Last weekend I finally got to try something I’ve been wanting to do for some time, restoration work in the Great Marsh at the Indiana Dunes National Park. There have always been opportunities for park volunteers to help out with restoration work, but usually on weekdays when I have to work. So when saw an opportunity to help plant native sedges in the marsh on a Saturday I immediately signed up. I mean I mean who in their right mind would pass up the chance to lug 10 pound buckets of plant plugs into a marsh, through ankle to upper calf deep mud and water, with the frogs snakes and crawdads. Not me!
The image above shows the GPS track of my work in an area of the marsh that is in the early stages of restoration. Along with about 15 other volunteers and park employees I helped to plant 2,500 native sedge plugs which had been grown from seeds harvested in the park the previous year.
The day before we arrived on site, park resource management had pre-positioned 50 five gallon buckets, each containing 50 plugs. The buckets were arrayed in groups spread over maybe 10 acres of the marsh. A clump of prepositioned buckets, some already empty, and a sled containing park provided tools and gloves. After receiving instructions from the park crew on how to properly plant the plugs in the marsh, you simply grabbed a couple buckets, picked a direction and waded out into marsh to begin planting.Here we see one of my buckets next to my planting tool and a freshly planted sedge plant. The procedure was to scoop out a hole deep enough to hold the plug, push it in as deeply and firmly as you could, then pinch the surrounding muck back over the plug to hold it in place. Sometimes the water was deep enough that the entire plant was submerged which meant you were working with your hands submerged in 40ish degree water. Here is a diagonal line of freshly planted plugs. Note that the areas covered by a mat of grasses are not as solid and dry as they appear to be. The grass mat rests atop several inches of watery mud and frequently gives way when you step on it.Of course being a marsh we encountered plenty of wildlife.A crawdad carrying its eggs on the underside of its tail.All in all it was a thoroughly fun and rewarding outing.
To the casual observer the Great Marsh at the Indiana Dunes does not look much different from winter. But if you look close, you can see the beginnings of Spring emerging here and there. And if you stand still, quietly looking and listening… you can almost sense the impending spring bloom ticking… soon, very soon, there will be an explosion of colors all over the marsh. On this day, you could feel it.
(Click on any picture to see it full size.)
It had rained the night before I hit this trail. I always look for mosses here, they respond so quickly to the moisture and the way they hold on to the water is always fascinating.The hairy edged leaves of emergent Lupine hold the water in the form of beautiful droplets.Pussy Willow blossoms add small touches of intense color to the largely muted pallet of early spring down in the marsh.Earlier in the year I watched a controlled burn being conducted in this part of the marsh. Now we see the first vibrant shoots of green and orange rising from the burn.This particular area reminded me of “leafy greens” you buy at the grocery store.Not everything green is soft and inviting. These things are every bit as nasty as they look, trust me on this.Earth Star fungi are as beautiful as they are odd. This one has already released its spores and has disconnected from the rest of the fungus.
