Trail maintenance crew

I am soaking in a hot bath.  I enjoy doing this anyway, but today I need it.  Today I went out for my first shift with the trail maintenance crew.

This is a, seemingly completely informal, group of guys who work on the trails around the area.  I had heard of their existence soon after I got here, and have been trying to make contact ever since.  Finally, on the Lazy Ass Hikers trip to the Beaver Pond trails, we ran across the crew doing some brush clearing.  I gave them my contact information, and I got a call last night, and blew off Tai Chi in order to go out with the crew this morning.

At the moment trail maintenance is somewhat dependent on the weather.  Well, I guess it's always very dependent on the weather, but at the moment the scheduling is a bit hit-and-miss, just in case it's raining.  Today it wasn't raining.  At least not this morning, although it got cloudier towards the afternoon, and the forecasts are telling me that they expect rain overnight.  But it wasn't raining when we headed out.

It was, on the other hand, freezing cold.  I had two t-shirts, and two hoodies on, to try and keep warm.  Hiking out to the area we were going to clear with tolerable, although it got somewhat warm.  As soon as we started digging out sword fern, I figured that I needed to take off the outer hoodie.  After I dug out the second sword fern, I took off the other hoodie.  I am definitely going to have to rethink wardrobe.  By the time we had done an hour and a half, I was so drenched with sweat that I figured that I needed to take a shower before I went and gave a presentation to the Rotary.  So I cut out early.

Sword fern is not an invasive species.  But it is, definitely, an encroaching species.  If you want to keep a trail clear, you have to make sure that you keep sword fern plants well back from its margins.  Sword fern spreads like crazy, particularly in open ground, like paths.  You can't just cut it down: you have to hack out the roots.

Wardrobe is not the only thing that I will have to rethink.  I am, to put it mildly, hardware deficient.  I don't have shovels and rakes and implements of destruction.  What I'd really like for Christmas (or, I suppose, my birthday), is an axe-mattock or cutter mattock, similar to a pulaski.

Walking back, by myself, I realized that, tired, sore, and aching though I was from the unaccustomed labor, I felt pretty good.  Being out in the woods, on a sunny day, even if it was one that was pretty cold, was good.  Doing some productive work, for other people, and getting some thanks by a passing hiking crew, and one dog walker, felt good.  And, possibly, even the extra work, different than my normal walking, felt like it might be a pretty good idea.  So I look forward to the next call out from the trail maintenance crew.