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What’s Happening in the Woods?

                                                     

 

According to the Osoberry leaves, fall is what is happening.  These small, native Osoberry trees (above) are the first to green up in spring (usually February) and the first to show their color in fall. The Big Leaf Maples are starting to drop their yellowing leaves, and you’ll soon hear that autumnal crunch underfoot. The birdsong as quieted down as nesting birds disperse though the owls—Barred Owls and Great Horned Owls are hooting it up. With the impending and very welcome rains, mosses will start to green up and the forest floor will soften with a new layer of duff from both deciduous and evergreen trees. This is a great month to restore your attention to the changes in the woods and to savor the transition from summer to fall.

 

Work Party—Saturday October 10^th 10 a.m.-12 noon

Help the Friends of LBA Woods volunteers remove tenacious, clever, but invasive plants from the woods.

New Meeting Spot: Due to full ballfields and parking lots, please park along 41^st Street SE (off Boulevard Rd.) in the Newcastle neighborhood. Please do not block any driveways. We’ll be working in the southwest corner of the park

Drop in and out as your schedule allows—any amount of time helps!

We will have tools, gloves, and snacks. Please bring a reusable water bottle. All ages are welcome to participate! Youth under age 14 must be accompanied by an adult; all youth under 18 years of age must have a signed waiver to participate. Waivers will be available at our meeting spot. We’ll sign student service hour forms, too. Work parties are rain or shine and will be cancelled only if high winds are forecast.

Boulevard Road Housing Update

Due to unforeseen delays, onsite work for this affordable housing development is temporarily paused. Infrastructure work is scheduled to continue in Spring 2027. For more information and updates, please visit the South Puget Sound Habitat for Humanity website page here. In the meantime, please continue to follow the new trails that skirt the construction site.

 

Recommended Reading

Birding to Change the World is about birds, but like most books about birds, it’s not just about birds. Author Trish O’Kane’s narrative centers on her community’s multi-years effort to save a local park from development—a story that  closely parallels the multi-year effort to save the LBA Woods. It’s uncanny how similar the stories are, though O’Kane’s park is 213 acres and on a lake in Madison, Wisconsin (versus LBA Wood’s 133 landlocked acres) and the campaign she spearheaded was exponentially more challenging and adversarial than ours in Olympia. At the heart of both campaigns are the dedicated advocates, neighbors, and park lovers who unite around a common cause.  O’Kane’s story is a page turner as the community momentum builds to preserve a precious piece of their natural world within a rapidly developing urban environment. You’ll find yourself cheering on the team and celebrating each small victory in the battle. How could you not love a story described as “a blueprint for muscular citizenship?”

Close to Home: The Wonders of Nature Just Outside Your Door by Pacific Northwest author Thor Hanson, offers another blueprint—a blueprint for muscular BIMBY (Biodiversity In My Back Yard.  Hanson is a conservation biologist and author of many award-winning books on natural-history topics. His latest book is a series of fascinating and infectious stories about the everyday wonders and actual scientific discoveries that await us in our backyards, local parks, and other often-overlooked hotspots of biodiversity. So dedicated is Hanson to his mission, that he literally crawled through his own backyard to see this familiar place with new eyes. Readers learn about specific backyard discoveries not only in the PNW, but also across the U.S. (including in downtown Los Angeles where new species are found regularly!). We learn from Hanson, early natural history writers, and the many contemporary scientist he interviews about the lives and significance of overlooked plants and animals.

 

Are you reading a book to inspire fellow park goers? Something to restore our attention to the natural world? Send a photo of the book cover and a few words about the book to lbawoodsoly@gmail.com and we'll include it in our next newsletter.