Saturday December 12, 2020
WRN Teens’ last project for 2020 was well attended (while respecting COVID gathering limits) in spite of the weather being awful! Rain in December is never nice but have a look at Nicole’s photos of just how wet it was that day!
The job was to trim back any branches sticking into the many pathways at SpruceHaven farm-nature-reserve. This needed to be done to allow human visitors to get around and to make maintenance easier (specifically so Sandy doesn’t get branches in her face while mowing!). Sandy Hill, one of the lucky people who live at SpruceHaven, demonstrated a few trimming techniques and led one of the groups. Teens and adult volunteers chose the direction of the forest or the new pond or the meadow and trimmed as they walked. This job came with a bonus that the branches we cut — dogwood, lots of kinds of conifers, sumac — are lovely to look at and we were invited to take some home to create decorations.
Small mammal tunnels were observed by one group and another practised their tree identification. Everybody managed to enjoy some nature while doing the job — and getting very wet!
Thanks to the brave Teens and adult volunteers who came out. Special thanks to Sandy Hill for participating and to the Westfall-Hills for welcoming us to SpruceHaven. Thanks to Nicole for her photos during the project — she was the only one who thought to take any in the rain. Thanks also to Ella and Aidan for photos they sent afterwards of their branch decorations at home. And thanks to Eva for doing a quick oral report to help me remember the details to include here.
