By Topf Wells
Jim has the new workday season off to a great start.

Eleven stalwarts arrived at the Falk Wells Wildlife Area on the Sugar River between Verona and Paoli. Attendance was down a bit – maybe the football game, a hot, muggy forecast, travel, trout season still on, first day of bow season or a combination thereof were the reasons. But Jim was well organized and had the gear we needed. Honeysuckle and buckthorn now know and fear our names.

That was the task: to eliminate invasive shrubs – that’s you, honeysuckle and buckthorn – from the banks of the river. Doing so improves angler access to the stream and liberates the native shrubs and magnificent oaks that want to grow there. Those oaks will provide generational benefits to the stream in the form of much needed shade and a steady rain of little, tasty bugs falling into the stream. They are beautiful and, in terms of stream access, a huge improvement. You can walk under or around an oak tree on your way to the stream. You can rest under it if you get hot. Try that with a honeysuckle/buckthorn thicket.

We worked on the two sites. The first under one of those oaks and the second a bit downstream right off the river. Anglers will bless our names. We thoroughly opened a nice access point where said anglers will step into a lovely stretch of stream with a gravel and rock bottom, nice gradient and trout.

Huge thanks to Jim and a tough, determined crew. Using chainsaws and brush saws on these thickets is, I think, tougher than taking down small to medium-sized trees but our sawyers stuck with it. A shout out to Kathleen Falk and Eric Phillips, her son, who joined the work party to improve the area named in honor of Kathleen’s conservation accomplishments. (ed. note: the author is being typically humble with his phrasing here as I hope you can connect from the photo at right of Kathleen Falk and Topf Wells)

Photos courtesy Jim Beecher. Note the remarkable transformation of the site!