The Mississippi River Gorge Stewards Leadership Team

Volunteers have been working in the gorge for several years now, and while there are always some new faces at events, we definitely had a group of "regulars". We started thinking about how to put the knowledge, dedication, and experience of these seasoned volunteers to the best use in the gorge, as well as how to offer them greater opportunities for learning, greater responsibility, and a richer volunteer experience. With funding from the Mississippi Watershed Management Organization, the Gorge Stewards Leadership Team was formed!

Members of the Gorge Leadership Team were asked to commit to volunteering at least 25 hours in the gorge this year, including attending a 2-hour indoor and 3-hour outdoor training, and participating in at least 4 of the 6 team outings. The rest of the hours can be completed a variety of ways, such as participating in and assisting with public events in the gorge, tabling, speaking, or otherwise assisting with outreach. The team outings combine training with restoration work, and are directed by ecologist Carolyn Carr. The subjects Carolyn chooses vary, but there is an underlying focus on phenology and how things progress and change over the growing season. Team members are also helping to monitor different sections of the 36th and West River Parkway site, and contributing to written and photographic documentation of species and conditions present.

From the very first training session and at every team event since, this group has proven to be quite the inquisitive bunch! Full of great questions, and noticing even the tiniest bugs or weird bumps on plant leaves. One of the most exciting things about the team for me has been watching the interactions and overhearing tidbits of conversations, where folks are sharing the different knowledge, skills and experiences that they each bring to the team, and learning from each other as well as from Carolyn.

This is the first year for this exciting project, so we are learning as we go and tweaking little bits here and there. We have accomplished quite a bit so far this season, and hope to continue the project in years to come. Thank you to all of the Gorge Leadership Team members for all your hard work and dedication to the river, for keeping us on our toes, and for being such an inspiring group of people to work with!

Photos courtesy of Hillary Oppmann

Summer Blooms

The gorge is blooming! Check out these photos from dedicated long-time volunteer and Gorge Leadership Team member Tim Boyle. Can you identify these native plants? See even more great photos here.

This is an exciting and colorful time of year to go for a hike in the gorge, or have a picnic up at Giggly Hills and check out the prairie plantings.

New Prairie at Crosby Park!

There's a new prairie in town! Crosby Park in St. Paul now boasts a beautiful new interpretive prairie, thanks to the hard work of many volunteers last Saturday, May 31st.

These hard-working folks planted, watered, and mulched almost 1000 native prairie plants as part of a restoration project in partnership with St. Paul Parks & Recreation, funded by Capitol Region Watershed District.
This semi-formal section of the prairie planting will hopefully provide visitors with an opportunity for education about prairies and native Minnesota plants. To that end, name markers bearing the name of the species were placed by several plants, and new signage about this project and the importance of Minnesota's prairies is in the works.

The group was such a bunch of rock stars that we finished early with the planting, mulching, and watering, but many volunteers stuck around to remove invasive weeds (like giant ragweed and Canada thistle) from the adjacent area.

Volunteers will be needed throughout the season to help care for this new planting by weeding and other tasks, and to help prepare the rest of the site to be seeded in the fall. If you are interested in helping out with this project, contact sue through our contact form or at 651-222-2193 x14.

Photos courtesy of professional photographer Rikk Flohr, www.fleetingglimpse.com. For more photos from this event, click on this link.

Prairie Burn at Crosby

Thanks to a grant provided by Capitol Region Watershed District, FMR will be working with St. Paul Parks & Rec and lots of volunteers this year to plant an interpretive native prairie at Crosby Farm Regional Park.

The first major volunteer-powered effort will be to put in about 1000 native prairie plants in one section on Saturday, May 31st from 9:00 a.m. - noon. Several volunteer events will be held throughout the growing season to weed around the new plants. The remaining area will be seeded with native prairie seed in the fall. There will also be a guided hike in late summer to offer participants an interpretive look at the work that has been done, the different species that were installed, and the other sections of this beautiful park.

To prepare the site for this planting, St. Paul Parks & Rec conducted a controlled burn early last week. Controlled burns help manage and remove weeds, reduce the duff or plant litter layer, and return nutrients to the soil.

Keep watching the Events and Activities page of the FMR website for more info on all of the upcoming events at Crosby Park!

Spring at Crosby Park

Last Saturday morning I woke up and immediately looked outside, expecting to see an inch of snow on the ground and more on its way down. But there was no snow, no precipitation at all, and the sun looked like it was fighting to peek out! Good thing, since we had a birding hike at Crosby Park in St. Paul.

We had a fairly small group (I suspect because of the forecast), but a nice size for birding, and the good fortune of 3 guides. We saw about 40 species, including lots of warblers (yellow-rumped,
black-and-white, and palm to name a few), a ring-necked duck, a green heron, a broad-winged hawk, and a blue-winged teal.

In addition to the birds, spring woodland wildflowers were everywhere! I was thrilled to see lots of Dutchman's breeches in bloom. They are a small spring ephemeral with flowers that look like upside down pants hanging on a clothes line. There were also tons of marsh marigolds surrounding the pond, large-flowered bellwort on the hillside with their pretty yellow droopy flowers, and bloodroot back in the forest.

Later in the week I pulled garlic mustard with a group from Aveda at a site upriver from the marina at Crosby. The area we worked in was full of trout lilies, jack-in-the-pulpits, and wild ginger, as well as other beautiful little native wildflowers.

Native woodland plants complete their entire life cycle in the spring before the trees and shrubs really leaf out, and spring ephemerals then disappear entirely for the rest of the year. These plants are up against several formidable threats: garlic mustard, earthworms, and deer among them. So every plant I see in the woods seems like a sign of hope, a tough survivor fighting for life and winning - so far. It also is a reminder of why we and hundreds of volunteers work so hard to help them in their fight.

Drawdown Tours Revisited

On February 20th John Anfinson and David Wiggins of the National Park Service led several tours of the St. Anthony Pool of the Mississippi River after it had been drawn down 13 feet. If you weren't able to attend a tour, or if you did and want to relive it in a much warmer environment, check out these wonderful videos of the tour, provided by Andrew Busam of the Mill City Museum. The videos are full of beautiful footage, fascinating facts, and river lore, not to mention that seeing all those bundled up folks sure will make you happy it's finally spring!

First Garlic Mustard Pull of the Season

Thanks to everyone who joined us on Sunday afternoon for the Garlic Mustard pull!

An awesome group of 43 people turned out despite the rainy forecast and pulled a LOT of Garlic Mustard. We saw a few signs of spring too! The trees are starting to bud, there's a lot of bird action going on, and there's green peaking out from underneath all of the leaves on the ground as well.

A few of our volunteers took some Garlic Mustard home to test out some of the recipes we had available on site. If you took some home and missed out on the recipes, they can be found on the Mid-Atlantic Exotic Pest Plant Council's website.

Not all of us are fabulous chefs, and you don't have to be to help eat away our invasive species! The Eloise Butler Wildflower Garden is partnering with Heartland Restaurant and Lucia's Restaurant and Wine Bar to give the Twin Cities a taste of Garlic Mustard. Throughout the months of April and May, both restaurants are featuring selections on their menus made with Garlic Mustard provided by Eloise Butler Wildflower Garden-- just be sure to call ahead to make sure it's on the menu.

For anybody who missed out (or those of you who made it and had so much fun that you can't wait to do it again), there will be another pull on Wednesday May 21st from 6-8pm. For more information or to register please visit Friends of the Mississippi River's events page.

Photos courtesy of Hillary Oppmann.