Green Hills: Loading the truck

By Daniel Barringer, Preserve Manager

When we do projects at our home preserve, Crow’s Nest, we can undertake one thing at a time, load the tools we need, and get the job done. If we forget something we’re never more than a mile and a half from the workshop.

Things get a little more complicated working at Green Hills. It’s 15 miles away, so there’s no going back for an extra tool. And we have to plan for a variety of projects and have everything we need for all of them. Here’s the truck loaded for today’s projects.

There’s a few hundred pounds of seed on there for sowing the meadows, which Aubrey will do while I’m doing these other projects. Also, an Indian tank (brand name of a backpack water tank we use for prescribed fire, here repurposed for rinsing the paint on the gazebo prior to painting later this week). A power-pole pruner for removing broken branches from the tree by the parking lot. Extra diesel for the tractor. Buckets of soil to fill abandoned groundhog holes along one trail. A weed whip for trimming grass around the rain garden at the parking lot. Spare parts and tools for the no-till seeder. A gallon of herbicide for spot spraying autumn olive, multiflora rose, privet, and shrub honeysuckle. And a hand-held gas-powered brush cutter to cut those shrubs down first. That’s it for today. Now I just need to load up the lawnmower on the trailer and go!