It's ba-a-a-a-a-ck....!

Yes, it's early spring, and the site is awash in debris left from the tons of snow and sand piled up over the winter. This is a shot of the landscape fabric covered with dead knotweed stalks and lots of sand. That's Route 11 in the background.

Demo site winding down, mapping project gearing UP!

Thank you to everyone who has put forth so much effort, time and interest for our Japanese knotweed demonstration site this year, our first attempt at mechanical management of this fascinating and persistent plant. Funding came from the New England Grassroots Environmental Fund, input and collaboration from the Planning Commission, the Natural Resources Conservation District and the Agency of Natural Resources. Permission and partnership with the Town of Springfield is essential to this project (many thanks to Town Manager, Bob Forguites for helping us get under way expeditiously).

Input, advice, encouragement and suggestions came from so many corners that I'm bound to forget a few...but thank you to all the scientists, biologists, authors, ecologists and community leaders who have answered my pesky questions and offered wisdom from your own experiences.

Community support has been simply outstanding, from Jason of Larochelle Landscaping to Bibens ACE Hardware and Skyline Nursery ~ your services and supplies have been extremely helpful! The value of commitment from a great group of outstanding volunteers is truly immeasurable. Heather, Robin, Jan, Jesse, Allan and Moira...thank you all from the bottom of my heart. And a big hug of thanks to my wonderful hubby, John, for putting up with all my knotweed zaniness this past year!

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Well, the knotweed is hibernating for the season, so we are moving forward with other aspects of the project. I had the distinct pleasure of meeting with Josh O'Neill today, a UVM student whose GPS class is branching out to donate their services to the community-at-large. He will be spending time in the upper reaches of the Black River watershed for the next five weeks, taking GPS points and developing some fabulous maps for us!

In addition to knowing where the knotweed is along Route 100 from Black Pond to Ludlow, Josh will be including data on the soil types, topography, tributary streams, and slope within a 100' buffer from the river and from the road. He'll be tying this in to land use maps from the Regional Planning Commission, and will also be working to develop a user-friendly, hands-on ArcReader GIS tool for the BRAT website!

Keep an eye on us: http://www.blackriveractionteam.org/.

Flowering knotweed!

I know, Labor Day weekend, I'm supposed to be relaxing. Instead, I brought Moira down for a two-hour session at the knotweed site opn Sunday. She used loppers and I used little hand-held clippers, and we tackled the skinny stalks with vigor. The weather was quite nice, not too hot but not cold either. Bright sun and temperatures in the low seventies.

What seems to be happening is that the larger stalks we cut earlier in the season are re-sprouting with two or more new stems, skinny but more abundant. That's about what I expected; I find it interesting, though, that many apparently dead stalks are growing new stems off to the side. These young stalks, less than three feet tall, are actually attempting to flower ~ hopefully, having let the rhizomes expend this much energy over the past few weeks, a cut now will put a real crimp in next year's growth.

The chunk of stalk is brown and brittle, except for the

spot where the new stem was growing. Resilient stuff!

The poison ivy seems to be enjoying the lessened competition for sunlight, and is more abundant than our last cut. There is soapwort (Bouncing Bet) and Queen Anne's Lace, not to mention these other two plants, found at the edges of the site. If you can tell me what they are, I'd love to know! If the comments are not active on this site, please email me: blackrivercleanup@yahoo.com. The only thing actively growing in the middle of the site, aside from knotweed, seems to be the poison ivy...and that is much more prolific at the edges.

Knotweed on the right, Mystery Plant on the left.



We still plan to sow jewelweed, milkweed, chickory and perhaps some low-growing dogwoods on the site.

If you can tell what these pretty red berries are, let me know.

Some seem to have dried up into little raisin-type things.

Under the tarp, after a few weeks of some warm sun (okay, at least one day of RAGING heat!), the vegetation seems to have been baked to a crisp. There are a handful of terribly weak-looking stalks making a feeble attempt at growth, but everything under the tarp is suffering.

Moira holds back the edge of the tarp for a quick photo; note the white,

squiggly sprout in the upper left corner of the picture.

