Soggy Saturday

Well - it rained again on our Saturday work party. Our record for planning trails events in 2011 is consistent if nothing else. Originally we were going to work on the Paugussett Trail, but it was too wet so we shifted to Plan B and worked on the Shelton Lakes Recreation Path. We had a great group of volunteers including some Shelton High school students getting their Community Service hours in.


These guys weren't daunted by a little drizzle so off we went into the woods.


The Shelton Parks and Rec Dept. dropped off many loads of wood chips last week for our use in stabilizing the edges of the newly-constructed RecPath (Thanks Ron, Dean, and the gentleman driving the truck Thursday). The wood chips help prevent erosion of the edges of the Path. Most of the chips were out toward the Indian Cave so it took us a little while to get there (Rich kept asking "Are we there yet?"). Once we reached the wood chips the crew swung into action.

One crew used our garden cart; which is great for moving mulch, while the other used the Gator, with the dump bed; which is better. We kept up production in the rain despite a flat tire & running out of gas (did I mention that?). Then came the weather radar call from home "the really bad stuff should be here in about an hour". Great - so we have that going for us - we refilled the Gator with gas & mulched on.

The guys got a lot of stuff done. It was really impressive given the weather. I wonder if there is a Degree of Difficulty factor that they use at the High School when evaluating Community Service?

After a while the rain had moved from a light rain to a thoroughly chilling cascade & our leader Bill decided that dryness & warmth were the sensible options, so we wrapped up. Our semi-aquatic trail crew included: Bob Wood, Matt (the yellow from the gloves will wear off your hands in a couple of weeks), Alex Medinger, Joe Macfadyen, Rich Skudlarek (our shaky photographer), Nicolas Pegacsas, Bill Dyer, Pat Jette, and Terry Gallagher.

Our volunteers enjoyed some soggy doughnuts and RecPath tee shirts to dry themselves with while Bill signed off on their forms. Note to school officials: if there's mud, mulch, and runny ink on the forms there's a reason.

We are going to host 2 other work parties this coming week when it's not raining (hopefully) if anybody wants to help. Bill will be out at the Dog Park on Nells Rock Road on Monday 4/25/11 at 2:30 in case any of the students want to participate after school. And we will host a make up work party next Saturday 4/30/11 at the same location. The more that we get done the better the RecPath will look for National Trails Day.

The sun is shining this Easter Morning. Take a stroll on the RecPath, bring the family, and see what good work these guys did. Hope to see everybody at one of our future work parties.