Girl Scouts in Saginaw Forest

Last weekend, there were a number of girl scouts in Saginaw Forest. The following is from Erin Lane, from SNRE's Teaching and Inspiring Environmental Stewardship (TIES) program:

The name of the event on October 21st was "Saginaw Forest Hiker", and it was an event in which girl scouts could practice hiking skills and play outdoor games to earn their "Hiker" Skill-Building Badge.

This was the first event that TIES has held for girl scouts at Saginaw Forest - the feedback from parents, scouts and troop leaders was outstanding!  Therefore, we will aim to offer the event again next fall.  The troops that attended were numbers 40280 and 60026. In addition, there was a "Juliette" (that's a girl scout term for a participant who does not belong to a troop) who also attended the event.

One of the parents sent a picture of her daughter, Audrey Hertz (she was the "Juliette"), who had just found a snake in the fallen leaves. The person in the photo holding the snake is a U-M undergrad who works for TIES, Veronica Kincaid.

Two summers ago, the TIES program collaborated with the WISE (Women in Science and Engineering) program, and brought a number of female high school students to the forest to learn field research techniques. Hopefully, the TIES program will continue to be able to make use of the property as a teaching space for women and girls of all ages.

Thanks again to Erin and the U-M undergraduates who came out to make this even a great one for both the kids and parents who came out last weekend. It was fun to watch an enthusiastic group of kids, excited parents, and capable group coordinators.

Massive leaf fall; more yet to come

I guess all the gusty winds on Thursday really helped shed leaves from branches, because the trees look far more barren than they did on Wednesday and my lawn is suddenly filled with lots of dried leaves (mostly oak it seems). The raking will likely continue for a few more weeks, though, since there are still a few trees that are cloaked with yellowing leaves. Soon, too, the buckthorn and the honeysuckle will be the only deciduous trees/shrubs that will have green leaves, making them a lot more easy to spot for potential removal. (In the spring, these plants are also one of the first woody plants to leaf out.)

Fall Photos

Some photos of the changing season:


The poison ivy are about to lose their leaves. (Still bad to touch them, though.)


The maples near the gate are slowly moving toward their color shifts.


I decided to quit my raking of the path after I realized how much work was going to be falling from branches in the coming weeks. Still: they need to be raked so that they don't turn into muddy lanes come the spring.


Almost stepped on this guy as I was going back into the cabin. He wasn't any wider than my finger!

"No parking" has long been difficult for people to understand

Yesterday, I encountered a few vehicles that were parked at the gate, despite the plain signage that says that it is not legal to park there. For example, there was this SUV that was parked right in front of the "No parking" sign (just in case you had a difficult time to recognize the sign, what with all the colorful foliage, I've highlighted the sign):



What's more, I decided to look up how many of the previous caretakers kvetched about no parking.

In 2007, in 1991, in 1989 (twice), and in 1987 In other words, it's been a consistent problem.

And I'm sure that the previous caretakers didn't note every single instance of having to report a vehicle (and not every caretaker wrote in the log book, either). I think that the number of people parking at the gate has diminished, but it is still higher than what would be the case if people followed the law.

Fixed fence posts at front gate

A few weeks ago, I found that a couple of the fence posts at the front gate were pulled down (again).


The other day, I went and redug the post holes, and returned the posts to their positions.


Still, I think that the front area should get a decent make-over and upgrade. New fence posts, new cable, fix the gate and the old gateposts, and - while we're at it - replace the fencing along Liberty Road.

Photos from SNRE's annual Homecoming Campfire

Last Friday, October 12, 2012, was SNRE's annual Homecoming Campfire, and welcoming back of the class of 1962. It was a good turnout this year, with Beet Box providing the food, and the speed at which the food disappeared is a testament to how awesome it was! (It disappeared so fast that - between all the activities I was doing - I wasn't able to take a photo of the spread!)

Anyway, before the Campfire, there was some additional log-splitting that needed doing:

... and I really like that new Fiskars splitting axe that I purchased at the start of the month. It made short work of those ash logs. It's sharp, keeps an great edge, has a perfect wedge for splitting, is well balanced, and is not stupidly heavy.

Prep work also included moving the row boats to a different location:


One can't have people taking pleasure rides in the middle of the night, right? And, also, with all the boats there, it makes it difficult to safely run the wader races:


Happily, we were able to run the wader race early enough in the evening that we didn't have to do the log-sawing competition in the dark:

... looking back through my photos, I think that this was the first time in a number of years that the log sawing was done during daylight hours. Usually, it has been illuminated by the headlamps and flashlights of all the cheering SNREds.

It was a great honor of mine to also take the alumni of the class of 1962 on a tour of the forest; a place that they had come many times 50 years previous, when they were forestry students. They asked many interesting questions, were heartened to know that the property was still being used for research and teaching, were a little discouraged about the consequences of the lack of serious investment in the property, and generally curious about what changes I knew of that had happened between the time of their graduation and last Friday. What was meant to be a 40 minute tour of the lake trail turned into a discussion that was more than an hour long about many different aspects of the history and ecology of the forest. Hopefully, SNRE's alumni relations will help in trying to get these former students to recount some of their memories of the forest.

Water collection for 1,4-dioxane sampling

On Monday and Tuesday, water collections were taken throughout Saginaw Forest as part of the yearly audit of 1,4-dioxane contamination levels throughout the property. There was obligatory surface water sample collecting at three locations on Third Sister Lake:


In addition, there was groundwater sample collection at the twelve on-site wells: