Rally for the Fish

Yesterday, I brought the kids to their first rally. I was very involved in activism back in my younger years, but as I got wrapped up in grad school, and then with starting a family, that sort of fell by the wayside. But, now that I am finding snippets of time for myself once again, I have been feeling motivated to become more politically active, and to share my passion for taking action for the Earth with my children.
Yesterday's rally was at the Forest Service headquarters in Sandy, Oregon, the gateway to the Mt. Hood forest. We were there to protest the Forest Service's plans for the Jazz Timber Sale, along the Colwash River in an area of unstable soils. The proposed logging would put huge amounts of sediment into the Colwash River, threatening the winter Coho salmon that use that river. The Forest Service is billing this timber sale as a restoration, even though decommissioned roads will be re-built in order to access this area.
Phoebe had a great time at the rally. She joined in with the other kiddos in playing in a little pool of muddy water (to signify what the logging would do to the Colwash River). When they poured the mud into the pool, Phoebe said "mom, I want to play in that." I told her she could, and she looked at me with a puzzled look on her face and said "really?". Then she got right in, and had a good old time. Finn was a bit more reluctant and spent his time feeling shy on the sidelines, but that is 100% what I expected. Phoebe had fun and has already asked to go to more rallies and I think Finn learned a little and was happy to miss school for a couple of hours. There was a great turn out, and even though the Forest Service locked us out of the building, we did make the news (and Miss Phoebe is even in a quick shot!).
The next step is to bombard the Forest Service with letters urging them not to go through with this timber sale. Finn has already said that he is going to draw a picture of salmon with an "x" for each eye to show what the logging will do to them. I can't wait to see how it turns out.

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