Friday, August 12: Barry came in for a regular shift that turned out to be anything but. A couple of weeks ago, a new invasive was discovered in the BYG; it became the subject of discussion last Friday, when it was identified as Dodder. This is a very strange plant, a parasite that lives entirely on host plants; in fact, it dies if it cannot find a host within a day or two of germinating. As well, Barry and Sandy had arranged to spend some time Friday morning removing frog-bit from the Pond. The upshot was less time spent on DSV.
Barry did some recutting in the pond area. This was more difficult than anticipated, largely owing to the layer of mulch, i.e., previously cut DSV left behind. It's difficult to keep the scythe out of this, which kicks it up, and harder to cut the new growth. So our practice of piling cut DSV is proving to be a good one and it's necessary to rethink the mulching theory.
A tour around the Butterfly Meadow, site of the first two work bees, and the fields to the east we've been recently cutting revealed new growth already springing up. The BM has new plants coming up and in the field, cut stems are sprouting vines at their leaf nodes. It was discouraging to see long stems with as many as 8-10 nodes, each with a vine coming on.
Saturday, August 13: Geoff was unable to make the Sunday work bee so came in this morning instead. He continued scything around the row of tamaracks, working his way in the direction of the Ash Woods and again producing a large heap of cut DSV.
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