March6-CleanupDay

March 6 was cleanup day.   I took my camera.   First is  a series of photos of the cleanup workers, both staff and residents.   Next, a photo of the "dog lady"  walking her six dogs.  I found out that she's from the  Puppies and More Rescue in Marlton.  She has adopted six dogs, and she fosters dogs that are waiting for adoption.   In the last two weeks the shelter has placed about 20 dogs.  They receive quite a few dogs from Ohio which does not have any no-kill shelters.  This week they've been receiving dogs from Kansas where there have been some terrible tornadoes.   Then I went to The Island and took some photos of emerging Skunk Cabbage.  I'd seen photos of the the spadix of flowers inside the spathe, but this is the first time I'd looked inside the spathes to see the spadices.    Walking back  through the berm I saw Craig Gower dumping the trash into the Waste Management dumpster.  He uses a back hoe to pick up the trash from the wind-protected cinder-block  "cage"  (my word), where trash is placed by maintenance crews.   Craig has worked at Medford Leas for 30 years.  He collects trash from Bridlington, Rushmore, and Lumberton Community Center; Kevin Crain collects trash from the courts.

Bill Conte and Bob Costigan

Ila Jane and Ruth

Holger

John

Herb Minkus

Dog lady -- and six dogs 

Skunk cabbage --

Craig Gower moving trash -

Wildflower Walk March 3, 2012

At the bottom of this post there's an embedded video about edible weeds including wintercress which we were looking at this morning and which is abundant thoughout Medford Leas.   

It was drizzling this morning and Jane Bourquin, the walk leader, and Maggie Heineman (that's me) were the only ones who showed up.   Jane had scouted during the week and neither the skunk cabbage nor the bloodroot were in bloom.   However Jane had seen Herb Robert in bloom.  This page on Wikipedia has a short explanation and a photo. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Geranium_robertianum    A website in King County Washington has this to say on it's "noxious weeds"  site.

Herb Robert
Geranium robertianum

Herb Robert escaped from ornamental plantings and thrives in forested communities as the dominant ground cover, displacing native and beneficial plants.

Herb Robert's 5-petaled flowers are in all shades of pink and sometimes white. Overall the plant is covered with short glandular hairs, giving the plant a sticky feel and a distinct odor (sometimes this plant is known as "stinky Bob"). Shallow, weak roots make this plant easy to pull although large infestations can be highly labor-intensive to remove.

I took a couple of photos.  For size the closeup includes Jane's thumbnail, but one of the five petals had dropped off.

The Herb Robert was quite abundant down the firelane just a little past Parking Lot C.  

Weeds were coming up through the mulch around the trees - there was a lot around the flowering crababble.  Without flowers we had to do some studying to determine that the weed we were looking at was not chickweed but wintercress.



Chickweed flowers (Stella media) are easy to identify and now we know the difference between the leaves of chickweed and wintercress.   Follow the link to mlra wildflowers site to see chickweed.  Wintercress isn't on our site.  It should be.  Wintercress has a rosette of basal leaves which are unmistakable -- look at the base of the crabapple.

http://mlra.org/wildflowers/flowers/Stellaria_media.htm

Jane had brought a bowl of weeds with her -- along with the wintercress there was some Gill on the Ground. http://mlra.org/wildflowers/flowers/Glechoma_hederacea.htm   

I took some photos of Jane's poster of edible weeds and while writing this blog, googling for wintercress, I came up with an interesting video of edible weeds -- including wintercress.  This video is one of a series on edible weeds.

Ralph Berglund's Meandering at ML

Ralph, who is a wonderful photographer, has a blog on which he sometimes posts photos of the ML arboretum.   This post is a copy of  Ralph's "Meandering at ML" post  includes the photo of the bridge and tells about his walk on the RR trail above Sharp's Run.  His post "A Little Fog Before Breakfast" includes an early morning view of a section of the Red Trail in the area between  Bridlington Way North and Wilkins Station Road.

MEANDERING AT MEDFORD LEAS

November 27, 2011 — Ralph Berglund

There are about five miles of woodland trails on our 165+ acre campus and I thought I’d better get started.  Saturday was a beautiful day so I tried a one mile section.  I flushed three white tail deer and encountered squishy reminders that there is an adjacent flood plain.

Sharp’s Run borders the south edge of the campus on its way to the southwest branch of Rancocas Creek.  During last week’s rain the Run had risen enough to flood the entrance from Route 70, closing it  for a while.  The bridge above was undoubtedly under water. 

 

For part of the trail I found myself on a steep-sided  embankment well above the flood plain.  Well, says the railroader, this is not a natural formation;  there must have been a railroad through here.  Sure enough, the 5.95 mile Mount Holly, Lumberton, and Medford Railroad served these communities and interchanged at Medford with the Camden and Atlantic (City) Railroad, ca 1870. 

