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April 2017

March 2017

Nifty Record Story on Helium Balloon Trash

1-IMG_0300When I walk around the Celery Farm and other natural areas, I am accustomed to picking up dead helium balloons -- especially after graduations and other events.

Sometimes they are in the water or in trees and thus out of reach, but anyway you cut it, they are litter, and folks who release them into the atmosphere are essentially long-distance litterers.

The photo above is from just after Valentine's Day. The balloon is in the middle of Lake Appert, making it nearly impossible to retrieve, especially this time of year. I saw others in a nearby tree.

The Record's Scott Fallon has an excellent article on a few Shore communities' efforts  to curtail this thoughtless practice. Hopefully, North Jersey communities will follow their lead.

The link is here.

 


Celery Farm Cleanup Is Saturday

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The annual Celery Farm cleanup is this Saturday, April 1, and that's no joke.

We'll meet at 9 a.m. at the end of Green Way for a few hours of active conservation. We hope you will join us to spruce up the preserve. Many hands make light work! Marsh Warden Mike Limatola is the Coordinator, 201-739-8062 or [email protected]. Rain date is April 2, 2017.

The Fyke Nature Association and the Fell House have created a new volunteer group, the Friends of the Celery Farm & Fell House.

We need volunteers to pitch in at this Saturday's cleanup, guided walks and other events, so we created an e-mail list so we can let folks know when we need their help -- and when we hDSCN0004ave cool events, like upcoming talks on the Celery Farm and the  historic John Fell House.

The group is free to join. 

For example, the annual Celery Farm cleanup is Saturday, April 1 (no joke!) at 9 a.m., and we'd love some help picking up litter and doing some light trail work that morning.

The Fell House, meanwhile, is sponsoring a free reenactment of John Fell's arrest by local Loyalists (boo, hiss!) -- it's scheduled for Sunday, April 23.

Fyke hopes to have a monthly work morning at the Celery Farm to remove Garlic Mustard and other nasty invasives.

The Fell House and the Celery Farm have been connected ever since Founding Father John Fell owned the property that contained both. The Fell House, with its beautiful barn, is located across Franklin Turnpike from the Celery Farm in Allendale.

On old maps, by the way, the Celery Farm area is labeled "Fell's Meadows."

Just email [email protected] to sign up for the e-mails.


Monday Morning Mystery Answered

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Last week's mystery was brought to you by Eric and Deb Endresen. Eric took the photos. Deb wrote:

Eric took these pix in the woods in northeast PA earlier this winter.
 
He said that the tree was long dead, so he didn't suspect sap. He thought it was just frozen water that had turned color from the wood itself.  I asked readers what they thought.  Best answer (and only answer) came from Joanne:
 
"It's dead tree drippings...a bacterial wetwood disease (also known as slim)...can emit an awful smell....occurs mostly on maples, poplars, oaks and birches. Saw this many years ago on a neighbor's tree and researched it."  (Thanks, all!)