Service with Greenways at Lake Padden: 5-7-16

The Ospreys and Sea Stars gathered this past Saturday to serve with Greenways and celebrate a warm, sunny spring.

We met early on Saturday morning and started with an opening circle to review our plan for the day and our service ethic. The Sea Stars defined what "invasive species" are, and why we spend our precious sunsiney days removing them. Thankfully, the Sea Stars were full of their Attitude of Gratiude, and were ready to Walk Their Talk by working hard to help the Lake Padden ecosystem.

From there, we met with Rae from Greenways and learned more about our tasks for the day. We then split into two crews - the blackberry removers and the weed pullers. Our blackberry crew worked tirelessly to remove this invasive species from a small hill right near Lake Padden. This team was critical in preventing this hillside from being overwhelmed by blackberries. While the blackberry team worked, the weed pullers brought an overgrown zone back to life. They pulled cleaver, scotch broom, dandelions, grasses, and plantain to make room for red flowering currants and salal. Greenways is hoping to keep this space full of native plants to prevent people from walking off trail here and eroding this hillside. After this big effort, our group took a break in the shade, and returned for a final push to get this whole zone mulched and protected from future weeds! 

We broke for lunch and giggled in the shade as we ate and relaxed for a few minutes. After our lunch break, it was swimming time! The girls changed and almost everyone took a dunk in chilly Lake Padden. During our swim, we explored the Lake's shoreline, and after our dip, as we lounged in the sun, Holly told our group a story about pollinators and flowers. We learned about the different parts of the flower and flowers' adaptions.

To bring our crew back to meet our parents we played Bear Chase-- A game where we all pretended to be salmon avoiding a hungry bear. We finished our day with a closing circle where we shared our attitudes of gratitude. Another special day for the Sea Stars!

To see a photo album of the day, click here! 

Earth Skills: Edible Plants at the 100 Acre Wood: 4-16-16

What a jam-packed day – we were busy exploring and learning every single second of our time with the Sea Stars on Saturday! It is likely true that EC outings could take place just about anywhere – and even at the same setting for each outing – and we'd never run out of things to explore and discover. We rarely get very far in terms of distance, but we travel a great deal with regard to noticing and understanding the webs of connection all around us. This skills day exemplified that; we covered very little territory in the "100 Acre Wood", but we thoroughly explored the places we did go. And that's the point: it really is about the journey, not the destination, and about noticing what's all around us rather than passing through.

Topics we dug into on Saturday included:

• We wrapped our minds around the incredible fact that almost everything in our lives comes from plants (ask your daughter to explain how her raincoat is made out of plants!) and as the rain abated we were able to begin our harvest. Nettles and licorice root were the ingredients in the fabulous forest tea we enjoyed (we also harvested ingredients for edible treats - like stinging nettle pesto and soup - that will be shared at future outings this season). We understood that nature puts its focus in different plant parts each season, putting energy into roots, shoots, and fruits. We added the healthful dandelion and licorice roots into our tea, picked the shoots of nettles, and saw the summer-ripe fruits of Oregon grape in their flower form.  We learned of the many uses for plants we see every day such as nettle, Western red cedar, Douglas fir: food, medicine, tools, shelter, clothing, toys... (each American uses the equivalent of a 100 foot fir tree in wood and paper products each year).

• Since our focus this day was how we use plants for food, we put on our "Owl Eyes" (a way of walking with awareness, using peripheral vision) and worked to spot plants that might be usable for food in this season. We paused to consider poisonous plants: we learned that edible and useful plants far outweigh poisonous ones in this ecosystem, but that it is very important to learn what isn't safe for our bodies. We'll continue to point out and discuss poisonous plants on future outings, but the girls learned to always "Be Sure You Meet Before You Eat!" and never put anything in their mouth unless one can be certain of the plant and its safety. From now on we will ask them to pass the ID challenge - to be able to absolutely, positively ID any plant to one of us before they're allowed to nibble.

Preparing out pesto snacks for the hungry Sea Stars

• We taught ways to walk carefully in the forest, leaving no trace - we'll practice Fox Walking more on future outings. We also talked about how to harvest plants in a sensitive, respectful manner, introducing the "One in Twenty Principle".

• We harvested nettle, and learned just a few of its more than 100 uses. Many girls chose to Stretch Their Edge and take the Nettle Challenge, bravely allowing the plant to touch their bare skin as a way of practicing Challenge By Choice. We made nettle and licorice root tea and tasted nettle pesto. We collected dandelions and big leaf maple blossoms which cooked up into tasty fritters to round out our feast.

