My Prize Winning Essay, by Karla Stover

 

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Most people haven't a clue about what garden clubs do, but they're not just about working in the yard. In my District, clubs do projects with the children at a local daycare, have planted and now maintain a pollinator garden for a library, take care of the Eatonville, WA. city park, and many other things to benefit their communities. The Washington State District of Clubs also sponsors an essay contest and that's where I come in. If no one else from my club wants to write one to enter, I do it. This year, the essay below (short but there is a word limit) won first place in Washington State and second in the Pacific Region (Washington, Arizona, California, Oregon, Nevada, Idaho, Alaska and Hawaii.) And, yes, it pays.

 One more thing: In researching I learned that it's "Madrona" north of southern Oregon and northern California's Siskiyou Mountains and "Madrone" south of them.

                                            Winter Wonderland

 The roast is in the oven, the potatoes are peeled, and the dog and I are hiking in the woods. Winter-woods walking is different from summer hiking. The trail we’re on is covered with maple leaves, many still retaining their color. I used to iron fallen leaves between sheets of wax paper to keep them shinny. Four years ago, University of Washington scientists got a grant to check the possibility of tapping big leaf maples here for syrup. Two good reasons to love them. Watch out Vermont.

But speaking of leaves, the dog has uncovered a loan oak leaf. Oak trees are native to the other end of the county so this little fellow has traveled a long way.

After drying up in summer heat, moss has returned, thanks to recent rain, and once again woodsy debris on the forest floor is softened by the versatile plant. Moss has been used for everything from surgical dressings by World War 1 doctors, to diapers by Native Americans. It’s a lovely contrast to gray-green bits of fallen lichen. I’m worried, though, because where I walk, moss is losing a competition to a ground cover

I’ve been unable to identify. The dog chases a squirrel into a cluster of Oregon Grapes. Both the Indians and the pioneers used it for medicine, food, and dye. But where we’re walking, there’s more salal than Oregon grape.It has sticky berries which, as a child, I used to put on my earlobes. The Indians were more practical, turning the berries into cakes, or drying them to treat indigestion, colic and diarrhea, and respiratory diseases such as colds or tuberculosis. Not to ignore the Oregon grape, though. It also had its uses, mainly to fight parasites and viruses.

The woods have lots of green, my favorite color. Sword ferns snuggle against Douglas firs which the Salish Indians used to ward off ghosts. When we bought our house, there was a copse of all these natives but it lacked two types of trees: cedars, which I brought in, and madrona which are notoriously difficult to propagate. My family had a number of elderly Indian friends who told me their women used madrona’s orange berries to make necklaces and various decorations. I recently learned that once dried, the berries have hooked barbs which latch onto animals for migration. How cool is that? Along our forest trail, the madrona’s peely-ochre trunks stand out among the green.

Eventually, my dog and I break out of the trees and into a little clearing, where we pass a spread of the ground cover, kinnikinnick. Before tobacco became the go-to plant for Old World smokers, folks happily puffed away on cannabis, but here the Indians sought out the nearest patch of kinnikinnick, a word that actually means “smoking mixture. Some articles I’ve read claim it’s becoming endangered. Sadly, for me, the sight of it means our walk in the woods is over. So, back to the kitchen I go.