North Road trail work day

Saturday morning was trail work day at the North Road Nature Preserve, and despite still being in recovery mode I really had to be there.  I might not be able to do much work, but I have the tools so if I don't show up then nobody else can work either.  And it was a good thing I hauled my lumpy ol' self out there - we had ten people total working!

Van and his son were there to earn some Boy Scout community service hours, along with two other scouts and three other parents.  Carol wasn't there (some Girl Scout event I believe) but her husband Frank showed up, along with my buddy Bernie.

I handed out the tools and showed the scouts what had to be done - raking and scraping, pulling weeds and hacking out stumps.  They started working at the end of the finished tread and kept on pushing it out further, with Frank working with them (he's been there enough that he has a pretty good idea what is going on).  I'd thought I would just rake the leaves off the finished tread, but Bernie had a great new backpack leaf blower that cleaned the wet leaves right off the tread in a heart beat.

So I scouted out the edge of the area bulldozed back in the '60's.  It's amazing how easy you can spot the edge of the excavated area, even with the woods grown in.  I did find one area where it looks like they got into a rocky, flagstone type rock.  Much of it is buried, but I still managed to find quite a bit of rock (small enough to pick up without worrying about injuring myself) and carried it to a stockpile on the trail.

By the end of the day the scouts had halved the unfinished trail length - a lot of good work from the boys.  One of the park board members stopped in at the end of the day to check on progress - I think they're pretty happy with our work.  It's so great to see new volunteers show up and work, especially in rainy, chill weather like we had.

After posting the picture of Kenny in his zombie soldier costume I thought it would be nice to have a couple of pictures of him looking a little bit more normal.

I may be a little biased, but he sure is a handsome kid.  We're pretty lucky to have such a good natured, caring kid - and smart, too.  Gotta count those blessings...