Ravenna Park to do "Plant Establishment". I naively (is it vaguely wrong that any time I write the word naive I double check the spelling by thinking Evian backwards?) thought 'plant establishment' was planting things. Isn't that what you do when establishing a plant? Well, it wasn't. It was removing things. It was removing English Ivy and Blackberry. (speaking of blackberry, there were some on sale at qfc last night, I think I may go back and get some and make blackberry muffins... that sounds good. :) ) Anyway, I understand why English Ivy is a pest. It is ugly and it chokes out everything. We had some in CA (and at least 1 rat nest within the English Ivy as I saw on more than 1 occassion a rat go running across the patio and steal dog food) and I see it here on my routes to and from work. I never really got why the blackberry is bad... although apparently it grows like weeds here and the birds eat the blackberries and spread the seeds in their birdie poop. In any event, I spent several hours pulling blackberries and English Ivy. On the one hand English Ivy is fascinating... especially how it all interconnects with itself. On the other... weed pulling is exhausting work! :) But we did pull 8 cubic yards of stuff so that was cool.