Mt. Pleasant Farm – March 2017

Last week, the group of volunteer naturalists for the elementary school field trips met at Mt. Pleasant Farm for a walk around the hiking routes for all the programs. I have been doing the hikes for several years so was paying attention for changes but that left time for some photography. There were scilla bulbs blooming on the lawn in front of the farmhouse (non-native and maybe invasive too); they are small but the touch of blue draws the eye.

I was more pleased with catching a dogwood bud just opening. I sought out a dogwood tree when I walked around the National Arboretum this weekend…more about that in tomorrow’s blog post.

The expansion of the Gudelsky Center is on schedule although it won’t be available for the spring field trips.

Further long the hike, we were along the stone wall and I was looking at the rocks – typical of this part of Maryland – and the lichen. Sometimes the patches of symbiotic algae and fungus (maybe with some yeast too) look like squashed flowers to me.

The stream restoration is nearing completion. There are small plants coming up through the mesh along the banks. The upside down trees (roots up!) will be habitat for little creatures. The riffles had water trickling through them. The rain from the previous day had left puddles along the banks…just like it is supposed to (will they last long enough to produce tadpoles?).

Further along the lightning scared standing tree has obvious wood boring insect and woodpecker holes in the scar.

After walking the route for the hikes, I went off in the other direction to check a place where I’d seen skunk cabbage precious years…but not when we did the hike back in February. It’s up now although the hoods over the flowers are past prime…and the leaves are unfurling.

Mt. Pleasant Construction Zones

There are two construction zones at the Howard County Conservancy’s Mt. Pleasant location right now: the expansion of the Gudelsky Environmental Education Center and the restoration (by Howard County) of the Davis Branch. There are some vantage points that look the same as always – looking over the rock wall to the meadow,

The view toward the west from beside the community garden

And toward the Gudelsky Center.

Even though a lot of the construction on the Center is going on inside on the lower level, there is still evidence of activity – fencing and mud! It’s fairly contained compared to the stream restoration.

Earlier this week, I was with a group that hiked down to see the progress. There are big pieces of equipment to move dirt (and mud) – creating a new channel for the stream that will reconnect with its flood plain more easily and create some wetlands too. The bridge warped my last summer’s storm surge is being straightened so that it can be used to cross the new channel. Gray chunks of rock are being placed to create riffles and drop the run of the stream by about a foot. And everywhere there are hoses to pump the water around the work site; this has been a bigger job that originally planned since the rehabilitation of a pond upstream (and not part of this project) is happening simultaneously and releasing more water than expected to the stream. All the hoses and pumps, big machinery, rocks and temporary erosion control measures made me think of this as a ‘stream on life support’ during this reconstruction; hopefully the stream will come out in better condition than when everything started!