January 16

Friend Ted S. and I planted seven alders at Work Party. (Work Party is a group of 5 families who meet every month to work at one of the family's homes. We do lots of gardening, window washing, painting, hauling - anything the hosts need done. It's a great way to get boring jobs done - nothing's boring when you're doing it at Work Party with friends. And hard jobs. And it's a great way to get a lot of good eating done. We always do potluck, and we NEVER plan who brings what.) We planted the alders at the east end of our flood-prone meadow, towards our house from Gordon's (my husband) earlier plantings of Oregon big leaf maple (Acer macrophyllum), Sitka spruce (Picea sitchensis), Western redcedar (Thuja occidentalis), and others. When we first moved here, there were no trees there by the river. AND there was more land. Big floods in 1996 and 1998, took about 1/4 acre of soil. The river moved onto our land and left a wide gravel bar on its other side. We're planting trees to anchor the soil and reduce the impact of flooding.

Our river is Three Rivers. It's hardly more than a small creek by late summer, but in winter it's a torrent. When it floods the river roils through this meadow with current strong enough and water deep enough to wash a person away. Easily. It deposits tree parts, lumber, light bulbs, No Trespassing signs - and sand. Lots and lots of sand. (The last two years Gordon has taken his tractor down and hauled some of this sand up to our vegetable garden. It grows the best carrots and beets!)

Three Rivers is named for the creeks that unite to form it: Cedar Creek, Alder Creek and one other (I'll check that) - or maybe the third river is Three Rivers itself.

The alders Ted and I planted are ones I dug at Nestucca High School where Gordon teaches. When the district built a new high school building three years ago, large terraces were created behind the building. Without money for landscaping, the terraces behind the Field House (wrestling and other sports) filled with tiny alder seedlings. I dug a few and put them in pots here at home. You never know when you'll need an alder tree.