Our upcoming Greenbelt Guardian workday on October 16 will focus on sprucing up our wonderful urban Greenbelt trail for its showcase tour by participants of the National Trails Conference being held in Austin the following week.
The Homedale Trail entry to the Barton Creek Greenbelt was selected as an exemplary trail that provides urban dwellers with the balm and relief of the natural world in the midst of a bustling city. At the base of the trail a whole new world emerges in this largely undisturbed area, and we have the privilege of tending to it.
We need volunteers to help us: weed, remove invasive species, repair trail edging and eroded areas, complete the construction of lower steps onto the rock flats, complete repairs of the retaining walls by the new bridge, collect trash and debris, and gather native seeds for our revegetation process. We will also be sprucing up the entry kiosks (clean, paint, and stain), and will have a small area dedicated to Greenbelt Guardian updates and announcements.
If you would like to help, please join us for all or part of our next work day. Stan Ostrum, a veteran Greenbelt Guardian volunteer, will be leading the work day, along with our Parks partner John Cook. Robin McKeever, who hasn’t missed a single Greenbelt Guardian work day, will take care of all of the sign-in and assignment logistics, plus make sure that our volunteers are provided a nourishing lunch. Our new participating partners from the Travis County Juvenile Probation Program will also be there lending a hand. Glee Ingram, Greenbelt Guardian Coordinator, will be out of town, connecting through cyber-space and visualizing a wonderfully productive work day! Please RSVP to gleeful@earthlink.net, so that we can plan appropriately for the work day.
Thanks to all for your enthusiasm for and participation in this program. There was a lovely letter in the Chronicle this week entiitled “Life Enhanced”, in which the writer recalls the magic line in Hammerstein’s lyrics for “Oklahoma”: “We know we belong to the land, and the land we belong to is grand.” He reflects that there is something in us that gives us balance when we are in receptive communication with our setting. These work days provide us with that healing opportunity for balance.
