PBRR XIX

Project Blue River Rescue 2009- this FOLNC event has celebrated it's nineteenth successful river clean up- Sunny and warm was the weather- those who showed seemed to be in an almost festive mood! Coordinators did the usual coordinating and volunteers went about trekking the parking lots to undergo a transformation that would leave them warm, tired and with a brand new T-shirt!

I was signed up for the Coal Mine Road site after Wildcat Hollow was cancelled for at least the second year in a row. Coal Mine has been a known dump site for decades- near an ancient cement mill-thing and a bit east of the stadiums. Immediately I was adopted by Bill in a great big Dump-Truck thing- he always treats me!

An hour or two of set-up and FREE DOUGHNUTS and catchin' up with all of those folks you haven't seen since the last Blue River Rescue and each group began to leave for their designated part of the park.
Today's forests glow with just the slightest yellow-green as trees display their first signs of leaves and buds. The city is still generally winter-like and we've had little precipitation. The group of PBRR's most devoted volunteers went about their annual Morel mushroom predictions- unlike previous years, nobody suggested that mushrooms would be up this day of the clean-up. Bill told me that they were being collected near Osceola!

At Coal mine there was a lot of household Crap like clothes and shoes and cookware and such.. We had two groups to attack both sides of the road- (our side was nicer!) One pool of water- only yards from the road- was filled with plastic and busted windows and was the 'project' for our team of giant mechanical toys. The work was wet, and it sure didn't smell too nice, either, but everyone found the day worth-while!

A young volunteer lifted a pair of over sized gloves to my attention; his hands cradled a delicate skink found amongst a shoe-dump. The cleanup is widely recognized as family friendly and draws volunteers of all ages. Lunch was the next order of business for volunteers- the crowds filled lakeside again before a few crews reassembled to finish cleaning individual sites. Some people became nervous to hear gunfire so close, but what came and went in just a few minutes turned out to be a Police Shooting range and nobody felt endangered.

For Coal Mine Road, this also meant the installation of a few rows of cement and wooden barricades to block dumpers from getting too close to the river. I believe that the long row of impassible objects will prove successful, but I guess tat we will have to wait until next year to find out!

Blue River defrost

Minor Park, but only for a short walk. the parking area and trails were unusually busy- lots of joggers. The trail is very rough- horse tracks have turned the mud into a hard, dried trail much rougher than the surrounding terrain. I yanked a rusty square of sheet metal out of a shrub Honeysuckle near the water. The trash is everywhere. There was some lettering on it; a mile-marker or something for the Blue? It was too messed up for a photo: "JACKSON CO., 1-E BLUE RIVER" Any Ideas??
Little ice on the river; it exists only where a branch or rock dips into the water from last night's freeze. Small circles on any twig or vine that is wet- smooth ice-doughnuts with the objects in their centers. Some of the gravel is wet, but today's short bout of sun was enough to thwart the frozen stuff.. it's just water.
The river is lower than I expected it would be- just enough water is running to fill the familiar little channel between the trail a the largest gravel bar. Its got me hopeful now for more sand on the Missouri River!?

house cleaning

pawpaw flower below blue-river glades

Ive been to the usual places in South KC- filled the memory crds over the past week or so and am emptying them in preparation for my coming trip with MO river relief.

in bloom:

strawberry

dewberry

paw-paw

pucoon

columbine

hyacinth

false garlic

mayapple

sweet cicely

sorrel

phlox

hemlock

alexander

verbena

Squaw weed

and something called a hispid buttercup I had to look up-

Owl-eyed click beetle HUGE- the beetle meausred about 1.25in and emerged from some wood I was splitting. ve found them on J smith and in Swope park before-we are on the very edge of their range.

HISPID buttercup- a new species for me- I found it near the river in Minor Park

COLUMBINE is in full bloom throughout Swope park... these flowers were all at Blue river glades this morning. they scale the limestone and need very little dirt. Bottom one is cool- columbine is ofen seen growing with Virginia creeper.

