Crow’s Nest: Happy Trails, Aubrey!

By Daniel Barringer, Preserve Manager.

It is with considerable sadness that we are saying goodbye to Assistant Manager Aubrey Smith as she leaves Crow’s Nest to focus on family.

Aubrey joined us as our first long-term intern in snowy February of 2013, coming to us from sunny Arizona (though she had already been in Pennsylvania where she completed the Longwood Gardens Professional Gardener Program).

Top photo, she’s putting in a post for a barn owl box at Green Hills Preserve where she also was instrumental in planting 90 acres of former farm fields with wildflowers and native grasses (pictured behind her) to create wildlife habitat. Above, sledging wood from a fallen tree out of a wet meadow using my childhood Flexible Flyer— clearly an example of maintaining good attitude under difficult conditions. Below, cleaning up a fallen tree (an ash, what else?) at Hildacy Preserve.

She worked her way up as Stewardship Assistant and then Assistant Manager, helping with our Education programs as well as applying her expertise in horticulture to the native gardens at our visitor center and working on all of our other Stewardship responsibilities. Below she’s rebuilding the boardwalk on our Creek Trail with intern Liz Pascale in 2013.

Aubrey designed and installed most of the native wildflower gardens around our visitor center; we hope you find them inspiring!

Aubrey won’t be a complete stranger to Crow’s Nest as she will remain in the area and we look forward to seeing her around. We thank Aubrey for her years of service and wish her and her family well.