The Gig Harbor Nature Bingo-ers go off trail at Sehmel Homestead Park. Photo by Tonya Strickland.

Back in my Instagram era, when I still kinda-sorta cared about likes, I knew exactly what type of content would be a sure-fire hit with the crowd. One might think those fan-favorite topics guaranteed to pull reactions from people like snacks from a diaper bag would be something like our “Top 10 Playgrounds” or “Kiddo Destinations Worth the Drive.”

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But, no.

It was plants.

That’s right. Lush and green or prickly and purple — it didn’t matter. Washington people LOVE their plants. They love identifying them. They love growing them. They even love foraging them. And, hoo boy, they especially love correcting a certain someone when their plants go misidentified. (Let’s not forget the Great Yarrow vs. Queen Anne’s Lace debate of 2020).

So what’s an adventure mom to do? Well, if social media metrics had their way, she would start talking more about plants, right? Wrong. Instead, I ditched the numbers game last July and went on an Instagram hiatus. And my sanity has been all the better for it.

Except … I knew in my heart of hearts that I couldn’t get away with referring to all the forests around here as ‘a bunch of pine trees, or whatever’ for long.

The idea

So when local history columnist Greg Spadoni sent me a story idea last month, asking if I’d taken the kids to PenMet’s McCormick Forest Park on Bujacich Road NW to identify its native trees, I knew plants were about to make their big Two In Tow comeback. But how would we identify the trees, leaves and berries correctly? We invited Greg to come along, of course! Then we gave him homework 🤓. His assignment: jot down 25 popular plants around here for a challenging but fun game of … Gig Harbor Nature Bingo! Using Greg’s list, I paired the names with images and laid them all out on a Bingo grid, printing them on the go at Office Depot (the store has an awesome self-service color printer that works off email for quick hits. I also recently learned that Pierce County Library cardholders can print for free up to 50 black-and-white and 10 color pages (8.5 x 11″) each week from home with pickup options or onsite.

Sehmel Homestead Park

Greg and Wyatt explore the trails at Sehmel Homestead Park. Photo by Tonya Strickland.

Approximately 50 acres of McCormick Forest Park is made up of old-growth Douglas fir, according to PenMet’s park description page, so that would’ve been a cool thing to see. But due to time constraints (and at least two last-minute printing missions), we ended up playing our Gig Harbor Nature Bingo game at PenMet’s Sehmel Homestead Park instead, located off 78th Ave. NW in Rosedale.

Sehmel is just as perfect for the game because it has a bunch of cool trails all leading away from the hustle and bustle of the playground and sports fields and into the reverie of big leafy canopies and boardwalks. We followed a trail on the northwest end of the park, starting at the playground restroom building and curving west behind the grassy amphitheater marked on the Sehmel Park Trails Map.

Cards in hand, Clara and Wyatt scoured all the nature things while walking the trail — looking for matches and crossing off their squares along the way. I loved that they were learning, in real time, all the new names, colors and textures of the PNW world around them.

Greg mostly led the activity, pointing things out, hinting at names, carefully pulling down branches for a closer look at child’s height and braving the wrath of spiky vines for the chance of sharing a ripened berry or two. Trailing behind them, I … mostly learned those things. But I also had to take the pictures, provide the snacks and backtrack to retrieve water bottles from the car halfway through. #Momlife, amiright? Even with all that, I’m happy to report that I now almost/probably/maybe know the difference between Douglas fir, hemlock and Western red cedar. Apparently, you can tell a lot about the type of tree by looking at its bark. I’d cap that remark with a surprised “Who knew?!”  – but the entire population of Washington (and Oregon) would raise their hands.

Gig Harbor Nature Bingo

FREE CARDS
Below is “Version A” of our Gig Harbor Nature Bingo card, which you’re welcome to download and print for your next local adventure. Or, email me for “Version B” at [email protected] (totally free — no strings attached) for high res files of both. It’s important to have different Bingo layouts of the same plant squares per card so the people in your group aren’t all reaching “Bingo!” at the exact same time.*

Free Gig Harbor Nature Bingo printable by Tonya Strickland, Greg Spadoni and Canva.com.

