Bluff Lake Restoration Volunteers

Kochia Pull

2008-08-21T13:25:00.004-06:00

The kochia pull continued for the second Wednesday on August 20. With the hot, dry summer, kochia has not grown to the extent it did last year. However, with the recent wet weather, it has started to mature. I doubt we will get the gigantic ones we did last year, but it is still worth the effort to pull as many as possible. See the photo below of a kochia plant.

We worked the area along the south fence line over to the maintenance road. Last week, volunteers pulled kochia along the trail to the dam and in the solarized area. These areas are kochia-free, at least for now.

Number of volunteers: 4
Hours: 12

It's An All-Teasel Wednesday

2008-08-06T19:41:00.003-06:00

Six of us finished off the teasel today. We deadheaded the teasel that we cut down last week, cleared out the teasel at the west end of the oxbow, and cut down and bagged teasel in a patch that Chris had discovered downstream of the old outfall. As far as we know, that is all the teasel on the site that has bolted this year. If we do the same every year, the numbers should diminish significantly and the teasel should totally be eliminated within a few years. And there were no mosquitoes, the bane of working on teasel in July.

Number of volunteers: 5
Hours: 15

Teasel is Terminated

2008-07-30T13:25:00.002-06:00

It was another hot day at the Bluff. The grass is tinder dry and other plants are noticeably stressed. One mistake with a match and a grass fire would quickly spread. In fact, one area about an acre in size on the Aurora side burned some time in the last week.

We accomplished three major tasks today. We hand-sprayed with Round-up the Dalmation toadflax along the road near the west entrance. We sprayed the few remaining leafy spurge in the Sand Creek Meander restoration area. And we cut down all remaining teasel in the area north of the wetland area north of the dam. We bagged most seed seeds but need to complete that job next week. All the teasel that we know of has now been cut and no new seeds will mature. There are still plenty of rosettes that will have to dealt with next year.

As a reminder, in late June of next year, we should monitor the toadflax to make sure it has really been eliminated. It will be easier to spot when it blooms.

Number of volunteers: 5
Hours: 15

Wednesday is for Weeds

2008-07-25T17:16:00.003-06:00

On July 23 there were four of us braving the heat. It got up to the mid nineties later in the afternoon. We began by watering the stressed out plants in the gardens, trying to keep them alive until wet and cooler weather comes our way.

We then went after kochia along the trail west of the port-a-potty and finished off the teasel at the far west end of the cottonwood/willow community north of the dam. With any luck there will be few, if any teasel there next year. We should continue to monitor this area to make sure there is no resurgence. We walked back through areas where houndstongue might be expected and found very few. Maybe we had some success earlier this year.

Volunteer hours: 12

Area Now Free of Houndstongue and Teasel

2008-07-09T12:44:00.004-06:00

With the effort of 5 of us this morning, all the visible teasel and houndstongue are now gone from the area just east of the cattails and willows north of the dam. See arrow on map below. We had started with the teasel but found that were lots of houndstongue as well. No more.

It was muggy and a bit buggy, but that did not impede the work.

Estimated number of teasel plants cut down at the base: 500
Estimated number of houndstongue seeds removed: 100,000
Number canvas bags filled with houndstongue and recycled: 3

Volunteer hours: 12

Dry and Crunchy

2008-07-02T13:11:00.002-06:00

The drought lives on. Without significant moisture for a while, the dryland areas at Bluff Lake are brown and extremely dry. The only green is in the low-lying and riparian areas. There is a substantial difference in the look of vegetation from shady areas to sunny areas. Not much is blooming except bush morning glory, bindweed, and thistle.

We spent the first part of workday today watering the newly planted plants in the bluff gardens. They looked a bit wilted, but with any luck the water should perk them up for a while. Maybe we will even get some rain soon.

Then we pulled Russian knapweed from the area where we planted grass plugs last year. There is still a lot of kochia there, but digging it up might have harmed the grass plugs which are either overstressed or dead.

