-3-Earth Day

The earth is where we walk. I like to help out if I can, so tomorrow's walking will be as nice or perhaps even better than today's. This Earth Day I took a long walk over a short distance. That is to say, I took many trips behind a wheelbarrow. The journey consisted of loading up large tarps of ice plant, wheeling the load about 200 yards and dumping the ice plant. Then repeat the sequence, for a good part of the day.

Pigeon Point Lighthouse is a small state park located north of Santa Cruz. It is the tallest lighthouse in existence on the west coast. It turns out that all the nice ice plant around the lighthouse is a nuisance that has pushed out the native plant life. Now this was news to me since I though ice plant was native to California. Not so. Turns out, ice plant is native to South Africa. Sailors took cuttings and spread it all over the place. It seems that ice plant has a very high concentration of vitamin C. Sailors would plant it a various ports of call to have something to combat scurvy. Ice plant can be invasive as all get out, when it finds a place it likes, it just moves in and takes over. Sort of a crab grass on steroids.

So for Earth Day, I went to do battle with the invader from afar, the infamous ice plant. There was a small enthusiastic group of volunteers to carry out the battle. For some reason, my place in the organization was wheelbarrow man. It was not as glamorous as ice plant puller or native plant planter, but I took solace in knowing that I had found my station in life and solace in the fact that no one else wanted to take my station from me. So the journey of many steps began and ended on a short path between the lighthouse and the dumping place for the evil weed. The day had a stiff onshore breeze of around 20mph to keep one cool and the ocean had lots of whitecaps.

At the end of the day, a large patch of ice plant had been removed, native plants had been planted and I felt the good tired feel of doing a days work. And the day for the Earth is a small thanks for all the days I have spent walking upon the Earth.

Go out and volunteer some time at your favorite park or trail or lake or shore. It lets you get back in touch with the Earth and with yourself.