• On our explorations, we met Licorice Fern, Oregon Grape, Salal, Douglas Fir, Stinging Nettle, Indian Plum, Bleeding Heart, Poison Hemlock, and more. We were also thrilled to greet newly blooming trillium, letting us know that spring is upon us.

Audrey Stretching Her Edge by taking the "Nettle Challenge"

• We tested our Owl Eyes with a game of hidden objects along the trail, scouring the forest for our lost pipe cleaners. Ask your daughter about what she learned while practicing our Motto, "Slow is Fast".

What a day filled with learning, connection, food, and fantastic collaboration between the Ospreys as they shared the work of harvesting, cooking, and celebrating our wild edibles.

Our Words of the Day? "Nettle, nettle, in the kettle!"

Want to see photos from our day? Click here!

Service for Bellingham Community Meals: 3-6-16

The Sea Stars reunited on Sunday for a unique outing: baking for Bellingham Community Meals. BCM is a group of volunteers that comes together once a month to prepare and serve a warm meal free to the community. The only thing that isn't prepared onsite is… DESSERT! This is where we put our energy, and the girls collaboratively counted, measured, stirred, whipped, beat, melted, poured…and cleaned!

Claire and Sage in the Co-op's bright new space for cooking and learning.  Thanks, Co-op.

After an introduction to our project, we explored questions like: Whose "cups" are we filling today with this project? What other needs are we meeting by helping with this community meal? What would happen in our community without these resources?  The girls responded with thoughtfulness and compassion. We all agreed that filling others’ cups makes our cups more full. Today our goal was to help people meet the basic need of food. A great discussion was had about whether dessert was an actual need: the conclusion being that community meals (and cookies specifically) meet other basic needs as well, like love, community, and connection.

Lumina and Teva getting to work with their mixing

The girls split into three groups, with determination to stir lots of love into the batter along with the other ingredients. The kitchen was a-flurry with egg cracking, whirling beaters and recipe checking. We remembered to go one step at a time, implementing our motto, “Think It Through Before You Do.” Soon our treats were baking and our mouths were watering, and we began a serious Leave No Trace kitchen clean-up.

After our hard work we ate lunch together. What fun it was to laugh and connect with each other while being dry and warm! There was enough time for games; organized and instructed by the girls.

Fox + Rabbit tag indoors?! A crazy sight for an Explorers Club day.

Then we geared up and headed back to Laurel Park for some field games.  A few rounds of "Judge Nature" and "Skunk and Spray" and it was a wrap.

Rebecca helping the Sea Stars Collaborate + Compromise to come up with game ideas

Our words of the day? “ Cookies, cookies, awesome games!"

Mottos especially in use today: Our Cups Overflow, Leave No Trace, Everybody Helps, All Things Are Connected, Widen Our Circle

Want more photos from our day? Click here!

Exploring 100 Acre Wood: 11.22.15

"As soon as I saw you, I knew an adventure was going to happen" Winnie-the-Pooh.

The SeaStars last fall outing was into the 100 acre wood for exploring and adventure.  The girls gathered and we all checked in with each other around being prepared.  Winnie-the-Pooh would have had his honey of course, and the companionship of his friends. And so we checked for our snacks, ate some too... made sure we had our extra clothing, and set off together to explore the woods.

We found a cozy spot to land and the girls set off to look at mushrooms and cedars, play in a nearby stream, explore shelters, and of course, eat.

The weather was a bit chilly so game playing quickly became the favorite activity of the day.  Many rounds of "Hide" followed; and lots of laughing and enjoying one another's company.  Ask your daughter how Holly thinks she can not be seen behind a sapling! These girls have a well defined sense of play and can make a game happen anywhere, at any time. They widened their circle to include new explorers and used their compromise and collaborate group skills in deciding upon a plan for the day and when we reached a trail intersection. Which way should we go? Mentors explained what they knew about the options, and then stepped out of the circle to remove ourselves from the group's process. And... we have a split decision, but want to move to a base camp, and explore the two options from there. Seastars are creative problem solvers!

We had a backpacking stove and got that going as the day progressed.  Hot chocolate and tea, warm soup and happy bellies! Some art time was well received, and beautiful work produced. Louisa, our EMA for this group, was a great sport in endless rounds of pony. As in, she was the pony for some lucky girls. Thanks for your cheerful, gentle spirit, Louisa!

