Our Hays County Chapter of the Texas Master Master Naturalists recently participated in a neat project which I think exemplifies the kind of work we do and the spirit of our members.

The Healing Hands Healing Lands project was created in the aftermath of last year’s devastating Bastrop wildfires. The best summary comes from the project’s web page:

“This project has been initiated to support those who have suffered loss of homes, lives, pets, and farm animals in areas of Central Texas recently damaged by wildfires. We will act to aid and accelerate “healing” of the natural ecosystems by providing seed balls containing native flower, grass, and other plant seeds normally found in the affected areas. All seed used will be provided by Native American Seed Company and selected and blended for its suitability for those areas. We hope to broaden involvement of the young people in our surrounding communities in this effort. Finally, we see this as an important youth education opportunity to teach younger citizens about the importance of re-establishing the correct native plants in the area’s various ecosystems.”

Several organizations were involved in the project:

The project plan was to make as many seed balls as possible to distribute to fire victims by the end of 2011. The seeds are from more than 50 varieties of plants found in the Bastrop area, such as Little Bluestem, Black-eyed Susan and Indian Blanket. Each ball has nine or 10 seeds and should grow with a little water. The volunteers mixed the dry ingredients, added water, and rolled around 350 seed balls per bag of dry mix. They processed a total of 477 bags of dry mix, which resulted in approximately 165,000seed balls, or a little over a ton!

Their work also involved boxing the completed seed balls for distribution. An event was held in Bastrop on January 13^th to distribute seed balls.

The Healing Hands Healing Lands is a wonderful, and very visible, example of the work our chapter conducts. It combines ecological restoration, public outreach, and education.