Garlic Mustard, Cleared Trails and Kayaks

A good day on and around the hill isn't always about stargazing. Saturday April 18 proved to be an interesting day in and around Cummington despite a heavy overcast and occasional drizzle. For me the day started by attending a fascinating "Invasive Plant Species" seminar at the Cummington Community Center. In Massachusetts non-native invasive plants like Garlic Mustard, Oriental bittersweet, and Japanese barberry crowd native species and cause subtle ecological changes that can poison butterflies, inhibit the growth of oak and sugar maples, and even lead to the spread of Lyme disease.

After the seminar I headed up to the hill, and immediately used my new booklet "A Guide to Invasive Plants in Massachusetts" to identify the invasive herb Coltsfoot growing along our roadway, basically from near the stream most of the way up to the road. We'll try to get a handle on this before it extends up to the clearing.

Once I got to the top of the hill I realized someone had been pretty busy clearing out the ice storm damage on some of our trails. Not surprisingly, I followed the trails and found the steadfast Hadley troop lead by Joe Zuraw, Bruce Blanchard, and Scott Massey. Also clearing trails on another part of the hill were the Windsor, MA troop lead by Gleen Benscoter. Thanks to all for their hard work. It will take many more weekends to open up all of our trails and clean up the remnants of the December ice storm.

I drove home down Rt 112 S to Rt 20 and was treated to a parade of canoes and kayaks in the Westfield Whitewater River Novice Race. I pulled off at "Turtle Bend", one of the more technically challenging spots in the novice race, despite the lack of lots of rapids. The river makes a sharp turn at turtle bend where the river runs up against Tekoa Moutain. The more experienced paddlers gain speed in the current, but novices get washed ashore or get dumped on the one big rock in the path.

The race brought back some painful memories of my near diasaster while practicing for the 1973 novice race. Let's just say I learned a lot about life, whitewater paddling and trying to swim in 33 degree water that day.

-Ed

April (Snow) Showers...

The April workday was productive despite cool weather and persistent snow flurries. Water was flowing all over the hill and the grounds were "mud luscious". A hearty work crew accomplished a lot. Tom Walker and Kevin Collins boxed up the 24" and 18" mirrors and took them away for re-coating. Joe Zuraw, Ray Burk, Barry Hirveaux and I all worked on making some quick repairs to the gravel road. Once the road thoroughly drys out we'll still have to do some grading work, though I was able to get my little Matrix to the top of the hill without too much problem.

Barry fired up his chain saw and cut up the tree that came down in the December ice storm just a few feet from the telescope shed. He also removed some of the debris that had fallen near where the driveway opens up to the clearing. Our outhouse wintered well, but the shower is knocked out of operation. Maybe a rebuild job for the WPI fraternity?

We had a visit from members of Troop 45 in Southington, CT. The will be camping on the hill and working on their astronomy merit badges next month and wanted to check out the facility. They look forward to a service project, and I think they are going to tackle clearing the trail to Scout Haven that has been badly clogged with damage from the ice storm.

After examining Scout Heaven we realize we were lucky that all of our buildings came through fine. Scout Heaven had a "near miss" from a big hemlock that fell behind it, and the telescope shed wasn't too far from a fallen tall beech tree.

As I was leaving, Peter Scherff arrived, we talked briefly about his exciting plans for NEAF this year. If anyone has some time to volunteer to help staff the Arunah booth please contact me or Peter. NEAF is April 18th - 19th in Suffern, NY.

-Ed