4May2008

Highlands Nature Sanctuary personnel had received a tip that there was illegal hunting occurring on the Spruce Hill Preserve. I set out at 6:30am to assess the situation over the next 3.5 hours. Two turkey hunters---complete with camouflage tent blind, guns, full camo dress, and two wild turkey decoys---had set up on the preserve grounds. They were clearly hunting turkey on preserve property. They were advised to leave, which they did. I then hiked to the neck of the enclosure and back south to the pool and plucked garlic mustard all around it. There is still a small stand at the SE side of the pool but most of it has been pulled now.

1May2008

The purpose of this five hour trek on this very pleasant, partly sunny day was to meet with an elite garlic mustard plucking group with the eventual aim of eradicating garlic mustard from Spruce Hill Preserve. Our team of eight volunteers worked our way up the footpath, weeding as we went. We cleared the end of the north point along the 4w trail near the top of the hill, where the garlic mustard would impact the wildflower population most severely and also worked the upper north end of the hilltop west of the neck and then all along the edge of the field south.

30Apr2008

The purpose of this 2 hour hike around the Spruce Hill field was to assess the garlic mustard. Particular problem areas were marked with trailing pink ribbon at field edges but basically it is all around the hilltop, with a couple of deeper inroads at the parking lot and along the 4W trail that veers north from the hilltop path. The worst stand is along the southwestern side.