June 2020: Another Nearly 200 Acres of Coastal Wetland Permanently Protected

While the typical management activities of early summer (mowing, spraying, seeding, grading) marched on as the days continued to lengthen, June 2020 was headlined by the realization of another major project milestone. With the official execution of Standing Rush's second federally protected easement (~195 acres), nearly 400 acres of the bayside site are now secured as Lake Erie wetland, forever.

Standing Rush, West: With the exception of the extreme upper-left corner of this image, 
all of the ~195-acre marsh south of Route 2 (upper-right) and west of SR 269 (lower-right) is now 
under the perpetual protection of the USDA/NRCS's Wetland Reserve Easement (WRE) program.

The West Marsh Rest Pond from Structure 1 nearly three months into an early season drawdown.
Note the deep water canal in the foreground and a robust stand of broadleaf cattail in the background.
This is among the habitats now permanently protected.

Dozens of great egrets (among a broad spectrum of other wildlife diversity)
enjoying the productivity of the Rest Pond, June 2020.

A personal favorite perspective of the main West Marsh, August 2017.
Again, this is among the habitats now permanently protected.

A Month of Milestones

When one wooden stake represents one new hardwood seedling, one starts to appreciate what 1,100 new seedlings
looks like -- that's a lot of trees! Here is the Tower woods, about half planted (4/25/18)

The last four weeks represent the most physically demanding month in my history with this property. I have not completed a publishable entry here since April 12th. Coincidentally, it was two days earlier (on April 10) that the first shipment of bareroot tree seedlings arrived (unexpectedly early) at our doorstep. It has been a full-court press ever since to work around heavy rains and periods of above-average temperatures to effectively get them in the ground.

So technically, I don't have any one excuse for not keeping current with blog entries -- I have 1,100 of them! But I am happy to report that as of about 4:30 pm yesterday, the entire 5.7-acre site is planted. Now the focus will shift to protecting the vulnerable seedlings (from animal browse, drought, competition/smothering by surrounding weeds, etc.). But more on all that in a pending entry.

While we won't have much time to revel in our success, we did recognize the accomplishment last evening around the dinner table. Jenny, the kids, and I celebrated the milestone as any family of little ones would -- with dessert. I didn't have the energy to make a run out for ice cream, so a raid of the Girl Scout cookie cabinet had to suffice. Once again, I slept hard last night.
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Much has happened in and around these tree getting in the ground. So at the risk of giving away punch lines, I've decided that I'm going to try to circle back and write entries for some key happenings over the last four weeks. I can't promise I'll have them online immediately, but my goal is to write a handful of posts to continue to recognize milestones and progress.

Progress on a project like this is kind of like tree planting: one at a time.

More to come soon . . .