So, Canyon Day is here – the posters are up, the email’s out. But… what exactly do you do during Canyon Day? Plenty of people, particularly new students, might be a bit in the dark on this front.
Basically, Canyon Day is a time when the community can give back to the Canyon, particularly in areas where Canyon Crew just can’t keep up. Generally in the past, this has consisted of both general maintenance work – combating and pushing back the ever-encroaching invasive species – as well as more positivist restoration work such as planting new native trees, ferns and other plants. Last year, the big projects were restoring the farm property and the orchard, both of which have been progressing beautifully.
This year, we’re looking at the area behind the art building, an area that’s been long neglected – and it shows. Every invasive species we find in the Canyon, we can find here – English ivy, deadly nightshade, himalayan blackberry, nipplewort, clematis, morning glory, all of them suffocating out any young native species that try to compete here and choking older, more established plants as well. It’s an intimidating task, to say the least, but certainly one we can manage with our powers combined!
What the Canyon needs here the most is your manual, unskilled labor to uproot these invasive species. Canyon Crew will provide the tools – machetes, picks, gloves, whatever you need to get the job done. The more the merrier – bring your friends and hack at things together! It’s surprisingly cathartic, particularly for those with papers due.
For example, one species that is quite common in here is deadly nightshade, whose bright red berries are, well, deadly, at least to those who might not know better that to try a few (think little kiddies and wannabe naturalists.)
When scoping out the area, we’ve also found a lot of pretty curious trash, presumably the projects of Olde Reed art majors. A lot of this will need hauling out after they’ve been excavated out from under all the invasive species – think old rusty cages and metal tables overgrown with ivy.
We’re also hoping to get some trail maintenance done, primarily resurfacing the trails as the rainy season approaches. Without a fresh layer of woodchips, many of these trails will be reduced to sloggy, muddy messes that no one likes to walk on. We’ll provide the woodchips, pitchforks, and wheelbarrows – we just need some people to cart them down the trail and spread them around.
It’s not all work, though. Lunch will be provided to Canyon Day participants – CAVE (Carnivorous Alternatives to Vegetarian Eating) and the Ladies Pie Society will both be making a delicious appearance, and later in the day the (now fixed) bicycle-powered cider press will be coming out to press some tasty tasty fresh squeezed juice. Weather conditions pending, there will also be some live music.
Questions, comments, concerns? Check out last week’s entry about the upcoming Canyon Day, or our Facebook page.
