2022 has been our busiest stewardship year yet!
As the weather gets chilly and the stewardship season concludes for the year our Stewardship Manager, Em, reflects back on what an epic year we’ve had in the field. The spring is almost a distant memory as so much has happened in the months since. Thank you to our stewardship crew member Jackie Monahan, interns Jordan Moran and Emma Kenney, and our true force which we could not achieve much of anything without, our dedicated volunteers. We’ve truly had a great year, take a trip down memory lane and see all we’ve accomplished in 2022.
3 New Trails and one Rebuild– Trillium Trail at Dwelly Farm Conservation Area, Beez Neez Trail at Quarry Lane Community Garden and Pocket Park, and Ebenezer Keyes Homestead Trail at Ebenezer Keyes Conservation Area. Major rebuild of the Cart Path at Crocker.
2 New Trailheads and Parking – Rome Conservation Area on Brookside Drive and Crocker Conservation Area on Caldwell Street.
1 New Kiosk and 3 New Waypoint Posts – Crocker Conservation Area
4 Native Planting Days – Dwelly Farm Conservation Area
3 Scout Eagle Projects – Walter Johnson completed building and installing 2 benches with Winterberry plantings on David’s Trail at Dwelly. Timothy Johnson completed cutting the Beez Neez Trail with native plant ID signs at Quarry Lane, and Jameson Brinker completed cutting the Ebenezer Keyes Homestead Trail at Keyes (historical signage for the cellar hole to come spring 2023).
1 New JUMP Activity Space Cleared – Volunteers helped us clear a space at Crocker Conservation Area for our partners, JUMP, to run youth outdoor education programming.
8 Invasive Plant Pulls – Dwelly Farm Conservation Area and Longview Conservation Area.
3 NCLT Volunteer Trash Clean-Ups – Two at Keyes and one at Dwelly, bonus honorable mention to the Sean Magane cleanup at Crocker, organized by his loved ones.
3 Massive Volunteer Days – Cushing Academy’s Fisher Day of Service at Dwelly, Bemis’s Clean and Green Volunteer Day at Dwelly, and United Way Day of Caring at Dwelly (Lots of LOVE for Dwelly this year!!).
2 New Volunteer Groups – Trail Team Thursday started in August as a roving volunteer group meeting every other Thursday at whichever property needed the hands (join us for our World Tour this winter!) and Invasive Erasers started in September to focus on invasive plant removal at Longview Conservation Area (On winter hiatus, starting back up in the spring).
3 Groups Lent Tools – We have a great tool cache and are here to support other organizations if they need to borrow gear for a trail project. Just reach out!
2 Long-Term Property Plans Created – Ebenezer Keyes Conway School plan to determine next steps for this failed subdivision property and Quarry Lane Pocket Park landscape plan to imagine a natural space to pair with the community garden for the neighborhood.