Winning

Clara wins a nickel!

That’s because … Bingo is supposed to have a winner, right?! And — lucky us — Greg “put up a semi-shiny nickel” as the prize money. (Don’t spend it all in one place, kids!)

He also requested I present to you, dear readers, the following quote inspired by, or related to, the late Yogi Berra, a pop culture icon and New York Yankees Hall of Famer known for his “quotable quips,” according to CBS News (and a certain Olalla Baby Boomer). I don’t totally get it, but, you know, Greg assures me everyone else does so here it is anyway. Because I’m so nice like that:

“Nothing stimulates a child’s enthusiasm like the pursuit of filthy lucre.” – Greg Spadoni

TIP: We paired our bingo cards with clipboards and brought along black markers for crossing the items off. You can pick up those things at Target in Gig Harbor or even Dollar Tree in Tacoma. (Fun fact about Dollar Tree Tacoma – apparently Instacart will deliver to certain parts of the harbor from that location). I’m a big fan of bringing clipboards on scavenger hunts or for similar games like Bingo to pare down kiddo frustrations related to using floppy paper on-the-go.

Rosedale

Clara and Greg spot what might be Salal across the way at Sehmel Homestead Park. Photo by Tonya Strickland.

Sehmel Homestead Park is located in Rosedale, a northern area in rural Gig Harbor. And, as everyone knows from his column, Gig Harbor Now and Then, Greg is a lifetime local who grew up in Rosedale with his mom, dad, and siblings (along with their many, many cousins) on family acreage affectionately known as Spadoni Hill. So it was cool to hear all the fun facts Greg told us about the area. I’d already been reading Greg’s stories for the better part of a year, so I knew a little bit about the types of history he tells — but I’d forgotten one key fact. Say it with me now: “Washington people LOVE their plants.”

Some history

That’s why, when I came across Greg’s 2022 article, “The Joseph M. Oakes Homestead in Rosedale, Washington Territory,”  popular with the Facebook crowd, a certain passage caught my eye. And I was again reminded of why everyone loves the local landscapes here. Greg opens the article with Oakes, who in 1883 sought farmland in present-day Rosedale:

“His search along the shores of Puget Sound … must have been a spectacular journey into what was at the time an untamed wilderness.”

Greg could’ve left the description at that. But nope — he goes on. And that’s where his Washington plant-person genes really begin to show:

“What Oakes saw on shore as he (traveled) from the east side of the Narrows, through Hales Pass between Fox Island and Arletta, around the point enclosing Horsehead Bay, north past the future Kopachuck State Park, and into the first shallow lagoon beyond Raft Island, was trees —endless hills and valleys of medium-to-dark green trees, a great many exceeding 200 feet in height. On the hills and flats, running down to the water’s edge, was a thick forest of mostly Douglas fir, the area’s dominant conifer, prized as the most commercially valuable species. Occasional western hemlock, big leaf maple, and madrone filled in whatever cracks they could find in the firs’ canopy. In the wet areas, around swamps, lakes, and in stream bottoms, Puget Sound’s second most valuable tree, western red cedar, thrived. It shared the moist, organic soils primarily with red alder, cottonwood, and willow. Covering the floor of the old-growth forest was thick brush in most places, primarily salal and huckleberry beneath the firs and hemlocks, and vine maple, salmon berries, and the formidable Devil’s Club, with its giant multi-pointed leaves and sharp, skin-shredding thorns, in the wetter ground.”

As 8-year-old Wyatt told me after our Bingo sesh: “Wow, mama. Greg Spaghetti** is good at history stuff  — but he really likes plants.”

And there you have it! Plants: There’s just no escaping ’em. So, with any luck, I’m on my way to one day achieving identification gold — no Instagram required. And your kids can too with this fun and free activity.

See ya out there!

*Another idea is to cut up the squares from our Bingo sheets and assemble your own mix for groups of 3 players or more.

**Clara and Wyatt mistook Greg’s last name of Spadoni as “Spaghetti” last fall and I continue to not correct them on the principle of simple adorableness.