Overgrown

My photo on top of the same subject as Kevin Sinks' below- his taken 10+ yrs ago? in minor park

One of my favorite photos is one by Kevin Sink of the blue river in Spring. I found it in Larry Rizzo's book, Kansas City Wildlands, on page 11. I wanted to re-shoot it this year ad ever since the redbuds bloomed Ive watched the river's conditions for height and turbidity. For the first time this season, the river had ideal conditions for re-shooting Sink's photo. I was not real sure where it was on the river, but knew of a similar location.

I went to where I recognized the two trees in the photo- in minor park. I waded across the river and scaled the hill on the other side. The photo was in my head, but I could only go from memory and havent seen it in several days- since I took the book out to try to find its location last week.

I found where I thought might be it, but it looked to crowded to be Sink's photo. I took the photo and wondered the park to fill up my CF.

Well, it turns out that I had found Sink's photo, but not exactly.

The redbud is being choked by a thicket of honeysuckle and the woods on the edge of the 'cliff' are crowded. Its too bad, but the area is is KCWILDLANDS schedule- theyve just focused their efforts on the other side of the river where the honeysuckle, iuonymous and garlic mustard are a greater threat. We'll get there eventually... I will be clearing this particular area before the end of the season so that I could re-try next year... hopefully earlier in the season, too!

I saw several very cool warbler birds. They appeared to be blk+w until one flew to a perch only a few yards away when I noticed the yellow on his breast. I think it may have been a yellow-throated warbler.

Minor Park and the Blue

Ive walked miles today and seen all sorts of springtime, but the sun felt so good on my skin and I decided that I hadnt had enough. Back to Blue river road and South.

The park appeared to be buzy at first- before I realized that all the commotion in the parkinglot was all about the tennis courts. This trail was muddy and very slick. The river is way high and more turbid than I think Ive ever seen it. It rushed through the lowest level of trees and tore at the mucky bank. I stirred up some cricket frogs near the water.

I have read all about the morel mushrooms and have decided that the park was my best bet- It had the sandiest soil and the elms, pines and maples that Ive read about. I hiked all over the park. I examined every dead log and under every pine tree.

The ground is carpeted with yellow, white and purple violets and False rue anemone. There are also flowering trout lilies and toothwarts, though they arent as common. I even stumbled on a Dutchman's breeches. It was small and pathetic-looking, but it was indeed a flowering dicentra!

I went to the Martha Truman tributary and turned back. There is a lot of new trash in the river-

I turned back and took the higher terrace back to the truck. I found a small thicket of pears- they are blooming and the flowers were absolutly everywhere! I flipped through a pile of rusted metal that had been dimped off the road and discovered a few ringnecks and some cool beetles.

The sun sank until it was hidden behind the trees on the other bank of the river, but I swear I can still feel it. The smell of dusk came about and chased me out of the brush. No morels, but some cool photos.

I did manage to find s small patch of whatever kind of 'shrooms these are. They were very hidden and were each about 1" tall... not morels.

I would love to fine the Morel mushrooms, but have never found them before, but once in a lawn behind lakesideNC. I would love some tips or just some feedback explaining what Im doing wrong.

Ive been told that they like N and S facing hills the warm day after a good rain and prefer sandy soils under or in dead or dying trees. I read that they could often be found in the same spots as mayapples, but have looked through my fare share of those! Please leave a comment if you have any advice for me !

Blue River CleanUp

Father-son duo John Jansen(Jackson Co.) and Alec have attended the clean-ups together for now FIVE YEARS! Thank You and Congradulations!

'Twas a lovely sunrise- it lit one horizon and left the others black. Up it came- slowly, though swiftly and before I knew it, it was a giant pinkish ornament. The sky, from west to east, was an overwhelming display of every value of every color from pink and orange to the deepest blue and even a touch of green.

7am and Lakeside Nature Centre(LNC) was abuzz. Banners were being thrown and coolers were ready to be filled in preperation for the largest one-day river cleanup in the state of MO. Ive participated since I can remember, but this year is special. I was givin the opportunity to lead a group of volunteers on my own section of the river. The event has drawn anywhere from a few hundred people to almost a thousand annually for the last 18years. Volunteers are divided up into groups of 10-50 to clean each site. Sites are on the Blue River from Minor park(~redbridge) all the way tp the confluence (where it empties into the MightyMO)

(right) Pawpaw (I think) is budding now! Welcome Spring!