Later, we walked the bench and dug out houndstongue and pulled Russian knapweed in the shade.

Number of volunteers: 5
Work hours: 15

Another Day, Another 100,000 Houndstongue Seeds Eliminated

2008-06-25T13:24:00.003-06:00

We finished the job today of cleaning out the houndstongue plants in the area north of the dam. They were in the process of the setting seed, so it was probably the last time this year we will be able to get at them without risking the dispersal of a lot of new seeds into the seed bank. Certainly we missed a number of them, but with any luck, they will not come back as strong next year.

Again, the head nets were a terrific help in fending off mosquitoes. See the photo below to get an idea of how alien we all look in the head net get-up.

Cabbage butterflies abounded in the area where Canada thistle were blooming. The area looked alive with them. We saw two deer, an oriole, and the two baby robins in the nest at the building.

Work Hours: 15

We Dig Up Even More Houndstongue

2008-06-18T17:38:00.003-06:00

With our head nets in place to thwart the mosquitoes, five of us went after the houndstongue again. The plants are blooming and setting seed, so it was a good time to take them on. They are easy to spot with their purple flowers and fairly easy to dig out. The mosquitoes were bad, indeed, but the nets helped a lot, as did the deet.

We worked in the area north of the dam and cattails at the south edge of the cottonwoods. In three hours we dug up enough to fill up the back of the pick-up truck. My guess is that each of us must have dug 200 plants for a total of 1000. Multiply that by the number of seeds per plant (at least 100), and the result is that we prevented approximately 100,000 seeds from being released and disbursed.

We did not finish the work. There are still lots of plants to dig up next week.

Number of volunteer work hours today: 15

A Good Turnout

2008-06-11T14:38:00.002-06:00

Six people came out today, a great turnout. It was cool and blustery, but much preferable to the hot days of summer that we are expecting soon.

We pulled cheatgrass from the parking lot median as well as doing some cleanup there in preparation for the Wine and Cheese event this evening. Then we split up, with some continuing work with weed removal in the gardens and other areas of the parking area where clover seems to be taking over, and others going into the natural area to pull jointed goatgrass, which is much less prevalent this year after the pulling we did last year.

Work hours: 18

Getting Ready for Wine and Cheese on the Bluff

2008-06-04T13:37:00.003-06:00

Three of us along with Chris spent the morning cleaning up around the pergola area in anticipation of the Wine and Cheese on the Bluff event scheduled for June 11. We trimmed back the rabbit brush that was overgrown and full of dead branches. Yes, we did see some small rabbits underneath. We pulled weeds from the gravel trails. And we cleaned out around the fence that overlooks the lake. Then we started on the clover that seems to have overwhelmed the south side of the parking lot. These proved to be a challenge to remove so we did not finish that task. The yellow flowers from the clover are still evident.

Ideas for future projects include pulling jointed goatgrass, pulling the Russian knapweed along the trail, deadheading teasel, digging out houndstongue, and spraying the spurge near the road to Outfall #1.

Wildlife sighted: two snakes near the outfall, pelicans flying overhead, prairie dogs near the road, egrets in the lake, meadowlarks, red-winged blackbirds, and robins.

Total number of volunteer hours: 9

It's Chemical Warfare

2008-05-28T20:53:00.002-06:00

Finally the weather cooperated enough to let us get out the chemicals and spray. We mixed Roundup with Transline, added some blue dye, filled our backpack sprayers, and went after the hemlock in the outfall number one drainage area. Chris had already successfully tried this mixture. The evidence of his spraying was pretty obvious. Trails of dead and dying hemlock were easy to spot. With three of us spraying, we put out about 20 gallons of herbicide.

In a few weeks we should check to see how effective this was. It seemed that we were able to get to a lot of the hemlock on the east side of the main ditch.

Cleanup was the difficult part. The blue dye seems to spread all too easily. I found myself at the end of the day with one blue hand. I haven't a clue how it got that way. As soon as got home, I cleaned out the sprayer, threw my clothes into the washing machine, and took a shower. A tinge of blue is still on my right hand as I type this post.