We ended this season's outings with a thoughtful Web of Life activity as we shared our gratitude and connection to each other, this place and the planet. 

Service in Big Rock Park 10/10/15

Wowza! These Seastars consistently amaze this mentor with their work ethic, commitment and energy to get 'er done! Really, these girls have an amazing attitude and aptitude for service projects. They know how to work and fully embrace and enjoy service projects.


We began our day in a sleepy circle, checking in by sharing what kind of weather we were feeling like today. Lots of cloudy and overcast feelings, possibly due to the earliness of the hour and the actual weather forecast. But these girls quickly warmed up with a fun game of "All My Friends" and became inspired by the project ahead. Big Rock Park is a little known park in need of lots of TLC. We joined Rae Edwards, Alexandra Doumas and a lot of other volunteers on this windy, cloudy day for this park enhancement project. The J.O.B. before us: Protect the hillside, lay down a mulch blanket, plant new native plants, remove invader/bully plants and improve visibility and safety of the park area. But first! Get Prepared! Donning full rain gear to protect our bodies from slivers, dirt and potential rain, we learned how to use tools safely (we even took a quiz!), which buckets had special jobs, discussed the project ahead and donned our gloves.

The Seastars jumped right in, digging up young blackberries by the roots, hacking down obstructing snowberry, pulling ivy (so fun), planting and protecting a few short Oregon Grape babies, and then came the mulch madness... Giant mountains of mulch and empty buckets and sleds were swarmed by fifty volunteers. In the ensuing hours we all used muscles and positive mental attitudes to get the job done. From the moment they confronted Mulch Mountain, these girls were flying to fill buckets as fast as they were emptied, living into their "sled dog" and "reindeer" selves as they pulled heavy sleds of mulch up a steep hill, with big smiles and lots of gusto. Community members paused to watch, stating "Wow, who ARE these girls? They're amazing!"

Why'd we do it? We did it to make this park a friendlier, more accessible place for neighbors and folks who visit. Our efforts were an essential part of a community team: we filled those buckets, others transported them to waiting native plants and trees, some ringed the vegetation with mulch while others removed invasive weeds. After hours of sweating, hauling, filling, Mulch Mountain was reduced to a hill, then bump, and finally a flat brown spot. 

After a much-deserved break for food and water, we had a surprisingly fast and loud game of fox and rabbit tag, yippee! Squeals and screams ensued, as all games of tag seem to do. We then had a good slide down the Big Rock itself, it's really quite an amazing slab of Chuckanut sandstone-wow.

Our Words of the Day? Mulch, Muscles & Muddy Fun


Mottos especially in use today: Stretch Your Edge, LIBK, Collaborate and Compromise, Get Dirty!, Safety First.


See our Photo Album here.

Home Connections: Why do we do service? What do you like best about working on these projects?

Who may benefit from our help in Big Rock Park? 

How do you safely carry gardening tools like clippers and loppers?
Why is a thick layer of mulch better than a 1 inch layer?

Outing to North Lake Whatcom: 9/26/15

We gathered at the pedestrian and dog friendly entrance to the N. Lake Whatcom Park with playful hearts ready to go exploring! With grey clouds promising rain, many of our SeaStars arrived prepared for a five hour outing in fair weather, not necessarily the conditions at hand. Hannah suited us up from her cadre of raingear, and we began our journey...

Before we set out, we gathered leaves of all colors and crafted a circle cycle of life. We reflected on its mysterious winding path and discussed how each color represents the seasons of the year and the seasons of our life. Looking around at the green emerging from the decaying woods, we understood that fall and winter, death and decay, have their place. And that we too are part of this circle cycle.

This ended up being a great reference tool for our day, asking the girls “So, where does this tree fit into our circle of life?” etc. We talked about humans/animals/things we had known that had died before finishing the wheel. Death as a part of life, a necessary stage to support and nourish new life. This message emerged repeatedly in the forest around us in the form of the decomposers role. We found it echoed in the fungus, slug love and the function of nurse logs (via interpretive dance). Do ask your Sea Star about "Cubicle Butt Rot" and it's job in the forest to turn trees into dirt!

It might have taken us half the day to find a good sheltered place to eat snack as it was still chilly and drizzly. After a leisurely munch and chatting session, these girls initiated and negotiated their own version of Contagion Tag. So that warmed them up! The mentors stood amazed by the squeals and peals of laughter as these girls widened their circles with a raucous play time. It was lovely.

