WISH WE HAD A TRACTOR!
That’s what we thought as we looked at the huge load of Christmas trees piled up at the side of Rodney Fox’s barn on River Road, Cayuga. Our son, Brian had picked up the load from Kent Rundle at the Mountsberg Quarry near his home. Now we had to consider dragging them about a mile down the rail trail to the Indiana Blue spring site, where they would be an integral part of the project to scour the sediment below the spring at our trout-spawning channel. It would be a time consuming job for our eight determined volunteers.
As we gathered at 9AM Saturday the 19th to sign in the insurance/photo permission forms, who should drop by in his BIG shiny tractor, but the new owner of part of Rodney’s farm, Greg Deckers. He had a 1,000 lb roll of hay in the bucket, as he asked us what we were doing. After we had given him a short rundown about what we have accomplished, he asked: "What can I do to help?" How about moving those Christmas trees down to the "crick" was our bucolic reply, to which he said "Done". That was it job done.
With a major time consuming problem solved in a few seconds, we had again experienced the Haldimand County phenomenon; everyone we meet is anxious to contribute in any way they can. The support we get is simply amazing and more than we could expect.
As for amazing, our relatively new Chapter member Ken Long, had his first look at the project and repeated "Amazing". Enthusiasm turns into energy and Ken was as involved as our most experienced crew members. As a result, we completed the fascine/christmas tree combo installation so quickly we had time and materials to spare. Erin Fraser suggested we tackle an erosion problem on the main stream. This too was quickly done, providing bank stabilization.
Still with energy to burn, we placed the balance of the trees into the upper spring flow, to be staked in place later. We now have planned to plant shade-providing "Swamp oaks" on the south banks of his flow to reduce the algae formations caused by phosphorus and sunlight. We are putting this algae factory out of commission, we hope.
We all left at noon with a sense of satisfaction, knowing we had made another step towards a self-sustaining brook trout population in this badly inured stream. We hope you will take the time to explore this outstanding stream undertaking. You will meet some remarkable new friends.
Bill Christmas
This activity makes me proud to be a Ted Knott Chapter of Trout Unlimited Canada member & is why our fund raising activities need to keep up with the work day and project plans.
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