The trail system in the Blueberry Hill area of the Preserve has changed.  A new trail map of this area can be found at the Discovery front desk and at both the Blueberry Hill East and Blueberry Hill West trailhead kiosks.

Dear Preserve Stewards,
This cold weather sure gets me in the mood for some snow! Which reminds me – before we get any serious weather, it would be a good idea for everyone to get out there one more time to check over the trail system to make sure that there are no serious issues (like big trees down). It’s a lot easier for the crew and I to deal with things now rather than waiting until there’s a ton of snow covering everything up! We have had some significant wind lately and you never know what might have come down. Over the past few weeks Dave and Tyler have been primarily focused on continuing along with the drill and fill aspen herbiciding project. We have hired contractors who are also working on drill and fill and between their crews and our crew we will have several hundred more aspen free acres for potential burning come spring! Very exciting! I have primarily been working on organizing and planning for the winter season, as well as dealing with seed (lupine has been brought to Saratoga for cleaning, and the rest of the seed is now being stored in the basement of the Discovery Center to avoid the ravenous chipmunks in the barn) and mowing. I have mowed two out of three sites for the year with the goal of stimulating lupine growth, flowering, and seed set. Last year we noticed a positive correlation between mowed sites and lupine performance, so it will be interesting to see if the correlation hold for this year as well. That’s it for now, I will be off next week for Christmas break and will talk to you all after the New Year! I hope that your Holiday Season is joyous and filled with much wonder and love.

~Jesse Hoffman, Preserve Steward

Dear Preserve Stewards,

It hasn’t been too long since my last update, so there is not too too much to report, but here goes!  First and foremost, I had a lovely Thanksgiving break with my wife’s family near Detroit, MI, and I hope that you all were well fed and well rested too!  The week after Thanksgiving, seasonal employees Dave and Tyler attended a Chainsaw Training course all week (S-212, Wildland Fire Chain Saws) and I attended a CPR/First Aid/AED training course put on in-house by our very own Jackie Citriniti!  A very safety oriented week for all!  In addition to the training, I worked quite a bit on organization and winter clean-up of our field facility at 1219 Kings Road.  I dealt with an entire pick-up trucks worth of recyclable metal and between Dave and Tyler’s work previously, and my work last week, we are now all cleaned up and ready for winter to hit!  Finally, I met with Bob O’Brien, Invasive Species Control Field Director at Minnewaska State Park, to discuss invasives management in the Pine Bush going forward.  It was a great opportunity to strengthen connections made previously at the 2011 Invasive Species In-Service (conference I told you about last week), and as a result of our meeting, I am likely going to do a site visit to Minnewaska later this summer to watch cutting edge bio control of the invasive plant Spotted Knapweed in action.  That’s it for now, hope you all are well and are enjoying the wintery weather!

~Jesse Hoffman, Preserve Steward

All last week I was in Ithaca, NY attending an invasive species conference!  The conference was really great with excellent, intelligent, well-spoken presenters with lots of on the ground knowledge and experience.  Topics covered included early detection and rapid response; emerald ash borers and how to prepare for their arrival; deer and their impact on invasive plants; the status of feral hogs in NY; new invasive plants, insects and pathogens on the horizon; climate change and invasive species;  pathways of invasion; using The Nature Conservancy’s decision tree to prioritize treatment; conducting surveys and inventories; invasive species prevention zones; using logic models for strategic PRISM (Partnerships for Regional Invasive Species Management) planning; citizen science and volunteer recruitment; iMapInvasives training; and several case studies.  In addition to all of the formal training, there was lots of time for informal discussion and to meet with colleagues.  I met a lot of people who will become good resources to bounce ideas off of in the future, and feel much better connected to the NY invasive species community.  All of this will help big time as we begin to implement an invasive species management program in the preserve that extends beyond black locust.

While I was away, seasonal employees, Dave and Tyler, continued to hold down the fort here focusing on seed collection,  finishing up clip and drip of black locust re-sprouts, cutting new black locust posts for use as trail marker post next year, and general clean-up of our field facilities at 1219 Kings Rd.   A bit of good news to share regarding Dave and Tyler – they are both being kept on as seasonal employees through the end of March!  We have not had seasonal staff here through the winter months before and it will be a great help to have them.  One of their main winter tasks will be to begin tackling our GIS data files in order to organize and restructure them, a long neglected task!

Hope that you all have a wonderful Thanksgiving!

~Jesse Hoffman, Preserve Steward

Another lovely day in the pine bush and what a week last week – it seems like the nice weather is making up for lost time!  The new trails out at Blueberry Hill are officially open.  Yay!  Everything is marked and most of the split rail fences (to close off the old trail system) are in place.  We ran out of split rail fencing before we could close everything off that we need to, but I will order more fencing tomorrow and hopefully we’ll be able to finish off the closures soon.  In the meanwhile though, the new trails are open, so go and check them out!  There are still a few swampy wet areas, but they are shrinking each day, and once it gets dry enough to get vehicles in there we will be attempting to fill in some of the low spots to prevent trail puddles in the future!  Seed collection is wrapping up…we have tons of bush clover collected (thanks to Farnsworth Middle School, and the Albany Academies!) and we just need to finish up with the big grasses and horsemint over the next few weeks.  Seasonal Staff members, Dave and Tyler, have been continuing along with “clip and drip” herbiciding the black locust re-sprouts, and they recently attended a training course on running pumps for prescribed fire use.  For the next few weeks we will be putting the finishing touches on the  Blueberry Hill trail system, finishing seed collection, continuing with clip and drip, stockpiling new trail marker posts, and cleaning up the field facilities at 1219 Kings Rd. for winter.  Lots to do!  Hope that you all are having a great time out there in the preserve, and do go and check out Blueberry Hill!

~Jesse Hoffman, Preserve Steward

Now this is the kind of Fall weather that I love!  And what a delight to be working outdoors!  The new trails in Blueberry Hill are partially marked and we are on schedule to have them officially opened up by the end of the month.  Seed collection is in full force with all species being ripe and ready to collect – we have been finishing up the Desmodium collection and will be moving onto Horsemint and the big grasses next.  Additionally, the new “Hungerkill Barrens” Trailhead Kiosk has been installed and that area of the preserve is all finished up for now.  Feel free to go check it out.  Dave and Tyler (our seasonal staff) did a really nice job building the kiosk from scratch!  Finally, we have re-entered burn season here at the preserve, and will be attempting a prescribed burn whenever the weather permits.  Lots going on!  Thanks so much to Rosemarie who is leading one of the upcoming seed collection weekend events, and thanks to everyone who volunteered to help out if needed.  Our volunteers are the best!  Have some fun out there and enjoy this gorgeous weather!
~Jesse Hoffman, Preserve Steward

The trail system in the Karner Barrens East area of the Preserve has changed. A new trail map of this area can be found at the Discovery front desk and at the Karner Barrens East trailhead kiosk.

Welcome to our new web site!