The crown we exposed last time is making a remarkable come-back; new growth all around, with little evidence that we did much to impede the plant's ability to bounce back. I may try this again, but I doubt it'll have much effect. There were plenty of land-snail shells around and some crickets hopping about under the canopy.

We'll see if one more cut is needed before autumn really kicks in; it'll be interesting to see if any significant growth happens!

Plenty of poison ivy ~ note the pretty leaves near the post,

just 'itching' to get into the picture!

Other greenery on the site

Today I found Soapwort (Saponaria officinalis), otherwise known as Bouncing Bet; there is also what looks like Wisteria, and it will be interesting to figure out whether it is the American or Chinese or Japanese version.

Later this week, perhaps tomorrow, I am planning an after-work excursion to the site with the kids (or at least with Moira, our eight-year-old). The poison ivy's running rampant, so I may do it alone.

Back to school ~ JK wind-up next month

I start this weekend, back to school. I'm finishing up my Bachelor's Degree (yes, and working full-time) at Vermont College/Union Institute & University. This semester, I am taking advantage of their online option called Virtual Vermont. I've passed my Natural Sciences CLEP test, so that leaves me with three more semesters to go, plus one "leftover" or "dangling" credit.

http://www.tui.edu

I heartily recommend this program for adult learners wishing a flexible but challenging way to earn their degree -- flexible in terms of schedule in many ways, but challenging in that you need to determine your own course of study and discipline yourself to do the work. It's a full 15 credits per semester, so there's no slacking off allowed.

I expect the Japanese knotweed site to slow down in mid-September, when all the nearby JK is experiencing leaf-fall (or senescence). Over the winter, I will be planning some brain-storming sessions for anyone interested to offer suggestions and ideas for managing the site (planting, volunteer scheduling, potential partners, etc.). Please e-mail me if you are interested in any part of this: blackrivercleanup@yahoo.com

Ruminations and cogitations

I recently posted about pursuing my own passion in lieu of sleep...then I happened upon The Bamboo Project's blog which gave me even more clarity: Michele Martin promotes being passionate about one's work and not so much about the organization one is working for. Much as I LOVE being a BRAT, this is the crux of the thing -- my love of the BRAT comes from my love of the river. It means that I'm committed to certain principles and ideals, regardless of the organization. I really take pride in cleaning up the river, organizing events to celebrate the river, and learning about it. I hope it is that passion that is contagious, drawing volunteers together for a common cause.

The Bamboo Project: http://michelemartin.typepad.com/thebambooprojectblog/ (That looks suspiciously like a stalk of -- *gasp!* -- Japanese knotweed!!!!! Just kidding.)

Third wave ~ July 15, 2007

The heat & humidity were oppressive today -- Moira helped me by trampling down the growth happening under the tarped area. We didn't see anything tall enough to warrant cutting, but we did pick a crown to expose and begin some bud-snapping. Big black stormclouds were roiling in the distance, so we really put a burn on. The crown was exposed by gloved hands, buds and new root material was snipped off with fingers and put into a yogurt cup for removal from the site. We noted earthworms, crickets, mites, and beetles in and around the soil of the crown. We also found a good number of land-snails, with their iridescent shells shining delicately in the hazy sunlight.

Knotweed stalks were sparse and less than 1/2" in diameter, approximately 12 stalks per 3-square-foot plot, on average. There were three new sprouts along the western edge of the tarp, which I did cut.

Other vegetation at the site includes sumac, wild carrot (Queen Anne's Lace), and sweet clover -- and of course the ubiquitous poison ivy.

We had to cut our time shorter than previous visits, thanks to the encroaching thunderstorm; the flip side is that an hour-and-a-half seems to be an adequate length of time to spend doing future visits.

Goals for next time: begin sampling and cataloging other vegetation, bring jewelweed seeds and milkweed seeds for sowing, trample the tarp again, clip JK along the edges, estimate stalk size and density, do a little nature journaling.

I'd also like to get a sign created and erected to stick into the middle of the site, so people can tell what we're doing and why.