From the desk of Chairman Peter Lent:
Hello everyone,
On Saturday we had 9 volunteers helping out. There were four members of the Oatka Creek Watershed Committee, two members from Trout Unlimited, 2 members for the Caledonia Council of Knights of Columbus and one representative from Monroe Co. Soil & Water Conservation District. Our task was to plant the remaining 700 shrubs that were allocated for the project. Previously nearly 700 plants were planted on Wednesday 6/1 by 15 volunteers.
On Saturday we were able to plant an estimate of 300 shrubs. Plants remaining consist of 3 unopened bags of 300 shrubs (2 bags of red osier dogwood with 100 plants in each, and of nannyberry with 100 plants) ,about 50 swamp rose in an opened bag, and about 50 plants consolidated into two 5 gal. buckets. The planting occurred between 9 AM and 3 PM. We had 9 volunteers until noon and 6 stayed in the afternoon. We planted another complete row of shrubs in the mowed area and planted shrubs on the creek side of the fence at several locations. We found that it took longer to plant the shrubs among the existing vegetation on the creek side of the fence, than in the mowed area.
Josh moved the bagged shrubs up by the barn. Before we left we consolidated all remaining supplies and plants in buckets to one location in the planting area, but we did not carry these up to the barn ( I guess because we were too “beat”). So the staples, black plastic weed mats, shrubs left in buckets, and other extra buckets will still need to be picked up from the planting area.
I want to thank all the volunteers for all their efforts. We had fewer volunteers than at Oatka Park, but still managed to plant 1100 plants. I also want to thank Mike and Cassandra Balonek for providing the pizza on Wednesday and the subs on Saturday.
Good job by all!! Thank You again !
Pete
