From pulling garlic mustard in the Wet Prairie on the Paint Creek Trail to clearing invasive shrubs throughout Bear Creek Nature Park, volunteer workdays have been a consistently fun and challenging experience for everyone who attends, including myself. As a seasonal land stewardship technician for Oakland Township, I have had the pleasure of learning so much about what it takes to maintain our natural areas, and our volunteers play a very big role in helping us to do so. That being said, I wanted to write a blog post to express my gratitude for the volunteers’ hard work and highlight some of the wonderful things we have completed during my time here.

The very first workday I had experienced was in May with some of our colleagues from Six Rivers Land Conservancy and a few middle-schoolers from Birch Grove University Prep Montessori. Of course, being the month of May, we had one job for everyone – pull and bag as much garlic mustard as humanly possible. The Paint Creek Heritage Area – Wet Prairie was absolutely riddled with the invasive plant. So, Grant, Matthew, Bianca, and I took the school kids with their chaperones to the worst section we knew of, a bit selfishly, hoping to make our workload lighter when we would inevitably have to return to finish pulling. We split the kids into pairs, each having one of us stewards to assist, and created a challenge for them to see who could pick the most garlic mustard by weight during the allocated time. Let’s just say things got pretty competitive… This awesome group of kids and adults picked over 600 pounds of garlic mustard – that weighs as much as grizzly bear! What would have taken the crew and I days to complete was finished in less than three hours.

Following the first workday, we had a few faithful volunteers help us to round out the garlic mustard pulling season in a few areas where we needed a helping hand. As we transitioned into the scorching month of July, volunteer workdays focused on invasive shrub removal, with glossy buckthorn and autumn olive being the stars of the show. Bear Creek Nature Park was our home base for Wednesday workdays. Familiar faces (George, Jon, Aaron, and David) arrived week after week ready each morning to put in some hard work. These guys became a reliable and much needed support for our efforts and often helped in guiding some of our newer volunteers to complete the work. Just as notable were two younger gentlemen, Alex and Trevor, who became just as faithful to these workdays as the regulars – thank you guys!

New faces also joined in on the fun! Yes, I do mean fun, because even with the physical labor and mosquitoes as part of the deal, the people we get to work with make it all worthwhile – well, that and maybe the snacks. Some of the newcomers included a few brave National Honor Society members from Stoney Creek High School and a group of Alex’s colleagues from DTE who were willing to come help out. They all helped to carefully cut and neatly pile heaps of invasive shrubs that had completely walled off the view of a wonderful wetland in Bear Creek Nature Park. With Grant on the brushcutter and volunteers on loppers and handsaws, Matthew, Bianca, and I followed along with kill-sticks (herbicide applicators) to treat the stump, hopefully ensuring the pesky shrubs will not return.

Good work with good people – that is what these volunteer days are all about. The community of Oakland Township area is strong and passionate about natural areas, and I am lucky enough to have experienced it firsthand. It has been a pleasure getting to know and work alongside our fantastic volunteers, and I am grateful for the knowledge and experiences they have shared with me. So, once again, I say thank you to anyone who has come out to help around the parks we love so dearly!

If you’re interested in learning more about volunteer workdays, keep an eye out for updates on our site volunteer calendar here, or check out the fall newsletter (pg. 17 has details about events, dates, and times). More volunteer opportunities are right now fall invasive shrub workdays, seed-collecting, and seed-cleaning. All workdays are on Tuesdays this fall. If you have any questions, please reach out to Ben VanderWeide (bvanderweide@oaklandtownship.org) or Grant Vanderlaan (gvanderlaan@oaklandtownship.org).