Day Two - The Bad and the Good

When people ask, do you want to hear the good news or the bad news first, it is always a tough decision for me, so I'm going to make it for you:

The Bad News

We have a homeless problem here in our area, just like many places.  Because we live in the 'burbs, I see it only a small fraction of the time I used to when I worked downtown.  In our neighborhood one time, I was walking in the early morning and happened to notice a thickly-bearded man crawling out of a sleeping bag under the slide in the park. He had a dirty backpack beside him, so maybe he was just passing through?  Today, we came across evidence of both a former and active camp in the Patch.

Sometimes we also come face-to-face with our prejudices that the homeless are lazy deadbeats. Last time we were in the Patch, one of the dog walkers told us that he talked to a camper.  During the conversation, the camper asked him about his three kids.  The dog walker was a little freaked out and asked the camper how he knew about the kids.  The camper said, "I work over at the Pizza Hut, you told me about them there."  

Today, I walked over to check on the active camp we saw with Adam.  It was fairly clean and I was surprised to see a fresh tube of toothpaste on a log.  I have to admit that good dental hygiene does not fit my picture of a homeless person.

So why not just leave the campers alone?  Well, we discovered a former campsite, this one not quite so clean.  The vegetation is trampled and there is a sanitation issue (there being no restroom facilities nearby).  I don't pretend to even to fully understand the problem, but I see enough to know this is a problem.

The Good News

We found nine species of birds in our two hours of on-site time, without even trying.  Twenty or thirty bushtits congregated with a few black capped chickadees.  I could hear both white and red breasted nuthatch.  Bewick's wrens were buzzing and singing, warning the rest of the forest that we were present.

The trees here are beautiful: ash, oak, big leaf maple, western red cedar, and the weed of the tree world, Doug-fir. Many other native plants are here.  We also discovered what might be a little seep at the far end of the patch and a beaver dam right off the edge of the property.  

Ending with the good news makes me feel better.