My site is in Swope-Just on the other side of the golf course from LNC. I loaded the truck first thing an filled the coolers of ice. Bill F made me useful scooping ice from the Dist.3 headquarters. The old maintenence buildings are pretty cool lookin!

To make a very long story short, I made myself useful around the center before volunteers began departing with their leaders. I learned that there were not enough vounteers and that my site was one of several that would not be cleaned this year.

I had surveyed the land for trash several months ago. Its a dump (literally!) Family garbage and commercial car junk litters the side of the road. A mattress dump is covering a gastank dump and our largest challenges (would have been) some 55gal steel drums and a KCstar newspaper dispenser-jacked for it's few dollars in coins. Oh well.

the center cleared out quikly and I emptied my truck. ran around helping with set-up for lunch before I hooked up with bill. We transferred to a Dumptruck that hauled a Bobcat. We visited the site on Blue river+ Prospect first and loaded two buckets of bricks from the end of the sidewalk near the river. We were to go to THE WALL and then over to teamsters to haul trash, but were told to go strait to teamsters. Of course we got lost on the way, but Bill is a damn good driver and manuvered the 60ft rig through traffic, u-turns and residential streets. We arrived at teamsters (45th and Cleverblvd) to be shewed off by the cops. Something had happened or something and the lot was packed with sirens and CSI vans. ????.

We regrouped and headed back to the center. Down Blue river prkwy was a constant line of volunteers and trash on the side of the road. It is impressive how much can be dimped in the matter of only a year!

The lunch line! The majority of volunteers participate with youth-groups and their famillies. We emptied the truck by hand and ate lunch before attending a Leaders meeting. After the Vickis organized the afternoon we set off again. back to prospect to retrieve a dump of roof-shingles. They were piled far out of the way and bill powed the little bobcat into the honeysuckle thicket . He took his first scoop of shingles and a small mouse sprinted away from the machine. I watched 'em go, but I dont think he ever stopped running from the monster that had just ripped his home into the sky.

Another few scoops revealed a skink, a hive of carpenter ants and a few priaire ringnecks. The bobcat was pretty cool. Some of the other city guys came for a while- 'fred' and 'applewhite' hauled trash from the road into their compactor. They often help out with our burns on the glades and with other swope activities. Very friendly and extremely helpful!

We filled the truck to near it's capacity and left few to no shingles. Maybe something beautiful will grow there.

On our way back we passed the firestone tire semi. Its filled pretty well with the rubber that we hauled from the banks and dumps of the Blue. Kinda sad that there could be so many.

Bill and I assisted in CLean-up (of the clean-up) until I split to help with the Santuary at the Zoo. We had crew on both sides of the river and transfered everybody with a single boat. The boat brought trash collected on the opposite side and fed it up a line of volunteers to be loaded on trucks and gators where it was taken to the nursery road. Our high-tech 2hour effort produced a heaping pile of crap- 10' in diameter and 5ft high!

(Left) Vicki Kraph- Woman of the hour! Vicki organizes a great deal of the Clean-up and is stuck taking the blame at the sign-in desk. She was lucky enough to get to enjoy the trash for a few minutes after lunch. (Down) A line of volunteers pass tools and trash up the slippery bank of the Blue. (Bottom)- our high-tech method of transportation from the Sanctuary to the Nursery where trash was collected.

A job well done. The river is cleaner for at least a few weeks and we will all gather again in a year.

Minor Park

Winter Creeper- Invasive exotic vine at minor park and throughout the blue River Corridor
I visited the park at about 4:30 this evening. It is very muddy and the river is edging the first bank as a result of the weekends rains. It was a little over forty degrees this afternoon, and I found all sorts of unexpected critters- insects and spiders, Even a small, very cold cricket frog! Some gnats and flies glittered in the sunlight over the river and between dark trees. A pileated screamed over the tops of the bald trees. The maples are beginning to bloom. On the ground, fescue and garlic mustard are green and the onion grass is getting there.

I flipped a few stones near the shore of the river. The water was dark and turbid. I discovered a few smaller, green caddis larvae and a large mayfly. When I was playin with the picture, I set it to Blk&W just to see what it would look like- The body blended in perfectly w/ the stone- I could only find two dark eyes!