Anyway, the leaves above are one of the few spots of color remaining in the woods as we enter the unsaturated gray-brown, bare branch season. But, returning on a campus paved road there was an attractive colorful planting of winter pansies in front of drying grass plumes. 

 

The unusual black-stemmed plant is a night-blooming globus electricus. 

And a campus cluster of red berry provided a bright spot.

 

Laboring on Labor Day

With one hour of  labor, from 8:30 to 9:30 am,  Linda Gorwood, Maggie Heineman,Tom Lang, Pete McCord, Trish Mori, and Miriam Swartz filled several trash bags with ragweed.  It was a start in the race against the ragweed seeds which spread in September. 

Irene Trail 16

About 10 o'clock the Trails/Woodlands Group disbanded.  Maggie then started an inspection of Trails 16 and the RR trail, the 2 trails that she monitors.  On trail 16, not far from the entrance near the tennis courts, the trail was blocked by a fallen tree covered with vines.

After the tree was "untied"  (the vines removed) as much as possible, the 2nd photo was taken, with the lopper hanging on the base of the vine where it was too thick to cut.  Enlarge the photo to see the vine and the place where it was cut - just left of the capital C in "Cut."

It turned out that the tree was not dead.  The small branches of the tree that were thin enough and near enough to be cut were removed after the photo of the untied tree was taken.

It's now an attractive gate to Trail 16 from the tennis court entrance.  I hope it remains.

my beautiful "Japanese Gate" (now removed) click the pic to see it large

Irene - Sweating the Small Stuff

Residents clear the paths as much as they can. Enlarge and look closely at the 1st photo and you can see John H sawing this fallen tree.  John C. is holding the end with branches so it won't drop abruptly.   After the tree had been cut, John C. put the top of the tree to one side and Carol, John H., and Maggie pivoted the heavy base of the tree so that it lay along side the path, not across.

There were many places on the trails where fallen trees would have to be removed by landscaping. Click photos to see them big. 

Irene - Bridge across Sandy Run

A "bridge" across Sandy Run had been dislodged.  "Bridge" is in quotes because the bridges that the trails committee maintains are planks, chained to the ground so they won't float away in floods.   In order to relocate the bridge the working group approached the run from different directions.  John C. and Ruth were on one side of the run.  Maggie, Carol, and John H. were on the other.   As it turned out the water level was much lower than it had been when John made his observations the day before and it was not difficult to step across the run.    In the 1st photo the photographer is on one side of the run while John C. and Ruth are on the other side, discussing strategy for shifting the plank -- which is heavy.  The 2nd photo shows John H. crossing the dislodged plank and Carol in the foreground. The 3nd photo shows the plank back in place. Click photos to see them large.

Irene - Tree Across the Rancocas

This fallen tree across the Rancocas would be a fun footbridge to Dark Waters if only  we were a few decades younger.  The Roots of this tree together with the top branches of another huge fallen oak  block the Orange Trail.

The stump of the tree with the branches at the far end which mingle with the roots of the tree that's crossing the Rancocas. 

Roots of tree that crosses the creek next to branches of the tree that broke leaving a stump

click the images to see them large

In the sky over Lumberton Leas

On August 8th there was a perfect rainbow over Lumberton Leas.

Four days later, three hot air balloons flew over.

Farm Photos by Perry

I'm thinking of a slideshow using Perry's farm photos.   This might become the opener.

update August 30.  The slideshow is now on http://mlra.org and will be the home page through the month of September. 

Lumberton Meadow Planting

Miriam's report:

Dear Maggie,

Here is my report about the planting of the Meadow on Monday, April 25, 2011. Please feel free to edit the following and if Herb wants to use some part for the Chronicle its fine with me.

Thirteen residents whose homes bordered on the Meadow gathered on Monday morning April 25, to plant bulbs and flowering plants(mostly native) in our Meadow.   Five, Pink Coneflower were planted in circles  in 12 spots, six orange Butterfly Weed will make a beautiful display in late July and August and 6-7 ' tall Gateway variety of Joe Pye Weed will rise above the Mugwort to make a showing in August and September.  

Flowers are now coming into bloom.  Lots of purple Dame's Rockets are flowering in the north east side of the meadow.

I want to thank all of the following people who planted and adopted plants to water over the next few weeks: Carmelita Aseron, Judy Atwood, Dave Bartram,  Linda Gorwood, Janet Gray, Maggie Heineman, Sue Kuhn, Eileen McConville, Trish and Geno Mori, Mary Noll, Rolfa Rodgers, Dave Swartz and Louise Tompkins.

Miriam

Siberian Wallflower providing food for a Mourning Cloak Butterfly, the only butterfly that lives over the winter in our region of the country.