Crow’s Nest: Welcome, Alison Joyce!

By Daniel Barringer, Preserve Manager.

We are pleased to welcome intern Alison Joyce to Crow’s Nest Preserve! She has joined our staff for an 11-month long internship and will be doing all aspects of land management and environmental education.

This internship represents a career change for Alison; she most recently was working for an accounting firm but wanted to reconnect with the outdoors. Her undergraduate degree is in biology and she is a Force of Nature volunteer so she already has extensive training in land stewardship.

In the photo above Alison is replacing a rotted fence post in our parking lot. This project contains a few life lessons: One, nothing lasts forever. Two, everything you build someday someone will be removing (that includes the rotted stub of the old fence post). Three, we shouldn’t build more infrastructure than we can maintain. Four, if we do our job well, it looks like we were never there (was that fence post replaced? or did the old one never rot?). Five, removing and replacing an old split rail fence post is twice as hard as installing a new one where there hadn’t been one before. It all builds character.

If you see Alison on the mower, the tractor, or on the trails, please stop and say hello. These are difficult times and it takes a special kind of strength to change careers now. We are happy that she has.