Minor Park

The weather was at a peak of its roller-coaster ride this afternoon- it was very nice! I hit minor park to see what the river was doing. There was not a hole lot of life besides the V's of Canadas that flew above me. I was there for a little over an hour and found a couple of woodpeckers and a flurry of chickadees enjoying the warm air in a mess of grape vines.

The river is up. Many of my favorite gravel bars are still underwater and more little islands have formed. I walked along the bank- snapping the occational photo and watching the ground for any interesting plants or rocks. The water was clear. Usually when the river becomes swollen the water will be turbid and become 'dirty' or milky-lookin. I fliped a few stones a few inches from the bank, but I found only a few snails and a small caddis larvae webbed into it's upside-down stone sleeping bag.

I poped over a bank and spooked the handful of chickadees that were feeding off of the poison ivy and grape vines that had overcome a small tree. They hoped a few inches at a time in every direction as if they were performing some intricate dance to accompany their songs. Each individual let out a long, high-pitched whistle followed by an abrupt cherp. I'd never heard it from them before. When one was done, another would reply with the same call.
As I got further from the birds their calls changed to be more recognizable and complicated.
A large hawk flew over. Red-tail. I noticed no change in the chickadees behavior- maybe they are not afraid because the larger hawks generally pose no threat to small birds. Dinner and a show!
The sun was low and I headed for the truck. In the woods a large man was pacing along the cement wall near the entrance. He was in sweat pants and a t- He followed me out of the park. I unfolded the knife in my pocket, but as I came closer to truck a read dodge charger pulled up. The man who had followed me out of the park spoke briefly to the charger and they both went back into the woods. Creepy.

There are three main threats to Blue River Parkway: Pollution (waterquality and litter alike), Invasive/exotic species and erosion.


GARLIC MUSTARD (above)- greening now and is growing in patches along the river. The plant was brought over from Eurasia for food and is now threatening our wild areas. It will bloom clusters of small white flowers in later April-


BUSH HONEYSUCKLE- Another nasty of Minor park. Its taken over several part of the park and is removed several times a year by KC WILDLANDS. The bush will begin to green in March and will bloom with the Garlic Mustard.


EUONYMUS- this too, is green now. From asia, the plant is a very invasive vine. It has a wax coating that makes herbicide useless. It is thick where it is along the bank and on the slopes above the first bank.

LITTER- A new raft has arrived! It is partially deflated and sits on the far side of the ripple closest to the entrance. A red car, too, has settled into the bank over the past few years just a few hundred yards upstream. Fishing line, tires, bottles and household trash are among the largest threats to Minor park. Besides the few who dump on the area, many people do not think to collect their waste from the river's banks. There is also a temporary camp-lookin set up on a lagre gravel bar now.

EROSION/WATER QUALITY- Construction of buildings and roads dump alot of silt into the river. the loose soil on the banks is carved violently when we get heavy rains by unnatural flooding. Because so much of it's watershed is now paved and impermeable, the blue river recieves a lot of water all at once instead of getting water over a longer period of time from that that is soaked by the earth. We have taken most of the marsh-type areas from the watershed. These areas are essential for filtering water for the river. They collect contaminants and silt, release water slowly and support many important and rare plants/animals that cannot otherwise survive. There are still a few marshes around and much of the Blue has been protected withing parks to create a greenway. However, the health of the river depends greatly on the water that it recieves from its tributaries and goundwater withtin it's watershed- these sources of water are not so clean.

Even with all of these threats, the blue river is able to keep balanced due to efforts made by all sorts of individuals and local organizations. In many spots, the river resembles a more ozarkian scene and is very beautiful.

SWOPE

Rocky Point Glades 1-26-08.

Swope park. Rocky point; Blue River glades; Lake of the woods; The Zoo; LNC

THIS WAS AN ICE FORMATION ON A SMALL CREEK; Paper thin and melting quick! The blue river (seen here behind the Swope pool area) was completely frozen over! The ice was about 5 inches thick; it cracked and shattered were the river had dropped. I walked across slowly to see if I could... glad it worked !!!


