New Brighton Restoration Project – 23 Apr 2023 Update
Report and Photos by Nigel Peck
Perhaps I am just getting old and sentimental, or perhaps having over a month since the last New Brighton work party, or that the forecasted raindrops held off until precisely the minute we stopped working – but Sunday’s work party seemed particularly sweet. Looking at our record, it has now been 42 full work days over 15 months – mostly in the winter and early spring months, that we have not had any appreciable amount of rain. Incredible!
New Brighton Work Days – All Without Appreciable Rain | ||||||
2022 | ||||||
Jan 22 | Jan 29 | Feb 9 | Feb 11 | Feb 12 | Feb 23 | Feb 26 |
Mar 5 | Mar 9 | Mar 12 | Mar 26 | Apr 1 | Apr 2 | Apr 9 |
Apr 16 | May 14 | May 28 | Aug 3 | Nov 12 | Nov 16 | Nov 19 |
Nov 27 | Nov 28 | Dec 10 | Dec 11 | Dec 13 | ||
2023 | ||||||
Jan 22 | Jan 28 | Jan 30 | Feb 2 | Feb 5 | Feb 8 | Feb 15 |
Feb 18 | Feb 22 | Feb 25 | Mar 1 | Mar 5 | Mar 6 | Mar 15 |
Mar 19 | Apr 23 |
Seventeen members volunteered. Linnaea, Chris, Meg and Logan were helping for the first time while us ‘others’ – Alix, Amber, Daryl, Fred, Jerome, Paul, Ros, Feb, Susan, Taryn, Vivian, and myself, were seasoned old-timers. We worked hard digging out Bull Thistle Plants along the hillock, Seb wrestling with blackberry root balls on his own, and very importantly cutting Reed Canary Grass in preparation for ‘covering, cooking and smothering’ with landscape fabric and polyethylene as soon as we have approval from the Park Board.
Working the hillock: digging up Bull Thistle after Reed Canary Grass patches.
With Park Board approval, we will cover RCG patches, hopefully only until the late fall, continue digging out the two or three thousand Bull Thistle plants coming up all over the hillock, digging and pulling up Scotch Broom and Himalayan Blackberry shoots coming up and of courses continuing to dig out blackberry root balls along the shoreline where we chopped down the thickets of cane.
Next work day is as soon as possible – dependent on the Park Board. We will let you know.
Tea and treat break – 18 people which is our 2nd largest work party!