Canyon Day this year proved to be quite a success, with a steady trickle of people from 9AM to 3PM to man the front lines against invading invasives. Here’s some pictures from the event.
Zac started off the day with a little Invasives 101 for the early birds. Mostly, we were looking for anything viney or pokey – vines tends to be the sort of invasives that choke out natives by climbing and growing up and over the top of them, like clematis, morning glory and English ivy, and pokey things primarily being Himalayan blackberry, which while delicious can also create an impregnable understory that native species can’t grow through and penetrate.
Many Reed students took part in Canyon Day. It’s a bit different from the usual activities at Reed, but people seemed quite willing to trade in their laptops for a pair of leather gloves.
Canyon Day isn’t just a draw for current Reed students. There were many community members of all ages as well, people who walk their dogs, take their morning run, do some birdwatching, or even just take their kids out on a quick hike in the Canyon.
The front line looked a little bit something like this – and we pushed it forward in a mere 6 hours what would have taken Canyon Crew weeks to do on their own.
To accompany the work, we also had some Reed students come out to give us some live music – two different groups.
We also brought out our bicycle-powered cider press near the end of the day. It proved to be a bit, um, distracting to workers, but in the best possible way.
At the end of the day, those who were still sticking around got together to, er, compact the heap of invasive species we had pulled. Jumping around with a silly grin was purely a secondary motivation.
Thanks everyone for pitching in on the effort! Really great progress. If you missed out on the effort, you can still see the area we pulled invasives out of above the trail that runs from the art building out into the neighborhood. It doesn’t look pretty, but soon native species will grow in where the invasives were pulled out and form a healthier ecosystem, more similar to what we have in other parts of the Canyon where past Canyon Days were able to make similar pushes.
Questions, comments, concerns? Have Canyon Day pictures of your own you’d like to share? Check out our Facebook page, or email Zac Perry at perry AT reed DOT edu.
All photos taken by the author of this post.
