Topic: Yard_work

What we have been up to can be said in three samll words "Sunny Meadow Farm" I would sya baout 70% of or total resources are on this site right now. Here ae the pictures from our FaceBook Site "Chelmsford Open Space Stewardship". If you are not a fan join as updates are posted as they happen.

Click here for photos

Wow fun weekend.. lots to do.

Click here for Photos of Heart Pond Flooding
Click here for Photos of Crooked Spring Damage
Click here for Photos of Crooked Spring Clean up
Click here for Photos of Vareney Park Washout of beach
Click here for Photos of Wright Clean up
Click here for Photos of Deep Brook Clean up/a>

Crooked Spring parking lot and main bridge took a huge beating last week. The main damage is in the main lot. DPW has been alerted and once they have a plan we will let everyone know.
Click here for Pictures of the lot

I know lots of people hate the cold but is does give us changes to explore areas of the open space that are far too wet in the summer. This give us a better understanding of the whole sites and how best to maintain it. This weekend was Deep Brook

Click here for Picture of Upstream at Deep Brook

Just about everyone has seen me with "Jerry the Open Space Dog". Here is a snapshot at what he does on a weekend with me.
Click here for Photos

Well we are in the final stretch for the official opening of the garden at 9am Sat. We hope to see everyone there as we will be giving tours of the garden and the site. Maybe even a behind the scenes tour of the water system. If anyone is free Friday (Aug 14) we will on site all day cleaning up and making it look the best we can so come on down and lend a hand.

The bench in installed so come click below to see the photos

Click here for Photos

Click here for from the event <

Where: Crooked Spring Parking Lot (on Crooked Spring rd, where Jordan St. meets)
When: Saturday April 11th, 9:00am - We will take the piles of brush pulled out last weekend and burn them. We will be there most of the day so come out when you can!

It was determined in discussions with DPW that there was too much for it to be picked up as part of the 'Curbside Brush Pickup.

We will also be clearing the remaining bitter-sweet vines around the parking lot area. Bring gloves and any tools (cutters, saws, rakes) you have to help clean up.

Want to help? This is a “Clean” work party as we are spreading wood chips at the Bartlett Wood lot. We are short handed this weekend so we can use all the hands we can get so if you ever want to help this is the time. This is an all ages event. We will meet at the Bartlet park (the big field behind the library at 9am) if you come late call me on my Cell 978-273-1474 and we will send someone to find you. This does count as community service if you are a student who want to clock in a few extra hours.

Click here to see wood lot and Chelmsford's hidden waterfall

Bob G sent up photos of last weekends work. Want to join us?

Click here for photos Crooked Spring Project
Click here for Bridge build photos
Click here for 80 foot log run at Russel Mill
Click here for thanksgiving

This Saturday, the 17th, is Massachusetts Park Serve Day. The closest participating parks are Great Brook Farm State Park adjacent to Thanksgiving Forest, and Lowell-Dracut-Tyngsborough State Forest. Great Brook's cleanup is indicated as kid friendly. The Lowell-Dracut cleanup is a Friends of the Forest clean-up day in conjunction with the DCR Park Serve Day.

Full info is on the Park Serve Day website.

Great Day. All the wood from along the trail is now sorted and in the main lot for pickup. Lots of folks turned out and we completed the haul in about three hours. The dam has also been clean and it looks and now sounds amazing. If you have a chance check it out.

Click here for work at Crooked Springs

Jim and being the crazy people we are then headed over to red wing and started the clearing of the third field. This had to be cut and hayed by hand so it wiped us out in only 4 hours.
Click here for work at Red Wing

Next week end is the big one and we hope to see everyone!

Ok, so you want to help in the Open Spaces? WE NEED YOU!. For the last few weeks we have been clearing the old apple orchard at Red Wing of over 30 years of brush and vines and scrub. With the removal of all the brush and dead trees ect we have HUGE piles. On Sat Feb 9 at 9am we will be dragging these piles to the burning pit and spend the day burning the brush. Everything is cut and clearing can be done my anyone. So PLEASE come and help. This is a project you will see returns in the spring when the apples trees all bloom for the first time in decades. New trees will be planted in the spring so the old orchard will once again fill out. Any questions please e-mail me Phil@thechelmsfordian.com or just buzz me 978-273-1474. THIS DOES COUNT AS COMMUNITY SERVICE so if you have some high school kids who need it this is a great way to knock of 4-5 hours and be out side.

Fun day at Red Wing I stopped by to see Bob Morse Aka Lord of the Manor and he was at work on the farm house. Its seems he has also started to uncover the old road that led from the old train tracks to into the farm. This will be the access to the rail trail as it is flat and has a great hard base. Of all the Open spaces in town this one is most likely the only truly accessible site. We also looked at the trail system on the far side of the new bridge and it looks like all but about 40 feet are on the property. In the fall we will look at re-routing the trail to make sure it is all on Red Wing property and then finalize the makers... Bob has donated some of the old wood from Red Wing to build a Kiosk so it should be we hope to build this in the following weeks. It will be fun to use wooden beams that are a couple of hundred years old for the welcome board.

Again a huge weekend of work. As the weather breaks we have been getting ready for a big bump in the usage of our six major sites and 9 plus miles of trails. All the stewards have been out working on there sites but this is what Jim and I did on Sat to give you an idea of what we get up to.

1) Cut the grass at entrance to Thanksgiving forest.
2) Did a site walk and removed downed trees at Thanksgiving
3) Cut the grass at the entrance to BB Wright and cleaned it up.
4) Cut the Grass at the Bog entrance
5) Did a site walk at Red Wing.
6) Cut the Grass at Crooked Spring.
7) Cleaned up kids Mess at Crooked Spring and moved telephone pole blocking trail up 20 feet to close area to kids.
8) Cut downed tree at the Quarry
9) Removed Rocks blocking path at Quarry (200 lbs ones )
10) Cleared 1000 feet of dry stream bed of downed trees and debris

This is just two of the Steards , you take this any multiply it by the others you can see why we donted almost 6,000 hours last year. At $15 per hour that would be 90K.

Work party at Kroll Pasture
Description: Work party at Kroll Pasture - bring your tools to help maintain this beautiful pasture. Also enjoy a wildflower and butterfly search on the property
Date: Saturday, June 2, 2007
Time: 9:00am-12:00pm


For more information check out WWW. Chelmsfordlandtrust.org

Jim, Bob , Jeff and I will be putting down five yards of mulch at the Quarry parking lot this Friday. We will be starting about 8 am till we are done. We can use extra hands so if you want to join the program or help out swing on by.


Click here for photos of the work!

Andy has confirmed that we should be getting our first truck load of wood chips to upgrade the trail at BB Wright. This must be done before we install the board walk. How will we do this? Easy with wheel barrows and shovels and rakes. If you are interested in joining us ‘Dips’ just e-mail Scott or Phil he will let you know the dates. This should be a lot of fun and most likely be done over a weekend in about two weeks.