Date of volunteer work: 10/01/2016.
Site Name: Mitchell Creek.
Number of hours worked: 2.
Species removed: Armenian blackberry.
Estimated percent cover before removal100.
Approximate square feet of invasives removed225.
Today, when I arrived, I saw that the small pile of construction debris that was dumped in August was gone. Meanwhile, there was pile of construction debris on the opposite side of Vrandenburg Road.
The most noticeable change to the forest was the ground cover that had sprouted since my last trip out. The bare ground that had been exposed by the removal of blackberries during the dry summer months was now covered in an ankle-high sea of green.
I went to work on the blackberry thicket that I had discovered the last time I was at Mitchell Creek. I have previously uprooted blackberries with a shovel, but on this day I brought a pair of loppers in which to tackle the thicket with. I also brought a measuring tape so as to measure the size of the thicket (15 feet by 45 feet). I also used my tape to measure one of the longer canes (18 feet long!). The cane I measured – along with many other long, trailing canes – had rooted at the tip. I lopped for two hours, cutting down about one-third of the thicket.
Before leaving the natural area, I drove up the road to look for illegal dumpings. No surprise, there was a dumping alongside the road (biggest pile yet) that included such things as a car bumper, suit case and clothing, swivel chair and lawn chair, gas can, and solid-core interior door.