For the last ten years, the work we've done on any day has often been decided on that particular day, or sometimes a few days in advance when we knew what people or groups were coming, or based what supplies we had. While that certainly won't change completely, there are other considerations to when we do what work.

That's the reason we're having more winter workdays this year than we've had in years past.The work on the dam last year did cause some damage to the North Swale that was unavoidable. But other work - particularly brush cutting and removing heavy wood debris - is best accomplished in winter. Plants aren't actively growing, and sometimes we'll even have the added benefit of the ground being frozen. That's why we're planning to restrict most of our brush cutting - and other heavy work inside the fence - to winter.

There is more "heavy" work to do. The Park District's Forestry Department, headed by Jerome Scott, has helped us out by cutting up some of the many large downed trees we have inside the fence. While we won't be removing all of them, by any means, there are a few that are just in bad places, making it difficult for us to work around, or in areas where we've rather not have fallen logs at all, like the South Swale. Next workday we'll be cutting a little brush, particularly in a few areas outside the fence where we have white mulberry growing. But we'll also be removing some cut up logs in Coffee Tree Swale, where a large white mulberry came down in a storm about 2 years ago. This is right in a spot where we'll be looking at doing some major work over the next few years.

That isn't all we'll be doing on February 20th though, as evidenced by our workday on January 30th. We did some seed processing that day, in preparation for planting. There will be more planting going on later in the year, but we'd like to get the seed we've collected down so that it can stratify - that is to say, go through some freeze and thaw cycles - before it germinates later this spring.

Hope to see you then!