Two other volunteers worked on the Russian olive cuttings and stumps to complete the job started last week.

Total hours: 12

Another Wednesday, Another 1000 Weeds Are Gone

2008-05-21T12:51:00.005-06:00

We met at 8:00 this morning in hopes of beating the heat, and we were successful. Clouds hung around almost until we quit working. A brown cloud hung ominously over the Denver skyline, but out east in the Bluff Lake natural area, the air was clear.

There were four of us. John decided to do maintenance work in the gardens. Susie, Teresa, and I worked westward over the bluff, pulling mustards, as well as digging up any remaining thistle that had been missed last week. We then hit the bench area, digging thistle, mullein, mustards, houndstongue, and Russian knapweed. See photo below with the lake in the background.

The houndstongue is about ready to bloom. Some were the size of basketballs. See photo below.

The bench area is recovering nicely from the infestations of Russian knapweed and thistle. There is still quite a bit of whitetop left even after the spraying was done. Perhaps it needs another application.

Accomplishments today (more or less) We did not count each one:

Mustards pulled: 800
Musk thistle dug up: 100
Mullein dug up: 50
Russian thistle pulled: 100
Houndstongue dug out: 100

Work hours: 12

The Day Between Rainstorms

2008-05-14T13:27:00.000-06:00

It rained yesterday and is supposed to rain tomorrow. But today at Bluff La ke it was cool and clear with lots of sunshine. Someone remarked that the mountains were extra-white with the snow that had fallen yesterday. It was a perfect day to pull annual weeds out of the rain-soaked soil. And we did some of that on the bluff area by the fence, west of the access road, which had been overtaken last year by Jim Hill mustard. In the same general area toward the east of the access road, we dug out non-native thistles from a patch that we had previously worked on last year. There were perhaps 50 plants removed. See photo of the thistle area on the right. A close-up photo of the thistle is below. While we were on our hand and knees pulling mustard, we saw two Swainsons hawks soar overhead. We should make another attempt in the coming weeks to clear out the mustard because some of it was too small to pull successfully.

Because five flats of wildflowers had been donated, we planted them in the various gardens on the top of the bluff. There were some sunflowers, senecio, cleome, and others. The area right outside the fence on the north, which had been sprayed earlier this year for cheatgrass, had been left fairly bare, so we put some of the plants there. See photos below.

To prevent erosion off the northern garden, one of us trenched out the area next to the barrier in hopes that rocks could be placed there at some time in the future and that runoff would be managed better.

Number of volunteers = 3
Work hours = 12

We plant good plants and eradicate bad ones

2008-04-30T21:43:00.000-06:00

It was a cloudless, warm morning as we gathered once again at Bluff Lake for our weekly restoration work. Chris had been given 30 or so clumps of switch grass from DBG, so we decided to get them all in the ground in the top gardens. There were 4 of us plus Chris, and two Johnson and Wales students joined us after they finished their tasks. We dug holes, put in the grass clumps, and watered them with buckets of water from Sand Creek.

We then went into the refuge looking for curly dock and houndstongue rosettes to dig out. We had seen a number of these pesky weeds on previous outings near the willows downstream of Outflow Number 1. We were not disappointed. After digging out isolated weeds, we came upon a huge patch of houndstongue and curly dock, and spent the remainder of our time shoveling them out of the ground. It was the largest patch I had ever seen on site. I don't know how we missed them in the past. Maybe they just appeared this year. Who knows? In any case, we got a good start at eradicating them in this area, but we will need to return to make sure we can finish them off and get any that we missed the first time around. The photo shows a mature houndstongue plant that has pretty red flowers in early summer, as well as the rosette, which is what the plants looked like today. In the other inset you see the sticky burs that can hitch a ride on any mammal that walks by and be dispersed far and wide. I brought home several of these hitchhikers on my boot laces.

Total volunteer work hours=12
Houndstongue/curly dock dug up=400 (estimated)