Honeysuckle!

Oh, what a success! The large student-workday headed by bill around Swope Park's dinning hall has left the area looking better than ever!

Bill estimated that sixty or seventy volunteers were in attendance from some of Kansas City's universities and made a killer introduction speech on the picnic tables behind the between the hall and the edge of the recently-burned section of The Hill. A lucky handful of Master Naturalists volunteered to work the sunny morn and led groups through the day on areas from the Quarry up to the dining hall.
Woodlands were opened after only the first few minutes of work and smiles were abound. I recognized several folks and it was good to see people again.

The workday's photos were my assignment- shared with Robert Gaines. The city had asked for pics, and Wildlands can always use them. I stuck around to photo Bill's speech and tagged onto a group working around the hall at first. I met students from St Louis and Kansas City and an old classmate from Lincoln High. Volunteers were asked to stick in groups of two or three to manage the cutting and hauling of the bushes, and herbicide (Tordon) application as separate tasks. The small groups who did stick together seemed much more efficient than those who attempted to work individually or in larger numbers. Still, I found nobody who was having a bad time, and work was being done everywhere I wandered. For nearly two hours, the invasive Honeysuckle bushes were cleared around the buildings atop the hill. From here, I followed students down towards the quarry where two more groups worked vigorously. I sparked conversations and few seemed to mind the camera. The fella in blue, above, tore through the biggest trees with a handsaw for his herbicide partners and I got a smile and a laugh when I pronounced him my #1 model.

I hope that Robert got some good pics- mine were okay. It certainly wont take too many more of these workdays to clear the planned acres if volunteers continue to be as enthusiastic as today's group. Less importantly, the huge turnout helped too. .. Maybe we could blame all of the fun happening on the excellent 70-degrees!
Honeysuckle may continue to grow in the cleared areas because of the strong, century-old seed bank that exists in the dirt, but continued burning will help to suppress saplings and kill shallow seeds.

RP GLADES

Trees on The Glades have lost their leaves- this is not true for those on Blue River road. On my way to Lakeside the Blue River was still canopied with light-greens, yellows and oranges.

Blue sage is ghostly grey and patches of oats gave the bright understory it's last highlights of green on the opened sections of the glades. Where the trees have not been thinned Honeysuckle is thick and more noticeable than any other time of year.- to 10 feet or so! It is it's fall-green and ominous red berries are everywhere.... And under the mid-day blues in the sky, it was an awesome colourful day!

Swope Park arrowheads

Some eight years ago I pulled the sharp top of a flint arrowhead from a dry creek bed on the Hill; the "BlueRock" flint fragment was knapped smooth and still had an edge- and it was soo cool! Today I return to search the creek for artifacts!

I drove up to the Hope building in Swope park and stopped to let Bill know what I was up to. He was far too worn to join me on the hunt, but we yaked and he told me to stop by again if I found anything really cool. From the building I bush-whacked towards the creek. The ground was still dark and damp from the weekend's heavy storms, but recent dry air had surely shallowed the creek. Mushrooms- russulas and bright jack'o'lanterns were common, along with a spongy white coral-mushroom-thing. Those odd, spiny, shelled orb-weaver spiders were thick at about chest-height. I hate to tear their webs down!

Even on the creek bed the webs were abundant- I walked upstream- with few exceptions the creek was dryer than I expected-a pleasant, promising surprise! I walked for a half-mile or so- past the junctions of two tributaries. I walked past the second creek, but turned back before I reached a third; I did find a nice hunk of beautiful petrified wood! It is several inches long and shows great detail! Also, I found a small shelf of exposed rock jetting from the side of the creek. It was tan; soft like sandstone and smooth like limestone and help many marine fossils. Lots of corals and shells... one half-dollar-sized piece shows a detailed leave and a dark, prickly shell-thing. I nabbed it...

The second tributary tempted me when I passed it headed downstream again; I had to turn up the creek. It took me to the railroad tracks where I found a great patch of cone flowers, bee-balms and black-eyed Susan-things. Glade remnants here are likely closely related to Rocky Point's-just on the other side of the hill.

I returned to the truck with no arrowheads or Indian artifacts, but the hike had delivered a needed dose of Summer-in-Missouri!

Glade Planting

Rocky Point got a makeover today when a small group of volunteers braved the mud to plant a variety of natives; Dozens of flats of flowers were planted- I saw Larkspurs, Blazing stars and Coneflowers among them.
Everybody seemed to have a good time- and the weather, for the most part, cooperated. I'm calling it a success!

Spring is Sprung!

Rocky Point is lookin' like the beginnings of Spring. The trees can still be called leafless, but their understories are definitely green!
The clouds this afternoon made the short hike into something much more beautiful than the glades could have been by themselves- the big, fluffy, cottonball-cumulus floated thousands of feet under a higher cloud-cover that seemed to cast a glow on Swope- rather than sunlight.. The soft light kinda reminded me of one of those indoor plant lights.
On the glades, only verbena, pucoon, and some less-vibrant colours were in bloom. The yarrow is thick and lush, but it's bids weren't yet opened. Grasses are still very short- it made it easy to spot a small group of doe around the big bend that is now taken by Larry's tall deer exclosure- above the glades things were just slightly less-colourful. Trout lilies are easy to spot, but not because they are flowering. Their dark, pointed leaves compensate for the brilliant flowers that will come up soon. I trespassed a bit- into the locked pool near the Hogan- in an attempt to save as many of the handfuls of toads that have become trapped as I could. One took a pose against the white pool-floor. I dont think that he was too happy with me- though I wonder if a more imaginative person than I could recognize a bit of curiosity in the toads face... ?
...Last year Bill put a board in the pool to act as a ramp to the surface and give the little guys a chance to save themselves.

