Friends of the SLSB Activity Report
for Saturday 15 December 2012

In attendance: Henry Whitesel, Kent Wagner, Mick Economos, Bob Barker

Accomplishments: We started at 0900 and finished about 1400. We worked just north of The Rose Trail (on the actual hill named Goat HIll) in the serpentine site labled "h": Map. We cleared trees and green briar to create a serpentine savanna. The serpentine grasses have a great start in this particular area and will likely thrive after we complete clearing it. Another 1 or 2 days of work is required in this area to complete clearing. We welcome Mick Economos to our "Serps Crew"; Mick attended for the first time. We hope Mick will continue to help us with our restoration efforts in the future. A picture of us (except yours truely) sitting around having lunch is attached. From left to right we have Mick Economos, Kent Wagner, David Ross, and Bob Barker.

The above photo is of the 4 volunteers, excluding myself as I took the picture; you can see a vista in the background that we created, and enlarged later, to view the state forest looking east toward Red Pump Road about 1.5 miles from this site.

Two hikers passed while we were eating lunch. They were hiking The Rose Trail and were from Washington DC and another city whose name I've forgotten. This, and other hikers I have encountered on The Rose Trail, indicates that this part of the William Penn State Forest is being used more and more. I conclude that the hikers find the trails if we create them. Members of the Friends organization assisted in creating The Rose Trail.

I give a special thanks to several people involved with this workday:

Lowell Hersh, Chris Hersh, and Richard Winner of the Goat Hill Hunt & Fish Club joined us and moved a lot of wood off site; I thank them for giving their personal time and energy in helping us create a great looking serpentine barrens site.

Over the past few years, Becky Murray has allowed us to park at her farm and cross her property to access The Rose Trail, saving us at least 2 miles of hiking into and out of the work site.

Reporter: Henry Whitesel