The Nature Trail Committee’s Trail and Stream Clean-up Day on June 6 was not only a resounding success, but also a fun work day, with 19 persons participating. We worked on cleaning Herbert Run and its tributaries, removing downed trees from the stream, pulling garlic mustard weeds, erosion control on the hillside above the Trail, clearing portions of the Trail, picking up trash by the Lake Trail, and weeding the Butterfly Garden.

Summer view of bridge after brush clearing.

Winter view of bridge before brush clearing.

The 1915 map that shows where the bridge crosses Herbert Run on the old Abbott property before the seminary bought the area.

The Trail to the Old Stone Bridge below the dam is now complete, and Grounds has removed two fallen trees which have laid on the bridge for many years. The 1906 bridge is an interesting place to visit, and the Trail to it from the Lake Trail is only about 100 yards long. The old spring in the hillside just upstream of the Nature Trail’s covered wooden bridge has now been completely uncovered, and the arched brick opening is easy to spot. Water still trickles out of the spring. Our new Wildflower Garden (across Erickson Way from the Herbert’s Run building) now has growth in it up to 3 feet high. At least two species of flowers are in bloom so far, including Cosmos.

Our next meeting of the Nature Trail Committee will be at 10:00 a.m. on Wednesday, July 15 in the Cross Creek Craft Room. Join us if you care to. As is our custom, there will be no August meeting of the Committee.

The Nature Trail Committee’s Trail and Stream Clean-up Day is scheduled for Saturday, June 6, 10 a.m.-12 noon, weather permitting. We have a number of on-going work projects in addition to cleaning up Herbert Run, so come join us if you care to. We started our erosion control work earlier than July due to the availability of ferns to plant in the hillside above the Trail and below the St. Charles. Four hardy souls staked support branches into the hillside and planted three dozen ferns to kick off the project. Last week about a dozen Committee members participated in planting about 100 milkweed plants (2 varieties) in the new Wildflower Garden on Erickson Way across the street from the woods between the Grounds and Herbert’s Run buildings. We hope that the plantings will help the Monarch butterfly population even more than our first effort last year (about 60-70 plants survived by the Lake). Call Bert Clegern at 410-242-6003 if you are interested in joining our group.

The Nature Trail Committee continues its activities as the season warms up. The trail to the old stone bridge below the dam is now complete, although clean-up work is still needed on the bridge proper. It has been out of use for many decades, but it is still an interesting site, having been built in 1906. The trail is marked with branches along the sides and surveyor ribbon attached to trees along the way. Resident pendants have been tested, and they do work in the area.

Upcoming events include:

• a Stream Clean-up Day for Herbert Run will be held on Saturday, June 6 from 10:00 a.m. to 12 noon. Any Charlestown personnel are invited to participate. Those not interested in water work are invited to pull invasive garlic mustard weeds in the vicinity of the Nature Trail.
• a Tree Talk by Catonsville Forester Jim Himel, is to be scheduled in June or July at Charlestown.  Jim and his group have planted over 500 trees in the Catonsville area.
• the start of the erosion control project on the hillside between The St. Charles and the Nature Trail in July. Recycled tree branches will be staked across the eroded areas to gradually collect dirt and leaves. Then ferns and other shade-tolerant plants will be planted to help stabilize the hillside.

• Come and join us if any of these projects sound interesting.  Call Bert Clegern to join in. His number is in the directory.

Wildflower Day – click to enlarge.

Today on April 9 The Nature Trail Committee had its annual Wildflower Day to welcome spring and “open” the Nature Trail for the season.  The rain thankfully held off, and we had well over 100 people in attendance, although only 97 signed in.  Besides walking the Trail, we also showed videos of the Trail, the Trees of Charlestown, and Herbert Run.  The latter video was shown for the first time, having just been completed last month.  Wildflower Day also had exhibits on the Butterfly Garden, ferns, birds, the Monarch butterfly, the covered bridge, and various items of local biological and historical interest on campus.  We also had two raffles for prizes and a great assortment of homemade cookies for participants.

Mother Nature tried to play one of her tricks on us at the last minute.  We always make sure that the Trail is pretty and in good walkable shape before Wildflower Day.  Last night a large tree fell across the stream, and blocked the Trail, but the Grounds crew was out early and they cut and cleared the branches before the official Trail Walk, in which about a dozen people participated.  Several species of wildflowers were poking their early spring heads through the green carpet of invasive Lesser Celandine.  Our special thanks to Bonnie Kawecki for leading her first Trail Walk.

The Nature Trail Committee is beginning to stir, casting off winter’s cloak and getting ready for spring. We are now planning for our 20th Wildflower Day celebration on April 9. Nature Trail Committee members will do a clean-up of the Trail in March in preparation for the Day. Members clean up their assigned sections of the Trail, clearing downed branches, smoothing the wood chips, and removing leaves from the wildflower areas alongside the Trail. Wildflower Day is timed to not only “officially” open the Trail after winter, but it also coincides with the first wildflowers coming into bloom along the Trail. Actually, the first wildflowers typically are the little yellow blossoms of the Lesser Celandine plants, which carpet eastern stream and river valleys in early spring with green. The green and yellow carpet is pretty, but the plant is non-native and very invasive, suppressing other spring plants.  There is little we can do about the Celandine short of massive chemical spraying, which would wipe out the other plants also. So we have to put up with it.

There are two other projects in development to look forward to which are associated with the Nature Trail and the Lake Trail. One is a narrated video about Herbert Run, our stream through campus which flows alongside the Nature Trail. Residents George Miller, George Brenneman, and Bert Clegern are developing the video, which will show and describe our 5.5 mile East Branch of Herbert Run as it begins near the adjacent Veterans’ Cemetery, flows through campus and Arbutus, and eventually joins the Patapsco River, which is the main input to Baltimore Harbor.

The second project is the Old Stone Bridge Trail, which will be a short loop trail off the Lake Trail below the dam which forms Lake Charles. Most residents aren’t aware of the bridge, because it if not visible from the Lake Trail, even in winter, and most folks don’t venture down into the woods below the dam. The 1906 bridge will now be accessible via the foot trail, which is currently being completed. The bridge was for a lane which ran from the old East Entrance when St. Charles Seminary property extended to Wilkins Road.