MY area for the coming Blue River Clean up (XVII) is that between the Swope golf course and the Swope pool. It will be my first time leading a group for the event, though I have participated with the clean up for just about as long as I can remember! I walked the area yesterday to see what my group would be cleaning. It was not as bad as Ive seen many areas, but there was defenately work to be done! A dozen tires or so, a KC STAR newspaper dispencer, a handful of gas tanks and matresses and a couple of moderate garbage dumps seem to be the worst of it. There were some pretty interesting things burried in the confused trash piles, as there always is! Things like old steel kegs and a zillion playing balls were closer to the river.
I look forward to participating in the clean up as a group leader- this will be a nice, safer site to work on!

Blue river

I got an itch to make it outside when the snow and clouds gave way to the sun yesterday evening. The roads were still a bit icey from the week's snow, but Ive never had too much trouble driving in ice. Jerry smith sounded nice with the clouds as fluffy as they were, but I changed my mind pretty quickly upon arrival; I couldnt get but ten or twenty feet up the entrance road! There were tire tracks in the snow that appeared to have no problem facing the hill, but my little truck, even with all the sandbags would spin out at the same point every time I tried. I gave up, and put it into reverse- backed up as slow as I could in hopes of avoiding the metal gate posts and the larg rocks that edge the entrance. WELL THAT DIDNT WORK!

I was driving home and spotted my old water quality monitoring site just north of 139th on holmes. I parked a made my way down to the bank of the blue river. It was extremely cold- about 16 degrees- and I found many brilliant ice 'sculptures' on the edge of the river.The till water would freeze, then be swept away by the rizing current. several small chunks of ice rushed passed me and took the larg ripple just below me. On the leaves which had been packed into the rip-rap bank, I observed many layers of ice. The layers started about two feet up and then another at 12 inches, 8 inches, 5 inches and at two inches above the waters current level. At the two inch mark there were zillions of bubbles trapped. At this mark, also was where I found that ice was thick and polished by heat and water. There were ice cicles connecting this layer to the waters surface. Only got a few pics because I was only there about 6 min- It was still better than nothing!

ICE storm

multiflora rose is a beautiful exotic that is sometimes invasive and dangerous in our natural areas

Over the past few days weve had about a third of an inch of ice. North, south and west of us all got it much worse with up to 1.5in .
Though yesterday was the majority of the precipitation, most of it did not freeze and roads improved from monday. I got the opportunity to get out of the house today and visited a couple areas close to the house.

Today it was cloudy and dark, windless and cold. Every step you take is announced by a shattering explosion of the thin sheet of ice that coats everything. In many places air has been trapped under the ice sheet by the grass and it only enhances the noise.

BLUE RIVER CORRIDOR> MINOR PARK

The river was very high and the surface was smooth and dark. The reflections of the surrounding ice and woods were perfect.

Early in our walk we could hear a bared owl calling very near. I asked my mother- half jokingly- to call it in. She gave one nasty scream that could scare anything away. A few minutes later the small owl flew over the river only about twenty feet to our right. It saw us and flew past us to land on a branch back down the trail. I scurried down to the river to take a last picture before I changed my lenses to shoot the owl. When I returned with my telephoto lens, the owl was gone.
I changed lenses again and continued down the trail with a tripod. I stopped frequently to shoot an ice cicle or a river scene. I was kinda disappointed by the lack of ice on the vegitation. It seemed that the higher out of the river valley we got, the more ice coated the trees and dead plants.

SWOPE PARK> SHELTER HOUSE 7

With this, we decided to find some higher terrain and continued to swope park. I did not expect to access the 'hill'- rocky point glades, but there was little ice in all parking lots in the area. We stopped by the shelter and I got out to snap a few pics. Every foot step seemed louder than the last and parts of the area were very slippery. The area was empty and silent with the exception of a passing car or the ice dropping from the tree.

Blue River Parkway

Kansas City Wildlands minor park honeysuckle removal workday. the group, a large number of 'campfire leaders', arrived at 7am this morn. by 10am, they had removed enough bush honeysuckle to create a pile 80'x20'x10'high. The group had a significant impact on the park.











It was cloudy, warm and humid today. Not too typical of November, but Im not complaining. It was nice to work in. The river is up; many gravelbars are now islands, and are not accessable by foot. The water was clear, dark and still; the reflections would have only been better if the colors were there.