Applied Physics: Wiacek Woods Work Party

Saturday we met to help continue work near the new Paugussett Trail bog walk at Wiacek Woods.  Bill Dyer got a work out with his twin crow bar trekking poles hiking into the work zone.  He'll probably want more at the next work party.  It was good to walk through all the improved sections of the Trail that we had worked on earlier in the year.  With all the fallen leaves you could hardly tell that there had been major trail construction there earlier.

 Teresa showed off the new bog walk sections to the volunteers.

Teresa Gallagher showed off the new bog walk to the volunteers.

Ellen, Bill & Tom trimmed out the Birch Tunnel section out to Meadow Street.  There were a lot of broken branches poking in at eye level.  It's now really inviting instead of a scary Halloween ride.

Matt and Aidan did a good job with moving rocks over for stepping stones.  

Rocks lines up to become stepping stones

Aidan and Matt also carried earth to cover eroded sections of the trail with a lot of roots that were sticking up.  This made the footing a lot nicer.

We had a lot of lessons in applied physics.  

• rolling a big rock is easier than lifting one,
• lift with your legs, not with your back,
• rock nets and teamwork make it a lot easier to move heavy rocks,
• a crow bar with a fulcrum to lever up rocks can be your friend,
• hand tracks also are good back saving devices for moving heavy rocks,
• keep your fingers and toes out from under rocks while being picked up with a bar in case the bar slips,
• wear leather work boots rather than sneakers, if possible, while doing rock work

Tom cleared out sight lines along the Meadow St. pull-off opposite Mayflower Lane.  The Paugussett Trail exits the Birch Tunnel at Meadow St. and becomes a short road walk to the cul-de-sac at the end of the road after that.

UI had people up in a bucket working on the new lines

Thanks to Tom, Matt, Aidan, Bill, Ellen, Teresa, and Terry for working on this section today.  This section of the Paugussett Trail has see a lot of improvements this year.

Paugussett Bypass at Wiacek

We met on a surprisingly muggy Saturday to finish clearing along the Paugussett Bypass at the Wiacek Open Space.  The Bypass had been cleared as earlier work parties and an Eagle Scout project earlier in the year, but like everywhere else had grown back, especially at the powerline crossing.  One of the goals was to clear enough to see if we could get the DR Mower thru for maintenance mowing.

Starting at Constitution Blvd. N. we dove into the barberry thickets cleared by the scouts.  Val, Jim, and Paul cut, whittled, and dug out various saplings, shoots and clumps to make the trail and tread more passable.

One of the challenges is the thick barberry grows in clumps, and the sections that stuck up were tripping hazards.  So we tried using the Pullerbear weed wrench to remove the clumps.

The weed wrench is a heavy steel bar with a jaw and fulcrum welded at the bottom.  In theory, you clamp the jaws on the stem of what you want to pull out and then push down on the handle.  In this case, because the barberry was cut low it was tough to get a good bite with the jaws without tearing the root ball up.  Progress was slow.

After pulling most of the roots out we tried burning the rest with a weed torch.

Careful not to let the fire spread to the leaves, the torch seemed to work well.  Most invasive species require multiple treatments, and barberry is susceptible to burning.  Should bring a fire extinguisher or water bucket next time, don't want to start any California-scale brush fires.

Above is a section of the trail after pulling and burning.  It's slow progress.  Need to have teams of 2-3 people digging, pulling and burning next time.  If we can get one person to loosen the root clump with a mattock, the another to rip it out with the Pullerbear, then somebody to burn the remaining roots, I think it would be more productive.

But we got out and made some progress.  Thanks to Paul, Val, Jim & Terry for helping out.  And thanks to Royal Bakery for the great doughnuts; a weekend special.

The next work party is at Lane Street in a week or so - check the work party page for further details.  Come out and enjoy the Hawley Meadow along Means Brook in Huntington Center.