Ronald Bog volunteers continue to weed and plant

Volunteers at Ronald Bog

By Dick Decker

We had 13 volunteers gather Saturday, May 21, 2011 at Ronald Bog to remove blackberry roots and some other invasive plants and plant native plants.

This comes to a total of about 500 native plants planted on this portion of the bog since October 2010. The number of volunteer hours since that date are approximately 280.

The volunteers Saturday ranged from novices to old pros and ages from middle school (Mukilteo) up through me as the oldest guy on the block. We had a couple from Columbia who brought their 2 year old and 7 year old daughters to play and enjoy the park. Volunteers came from Edmonds, Seattle and Shoreline.

We also were joined by some members of The Aurora Church of The Nazarene A friend, Rajinder Manhas, joined Terry Roche and me to plant four native shrubs the three of us donated to the park to commemorate a friend, Jerry Crawford, who died recently. We worked with Jerry for a number of years.

We will continue throughout the summer to remove blackberrry roots and ivy as it resprouts.

Thanks to all the volunteers and Gretchen Atkinson, Meridian Park Neighborhood Association, for her ongoing support, promotion and supplier of treats and to the City of Shoreline for the grant to purchase plants, tools and gloves. Thanks to Nora Smith, who gets announcements of our work parties out to so many sites and bring such a diverse group of volunteers. A big thanks to Kirk Peterson for all the support from Shoreline Parks.

Come visit the park to see our work and look for fish, frogs, turtles, the resident beaver(s). otters. eagles, osprey, Great Blue Heron, cormorant, Kildeer, King fisher, many other water fowl and small birds.