We played on the shores of Lake Whatcom for the remainder of our day, building cairns, exploring the beach and half submerged logs and getting quite happily wet, as the weather warmed. We gathered for a moment to explore a couple wild animal skulls and pelts and discussed the special adaptations these animals have to survive and thrive. We used that theme of what makes one special as a segue into a quiet peaceful place, spreading out to enjoy some reflective time by the lake. 

Heading back toward the trailhead (five hours flew by!), we thanked the lake for its many gifts: beauty, peace, sunlight, and the source of life itself for all of us by providing all the water for our households' use. 

Mottos especially in use today: Widen the Circle, Be Prepared, Collaborate and Compromise, and Stretch Your Edge

Want more photos from the outing? Check out our photo album here!

Words of the day? “Lake Whatcom, pelts, dirt and dead things!

Service for International Coastal Cleanup: 9-12-15

Welcome to the Sea Stars' New Blog! We've switched over to a Google-based system, and are in the process of figuring out this new blogging deal... Bear with us throughout! Hope you enjoy it! Our complete photo album can be found here.

We believe you're never too young to make a difference, and these two groups of girls proved that on Saturday by picking up pounds and pounds (80 lbs!!!) of trash and recyclables from the Salish Sea shoreline. These trash busters became Shoreline Seekers, Log Lookers and Sand Savers. In our smaller groups of determined garbage detectives, we scoured the shoreline and muck, poking around in those many hidden spots in and under seaweed, bushes and rocks for every piece of trash we could find, no matter how small.

Highlights from our day:

* The collaboration between the Seastars and the Ospreys, collectively referred to as the Seaspreys!  Though more girls means less individualized attention and small group bonding, it gives girls the chance to serve and explore with other girls in the program and feel like part of something beyond their regular group.

The Seaspreys starting their day off streeeetttchiing with some Marine Animal Yoga!

* The respect and profound observations made by girls about a dead shark we discovered (Spiny Dogfish). After lots of discussion, pondering, wondering and poking, our heightened attention gave way to curiosity and we decided to open up the Shark's carcass. We have so much gratitude for this learning opportunity and the moment to wonder about all the internal organs. And wow. The aroma of the not quite freshly dead sea creature will be a smell memory forever! Deciding to dissect it was a chance for these girls to a group discussion about what the Native Americans did with this animal, and why we should leave it as lunch for the birds as opposed to burying in the sand.

Holly flipping our shark friend over

*Love letters to the Salish Sea. The girls took a quiet moment to individually write in the tidal sand their thoughts, prayers, wishes and/or gratitude for the sea and all life within.

The girls out writing their love "letters".

*The girls’ determination to leave no garbage behind. Not only did they pick up the large and easy to spot garbage, they made sure to use their eagle eyes to find and remove even the tiniest pieces of plastic (smaller than a fingernail!). As we learned, these "micro trash" items can have the greatest impact on wildlife, for they are much more likely to be mistaken for a yummy, colorful food item by wildlife than the long plastic pipes we found.

Working hard as a team to pick up garbage-- we found some big stuff!

* Watching how the EC mottos are becoming internalized. Girls consciously applied these on Saturday:

- Safety First (we discussed how to work with potentially dangerous garbage carefully, or not at all)

- Widen the Circle (girls included everyone, not just those they know well)

- You See It, You Own It (though we didn't litter the trash, we became responsible to pick it up)

- Build Bridges Not Walls (... in how we speak and act toward one another)

- Everyone Helps (each one of us was an important part of the solution)

- All Things Are Connected (girls reflected on how the Nooksack River connects the mountains to Bellingham Bay, which is connected to the Salish Sea, which is connected to the Strait of Juan de Fuca, which is connected to the Pacific Ocean, which is connected to the Atlantic Ocean, etc. And how we were connected to the 500,000 other volunteers participating in the ICC this day)

- LIBK (girls were great at letting us know what was working and not working for them throughout the day)

- Walk Your Talk (even after a long day of trash harvesting and tired bodies, the girls applied their integrity as a group to haul the trash uphill with commitment and determination to the waiting truck)

* Watching some girls' eager encounters with boot sucking mud

* At day's end discussing the things each of us can do to reduce the amount of marine debris, such as walking/biking more, driving less; being mindful of sustainable practices when shopping for food; sustainable boating; buying things with less packaging; reducing our consumption in general; reusing things; being mindful of what we put into storm drains and waterways that lead to the sea; and participating in the International Coastal Cleanup!

Our words of the day: "Life, death, water and mud. Garbage, be gone!"

-Holly