STORY in PHOTOS - Great Oak Trail

A STORY in PHOTOS from the HEADWATERS SANCTUARY

Photos by Ed Segura

Here is the story, in photos, of one day in the life of our volunteers and staff during a special Volunteer Work Day.  Our goal this day was to finish clearing the Great Oak Trail, a half mile foot trail through the western portion of the Headwaters Sanctuary.  The trail winds past a number of 400+ year old "heritage" live oak trees.

  

Helen and our amazingly cheerful volunteers haul out loads of invasive (weedy) brush, thus “liberating the natives,” improving the ecology, and opening our new trail for others to enjoy.

 Richard cuts the last “ceremonial” Ligustrum stump closing the gap and completing  the trail. We'd cut the trail half way up from one trailhead, then started up from the other trailhead to meet in the middle, "closing the gap" on this celebratory day.

This is what it looks like in one section of the trail.  Soon it will all be covered with mulch, keeping it a natural foot trail.  All of our mulch comes from recycling the brush we’ve cleared out of the woods. We haul it out, pile it up and later chip it in a big noisy wood chipper.  The chipped wood then goes out on the trail as mulch.

Keri, with her Headwaters volunteer t-shirt, helps Richard tackle that huge stump while Natalia, a UIW student in a red cardinal t-shirt, looks on, enjoying a bit of rest from her labors.

Howard, our Volunteer Coordinator, follows up with careful use of herbicide on the stump.  This prevents regrowth.  The blue helps us see where we’re spraying, and will fade away just like the stump, which will return to the soil.

Trail finally open….it’s champagne time!  Yes, I sneaked a nice iced bottle of champagne up into the woods for a surprise celebration of this milestone in the development of the Headwaters Sanctuary.  This is not a regular feature of our volunteer work days, but this day was extra special.

Drinking a small but grateful toast to our fun, hard-working team who, along with those not present, have left a vital piece of themselves in this new trail.  This project unfolding in the headwaters of the San Antonio River is about communion with nature, and with each other -- community.  It's about hard work and its inevitable rewards.  It's about restoration -- of the land and of our spirits.  It's about honoring the heritage of this historic place, and investing in the millennium.  And it is so much more.

It's about FUN!  Fun, which sometimes borders on silliness, such as our improvisational Great Oak Trail Dance led by Charlotte.  Join us.  We're making history. You can, too.