On Saturday, April 23, we will be participating in the city-wide program, It’s My Park Day for a work day on both of our trails: Gus Fruh and Homedale! We have developed quite a skilled core team of trail leaders and workers, and both trails are in need of our attention. The Austin Parks Foundation, which sponsors the city program, is helping us recruit additional volunteers through their website and other promotional activities.
To date, we have commitments from two groups of young volunteers: the University of Texas Service Group and the Travis County Juvenile Probation Community Service Group. We will need the help of our neighborhood volunteers to guide the process and balance all that youth with wisdom!
Please come join us for a hopefully beautiful spring day sprucing up our Greenbelt trails. We are bound to have lots of fun and the reward of a day well spent with visible results that many others can enjoy. Please RSVP as soon as possible to gleeful@earthlink.net to sign up for the trail work day. You can come for all or part of the day. Please indicate which trail you would like to work on. Stan Ostrum will be guiding the work at the Gus Fruh trail and I will be guiding the work at the Homedale Trail. John Cook, our COA Parks Partner, will be trailboss for the Gus Fruh trail renovation efforts.
Recent Work Day Report
After twice re-scheduling due to inclement weather, on March 5 the clouds held the rain in check long enough for us to assemble at the Gus Fruh Trail and give it some vigorous tender- loving care. We had twenty-five spirited neighbors show up and put muscle and mind to the tasks at hand. Together, we contributed 90 hours of service to our Greenbelt.
At the end of the day, there were large mounds of ligustrum carcasses spread throughout the top portion of the trail. They had been converted from invasive pests to new homesteads for wildlife. The Invasive Species Crew was enthusiastic and merciless!
We have begun an ambitious renovation of the steep switchback trail, which was suffering from extensive erosion damage. All of the cross-trail drainage bars will be replaced with newly designed ones that will be both more effective, and definitely more aesthetic than the rubber tire strips. The entire trail will also be resurfaced. At the end of our March work day, one-half of the switchback trail had been excavated for the new drainage bars. Since that work day, John Cook has had the help of an AmeriCorps group to excavate the rest of the drainage bars. We are optimistic that this renovation work will restore the trail to its former wheelchair accessible status.
Other March work day accomplishments: The entrance to the trail was tidied, pulling back invading ivy and the small host of sticker weeds that were popping back up (a much reduced population after last year’s weeding frenzy), and re-establishing the lines of the rock border. Also, our Clean-up Crew came upon a tangle of old barbed wire ranch fencing and wrestled with it, bringing it to the trailhead to be hauled off with the bags of bottles, cans & cast-off clothing.
PLEASE COME OUT AND JOIN US FOR THE APRIL 23 WORK DAY