RockyPoint SNOW!

Is a March 30th-snow so unusual for the city I live in? Its odd how oblivious I am to the norms of a place as familiar as Swope or even my city.

Last night's storm iced The Hill to bootlace-height. The snow is a wet, melting one; the ground is still defrosted from the few days of nice and our newest precip. has been melting since it landed. A forecast of 4-9inches would have been very accurate if the first few hours had an opportunity to accumulate.
....It was enough to make the glades brilliant. The forest above and below them, too! Oakwood was slick, and a pair of vehicles was parked on the bottom. My wheels spun like last December's ice storm... I started to regret the climb when I hit a slow, bumpy curve only half-way up- but I got to the top with a bed full of wet ice. A single pair of tire tracks marked the road-

I slipped onto the glades from behind the pool and did a short circle around the two finest openings- The ground was soggy, and I never found any serious ice. Soon it was the trees that took my attention- they'd been beautiful and crystal-like before and now they rained slush-balls.

Hill on Fire!

Shot a lot of black and white on this one- Something that does not usually work well with our fires. I guess that we started burning early enough to take advantage of the morning light.
Twenty acres is the largest (prescribed) burn that RockyPoint Glades have had- and every acre burnt well!
Winds became iffy, but the thin fuel loads were extraordinarily dry! Our 10-15mph southerly winds turned into a light one and some scary gusts popped out of the east! We watched the eastern line well and had no problems.
Several City people came- the city gave some equipment for the day, too. Other volunteers joined us on the glades- everyone excited for the first local burn in almost a year!
The torches dripped and that familiar smell filled my face- The smoke got thicker and you could taste it. It billowed from the thickest beds of litter and started to cook your eyes... and in some weird way it felt nice. The dirtiest, hottest, most destructive thing to hit the glades, other than a good severe storm, is as refreshing for me as it will be for the soil and vegetation.




all of the black and white was fun, but you've got to get some COLOUR!
At the base of the hill- along Oldham road- the flames grew tall. Any line was invisible, but the leaf-litter was easy enough to manage. A tall stand of thistles and oats lit up and the radiant heat was enough to create a sun-burn sensation on exposed skin. FUN!

The Glades

GUESS WHERE I WAS!!??

I WENT TO THE HILL!

I visited the hill- wanted to hit the Rocky Point Glades, but you know what kind of distractions are up there... Some cool morning light on the area of the small storage building across from the Lakewood Shelter- made it seem almost surreal. I made a quick jog back from the hogan to try for a photo. The building used to host some of the critters submitted to lakeside nature center for rehabilitaion, but I think that it is only for storage now. I wonder what it was before the NatureCenter got to use it?? many of the ancient stone and wood structures in this section of the park have inspiring stories and have played significant roles in the history of Kansas City. The glades and all are pretty quiet. ( got there, eventually!)

I did manage to locate that patch of oyster mushrooms that I found last spring. They all looked a bit different this time; the mushrooms were all torn and dehydrated like the puff-balls on the same downed tree. Some cool shelf-fungi on this'n too!

The glades

The sign post on the first glade is down. Its stood for like 10 years? and numerous fires, though the burns have taken a toll on the 4x4 that displays the three signs. Ive got dibs on the RockyPoint one! -
I remember when the glade area was all wooded and shrubby and sign-free. The woods above them now haven't changed much- its hard to tell when everything is bald. The winter-version of Swope is something that Ive only had the opportunity to discover in recent years. This frozen season is the second that I have been lucky enough to experience. the woods are different this month- A few stiff polypore, some woody shelf-fungi and the very beginnings of many buds are all the signs of living plants or fungi this winter. A few blue birds and a few nuthatches- the lucky hiker may find something more colourful like a cardinal or a creature a bit larger like a deer or turkey. I found few songbirds on my latest visit, but a RED-TAILED and several crows made for a pleasant surprise. It is cool and dry now- all moisture is hidden under the rocks and logs in the ground as ice crystals.

Snow on the HILL

Hit the HILL today for only a quick walk over the glades. Rocky point is somethin' else under the season's first real snow! The hogan, above.

Other than the ice, though, there's not much happening up there... I was surprised at the lack of birds out on this beautiful day!

Rocky Point FALL!

Fall in Swope park is always special; seemed to be some of the best Ive seen here on this warm fall day.
The last several days have been up above 70 degrees, though the Fall colour that everyone has anticipated came and went over the weekend. I saw little of it, and most of the trees are now bald. Too bad...

Still, The glade felt like summer. It was gorgeous. A flock of robins, the ground is full of about as many walnuts as fallen leaves.
I did notice a surprising lack of birds. No bluebirds and few finchs or sparrows on the glades now. Little color, too; just the odd-shaped berries of buck brush and the fire-reds and oranges in the sumac.

On surrounding areas, it is the honeysuckle that adds color.The road out is VERY COLOURFUL!
Get out there- its well worth it! The recent week of warm only made it better!

R P G

I visited rocky point the other evening during the short stay I had in KC. Lots of blooms: Its a little late for the spiderwort, but there are still a few flowers left. onion and coreopsis are goin' strong and others like the one below (looks like a pea to me- bush-like), some purple-lookin milkweed and a handful of others. On this one, there is some kind of truebug- looks like an assassin bug to me. A katydid on a spiderwort- perfect camoflage! Colours are cool in this one, too ! (below) wild onion is all over the glades!

realy not sure what this one is- there are only two plants on the bend of the second glade; they stand about 12 inches off the ground and had tose narrow leaves like a mountain mint all the way down the stem.. Any ideas?