Earth Day; Bless the Earth and All Upon It

Earth Day for Fox Island UCC arrived sunny and clear, a far cry from recent spring adventures with clouds, rain, thunder, sleet, hail and snow. Only slightly alarmed that the weather service called for more of the same on Sunday we prepared for the day, with one eye open.
Earth Day celebrations brought FIUCC a lot of children. Eighteen children arrived outside in our garden after their ‘sermon’ and we assembled a group from ages 14 to toddlers.
To accommodate this enthusiastic and hardworking crowd we supplied rakes, shovels, spades of appropriate colors and sizes. Some brought their own garden gloves embellished with ladybugs.
To begin our celebrations, we talked about the native plants on the property and we embarked on a small hike to take a closer look. We learned about Douglas Fir, Oak Fern, Wild Ginger, Sword Fern, Wood Sorrel, Huckleberries, Roses, Creeping Dogwood and more.
To commemorate the day the children planted three Western Red Cedars and four Red Twig Dogwoods. We also planted seeds of California Poppy, Cosmos and Nasturtiums out in the wild rose beds. Nasturtiums, though not native are edible and like the other flower seeds we planted are low water use plants. For our closing we made a big circle around the newly planted trees, joined hands and said a prayer for our plants and the earth.
Won’t you join us for a grown-up work party? Set aside May 17th from 9am to noon for clean up and planting. Bring appropriate clothes with; label your name on your tools. Lunch will be served at 12:30 p.m.
Bless the earth and all upon it.