Every week in our West Seattle weekend lineup, we include the “work parties” that are set up each month at sites that are among our area’s most precious natural treasures. For example, the Brandon Street Natural Area, which is a section of the Longfellow Creek Legacy Trail, where Jay Mirro leads the monthly events and is hoping to see a few more folks turn out today. He writes:

Brandon Street Natural Area is just west of the corner of 26^th and Brandon Street (2 blocks west of Delridge). We work from 10-2. Volunteers can expect to pull weeds and wheelbarrow mulch. It is a family friendly day of work along a beautiful day section of the trail by Longfellow Creek. Folks should bring water and a lunch.

Nice day to work outdoors, too, with the cloud cover. Drop by & be a hero. If you’re wondering first, what’s a work party really like – Lina Rose from EarthCorps wrote us with a recap and some pix from the West Duwamish Greenbelt event last weekend; like the one today at Brandon Street, it involved a lot of mulch:

Click ahead to read Lina’s recap (including what this work will enable volunteers to do next time), see more pix (including one that might answer questions such as “gosh, would I really fit in at one of those work parties?”), and find out about an event next weekend:

Last Saturday, EarthCorps and Nature Consortium joined forces with 45 amazing volunteers to move massive amounts of mulch into the West Duwamish Greenbelt! Our challenge was to cover some of the area cleared of invasive blackberries on Earth Day – challenge that was met with lots of hard work and quite a bit of fun!

The day couldn’t have been better! The sun was out and a nice breeze was blowing. Thanks to Nature Consortium, we were serenaded by gorgeous drum and flute music while we passed mulch under the trees. By the time the event had ended, we had moved and spread 10 yards of mulch! Thank you to Crossroads and the Nature Consortium and EarthCorps regulars for braving the potentially bad traffic to come out and volunteer. Thanks to you all, we now have an area ready to plant in the West Duwamish Greenbelt on October 13th!

I have included a few pictures so folks can get a visual of how hard the volunteers worked and what the area looked like before they came in. Our next volunteer event is on August 25 on Longfellow Creek at Thistle Street – across from the SW Community Center and pool and next to Sealth.

The first photo is the “before” picture. By the way, here’s a good place to look ahead to see what other areas need your help, and when.