Saturday, October 10, 2009

Covering One's Tracks

About two weeks ago I became aware that some teenagers were using part of the salt marsh to hang out in. This spot is a sweet little clearing that my dog and I really enjoy, and I know others do as well. You really have a feeling of being quite far away when, in reality, it's pretty close to real urban life.

There are some nice plants being smothered by mugwort in this section of the salt marsh as well as the other areas I work on. So I have been clearing some away and finding lupines and monarda, and there are some young birch trees hiding there as well. It has a lot of potential as a segment in the salt marsh for people to enjoy.

I went down one evening with the dog and there were about 8 kids - to me at least - teenagers - down there and they had built a tent of plastic bags strung between the young trees, and dragged a bunch of stuff down there. It didn't look at all good to me, but I stayed "cool" 'and reminded them that they were in a garden and a nature preserve. They assured me they would clean up and wouldn't hurt any plants, and their friend had been thrown out of his house, etc. They complimented me on my dog. I didn't bite - no pun intended. But I left, remembering how I used the same lines on my parents, and was convinced only that my parents hadn't bought them for a minute, any more than I bought what those kids had said to me either. So, hoping for the best, I wished them a good night and went on my way.

This must have been a week ago last Thursday. I checked on the site this past Thursday. I felt pretty certain that if they had the opportunity, they would try to get one more weekend out of it.

Stay tuned for what I found:

Sunday, September 6, 2009

Sunday, Sept. 6, 2009 Weeding

Spent about an hour and a half tackling mugwort regrowth in the new front section. I had to move quite a lot of tree prunings dumped there. Milkweed is allowed to stay, but nothing else.

The ducks are back. This morning, there were several egrets sunning themselves on the rocks under the terrace of the nature center. I've been clearing out the mugwort and pruning the scrubby trees close to the water, and that was oneof the best places to see them.

The weather is turning towards fall. The marsh grass plumes are deep purple.