Serps Stewardship
Day Report, Goat Hill, 5/15/15
Participants:
Bill
Whittaker, FSLSB volunteer (grassland maintenance)
Chris
Hoess, FSLSB volunteer (glade spurge)
Chris
Hull, FSLSB volunteer (grassland maintenance)
Heather
Kerr, BoF, (glade spurge)
Henry Whitesel,
FSLSB volunteer (grassland maintenance)
Jaci
Braund, BoF? (glade spurge)
Kelly
Sitch, BoF (glade spurge)
Mike
Waltz, FSLSB volunteer (grassland maintenance)
Rick
Hartlieb, BoF (glade spurge)
Rebecca
Bowen (glade spurge)
Tracy
Raymond, FSLSB volunteer (grassland maintenance)
Anna
Hull, FSLSB volunteer (grassland maintenance)
Major accomplishments:
Erected
15 glade spurge cages
Cleared
greenbrier and small trees from the southern part of site 24.
Cleared
greenbrier and trees from site 92
Cleared
some trees in site 91
Cleared
greenbrier from the northeast part of site 23
Full report:
The
group met in the Red Pump Road Parking area around 9:00 am and enjoyed
refreshments generously provided by Tracy, Bill and Chris Hoess. After signing
volunteer forms (FSLSB, TNC, PA Worker’s employment and compensation, and PPFF*)
and receiving brush whacker training from Henry and Mike we headed into the
barrens around 9:45 am. Rick and Heather (BoF), brought an ATV and a “BillyGoat”
walk-behind brush mower and drove their trailer down under the power lines to
deliver the tools and equipment closer to the work sites. We entered the Rose
trail on foot with the Billy Goat at the southern end of site 21; Rick drove
the ATV loaded with the rest of our gear further south and met us at site 24.
The
“Glade Spurge Team” headed out to spray for stilt grass and erect cages around
the glade spurge. Below is the full glade spurge report submitted by Chris
Hoess:
Glade Spurge Report
The
Bureau of Forestry established a cache of deer caging materials where the two
paths meet along Pine Run, near one of the two glade spurge concentrations. The
most difficult part of the task was trying to locate the glade spurge based on
Carol Loeffler's GPS points. Once you're close, all of those spurges have
yellow flagging near ground level, plus a small metal sign with her identifier
on it. We assembled cages at the clearing by unrolling about 10 feet of the
fencing material and cutting it with wire snips. The Bureau has already done
some brush-clearing in this area to reach the spurges, so the cages can easily
be carried rolled-up to each spurge; we sometimes cleared a little greenbrier
around the spurge to make it easier to put the cage down. There are also a
number of wooden stakes in the cache, which we hammered in to secure the cages
after putting them in place.
There
are about 47 glade spurge locations in the GPS file; we built and placed 15
cages, although a few of those appeared to cover more than one marked glade
spurge. I don't believe we caged any in the cluster further upstream along Pine
Run. Making and placing the cages is very simple, and two people could probably
finish the remaining glade spurge in one or two afternoons. Some of the glade
spurges are blooming now. We should reach out to Carol Loeffler, as she may
want to collect seed, and might also be able to help us find any that still
need caging.
Other
material, not strictly related to glade spurge:
Kelly
and the other BoF people did some spraying of stiltgrass. They've been using
two different herbicide treatments: one applied pre-emergence, which only
affects the germination of annual seeds (hence the warm-season grasses,
perennials, are unaffected), and an herbicide called "Acclaim", which
is effective against stiltgrass and other grasses in early post-emergence. They
treated a number of areas along the proposed path of the haul road earlier this
year (or last year?) and the results seemed quite good (heavily reduced stiltgrass
load). Kelly explained that after the burn at Ches-Len (Unionville Barrens), a
lot of stiltgrass came in, and that they would need to spend about 3 years
knocking it down to safe levels here before the proposed controlled burn.
BoF
has extended the path along Pine Run essentially to the mouth. They're
contemplating 2 campsites there: one at the top of the ridge (aimed at hikers)
and one between the base of the ridge and Pine Run (boundary of Herr's land,
aimed at paddlers). Approved by the district but not yet at higher levels.
Green dragon (Arisaema dracontium) is
close to the lower campsite but very abundant so hopefully won't be much
affected. Higher campsite was just a patch of greenbrier, no existing opening.
We got into a small opening to the west along the ridgeline and did find what
proved (on leaf comparison) to be the very hairy chickweed. A member of the
party who shall remain nameless suggested a "shortcut" back over the
ridge, despite my skepticism...I paid a blood price for assenting to that. DCNR
is very interested in monitoring the chickweed, and the new trail they've made
should make it a lot more accessible.
We
focused on areas 23, 24, 91 and 92 as planned. All four areas had fairly heavy
blooms of moss pink (Phlox subulata)
and barrens chickweed (Cerastium
velutinum); the perennial grasses are just starting to grow. Henry provided
much appreciated supervisory support for the first few
hours – thank you Henry!
The
maintenance crew began clearing trees and greenbrier at the top of site 24:
Mike operated the chain saw and cut down trees on sites 24, 91 and 92 until
lunch time.
Tracy
and Anna used weed wrenches to pull small cedars and some pines at the top of
site 24 and manually removed greenbrier around trees and in areas with heavy
moss pink.
Bill
used the brush whacker to clear other areas of greenbrier and Chris Hull
operated the Billy Goat and effectively mowed large areas within both site 24
and 23.
We
paused for lunch at noon and continued to clear the same areas after lunch;
Mike Waltz brush whacked area 92 and Bill pulled about 20% of the small cedars
on area 91.
end result is that the entire top-area of site 24 is completely cleared, as is
site 92. Site 91 still needs to have a
bunch of small trees removed; if we get to it this year it will still be possible
to pull the trees using weed wrenches. However, if we delay until next year, we
may need to cut the trees.
Site
23 looks good in at the high elevations, but the slope that leads down towards
site 8 has heavy greenbrier coverage and could really benefit from mowing ASAP.
We
learned that the Billy Goat is the way to go for greenbrier removal early in
the season! Thanks to Rick and the BoF for supplying both the ATV and the Billy
Goat and for helping us haul the equipment as close as possible to the work
sites!
The
maintenance crew was out of the woods a little after 2:00 pm.
Respectfully
submitted,
Anna
Hull 5/16/15
*The
PPFF is a new form that Marci supplied – we may want to merge it with our existing
FSLSB form. According to PPFF, we need to have all volunteers sign this form for
EVERY stewardship day.