text: Attendees: Jerry Uhrig, Phil Notestine, Josh Bingham, and Cliff Miles
  1. Deer: The County Park System is having a deer hunt in all the county parks this year. The hunt in the Tourne will be held on Tuesdays in January through to the first Tuesday in February. It will be held for a full day this year. Last year the hunts were half day. The park will be closed during the hunt. Also, a new resident in town expressed interest in bow hunting since he had seen a number of large deer. Phil will contact him and put him in touch with UBNJ.
  2. Deer exclosures: Josh, Cliff, Phil, and a number of Boy Scouts will erect the second deer exclosure this Saturday, the 20th.
  3. Beavers: Jerry reported that the beavers are showing signs of continued activity. The new dam is being maintained very well, and they have begun to take down more trees. A moderate sized oak was chewed nearly through though still standing. Curiously, the large beech tree that they girdled last year did leaf out this year. The opinion is that the tree will eventually die in a couple more seasons.
  4. Trees: We got word from the Shade Tree Commission that they will try to get plastic sleeves to protect the trees currently being protected with re-bars. In the meantime, we will leave the re-bars until sometime in December, past the end of the buck rub season.
  Invasives removal projects
  We will have another Invasives Control Work session this Saturday in Wilcox Park. We will be working on burning bush or winged euonymous. Unfortunately, it has not yet turned its fall bright red color from which it gets its common name. But we will work on it anyway.
  Next month, we will work in Halsey Fredericks Park to apply herbicide to the large areas of garlic mustard.
  Stiltgrass: We discussed a bulletin which was distributed recently by The Nature Conservancy. It was a compilation of all the known research and practice on stiltgrass control. It is not easily controlled. Three herbicides that are used are Plateau, RoundUp, and Rodeo. Rodeo is needed for wetland sites. RoundUp is generally effective but you get a lot of other plants killed as well. Plateau is more selective but it still kills other grasses. Stiltgrass can be mowed in late summer before it goes to seed. Small amounts should be pulled.
  Jerry was contacted by Mary Lou DeCaprio and invited to speak to a group of middle school students who are looking for service projects. The talk is scheduled for November 15. Jerry invited Ms. DeCaprio and her students to join in the Woodlands activities this weekend.