CAUSE TO CELEBRATE

This season's field work is moving forward step by step; several days had wet weather and even a tornado watch so that was a bit of a slow-down; on the other hand the days that had the gorgeous fall weather like today had some great results;

so why is there "cause to celebrate” today?

Today was a STJ school holiday and so we had the chance to do both morning and afternoon field work; three work groups from the morning and two more in the afternoon move the trail project forward and completed the last part of our trail marking blocks; (see the three pictures below) this may not sound like much but we have been working on this since this project began last Oct’ we now have all 85 blocks in place and have the entire 8500’ of the trail marked approximately every 100’. That was the original plan and it is now a reality.
We still have to put the trial symbols and exact distances to each of the final blocks but they are FINALLY in the ground and ready for the final markings.

THE FINAL BLOCK

The rest of the day was spent in some heavy duty vine control (see other pictures) and in some TLC (– both Tender Loving Care and Trail Length Care-) in trail segments 4, 5 and 6. It was great working with these young students and sharing their enthusiasm.

Vine Country

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Way to go - Peter/Nicole/Emily

In the middle of the day a former student from many years ago walked into our work site and surprised us; Chris Tomasello is a good friend and former student who now runs his own environmental consulting company and was just passing by and took the chance to stop in to the center and say hello; Chris is in the oil spill and Haz-Mat clean-up and remediation business and it was a nice chance to catch up a little.

And some TLC from Raphael

It was a tiring day. As we said our goodbyes I asked the students at the end of this long and tiring day how they felt about the project? they had all sorts of good feelings and thoughts; they had a sense of teamwork, they had a sense of accomplishment; one said it was therapeutic; and perhaps most importantly they had a sense of what this place might someday become.

Having the trail marking part of this project complete is only one step but it is an important step. Now we can ask volunteers to direct their efforts to particular tasks at particular trail intervals; we can begin to interpret the ecosystem and the plant communities for visitors and we can begin to produce trail maps and guides keyed to the trail markers that encourage people to get out and explore the park by following the marked trail. I think that will have to be my next project for the winter months when things are frozen solid and snowed over waiting for spring to arrive.

I’ve waited a long time to celebrate this day. I have to thank the students from last Oct., last April and this fall season that worked so hard to take this off the drawing board and put it into the ground.

And a final thank you and good-bye from one of the locals.