April 13, 2002
 
 

Description:

Currently along the Hank Aaron trail there is a quarter mile stretch along the east parking lot of Miller Park where there is nothing but bare, rough graded ground, which allows for erosion as well as no sight and safety barrier. The DNR is currently planning to take down the chain link fence that runs along the riverbank that provides the buffer from the long drop. With this missing a new barrier is needed for safety reasons and a wall of bushes and trees will provide a safe and beautiful boundary.

The DNR will provide me with the tree saplings and shrubs that will be needed in order to accomplish my project. They will also be providing an assortment of tools, but I will tell the volunteers to bring work gloves as well as the appropriate clothing needed to do the job. I will be responsible for gathering 30-50 volunteers who will mostly be recruited from my troop and my school's National Honor Society.

A few possible safety hazards are falling from the riverbank, overheating, dehydration, and blisters, which many are dependent on the weather conditions. In order to help prevent much of these hazards I will thoroughly instruct my crew on the safety concerns as well as provide them with a lunch and water throughout the day.

Changes:

When we arrived I had ten more volunteers then I expected and a lot more tools as well. This allowed us to do a lot more work then we initially planned. We were originally supposed to plant trees and bushes along the river as our only goal. When we arrived we had a slight change in plans. For the first 2 hours of the morning we cleared out the tree line and prepared the soil along the river edge for planting. The reason that we didn't just plant was because the trees couldn't be delivered on time and there was a crew coming next week to plant the rest. So they felt it would be beneficial to prepare the soil for the volunteer group that was coming next week. Once this was done we had two crews planting the trees we had and two crews mulching the entire area. We also leveled off some land away from the designated area in order to place a sign for the bike path. Once we finished mulching and planting we had to water all the trees by hauling buckets up from the river. This was the final step in the day's work.
 

Photographs
 

This is a picture of most of the crew before we started on the days work.
 

This is a picture of one of the crews leveling off the river edge so that we can plant the trees.
 
 

This picture shows the workers clearing out all of the cut down trees and shrubs out of the woods.
 

Jon Zapf is working hard to gather all the large rocks and junk out of the woods so that the soil is ready to be planted on.
 
 

This picture is of Mr. Read and his son Ian unloading mulch from the truck.
 
 

Mrs. Burg and Mrs. Behm are standing under the dining fly waiting to prepare lunch for all the workers.
 
 

Here's the crew taking a break and eating lunch so that they have the energy to finish the days work.
 
 

Mr. Carus and Mr. Haunfelder are working hard to level off the ground.
 
 

Greg Behm is shown here watering one of the many trees that we planted.
 
 

Here is a picture of me holding onto one of the trees in a finished area.