Celebrate National Trails Day with the Woodstock School Crew’s end-of-year presentations and Woodstock’s Trek To Taste event. Festivities take place Saturday, June 5 at the Marsh-Billings-Rockefeller National Historical Park. The School crew will lead hikes, host games, and share reflections from the semester’s work-based learning projects. Afterward, join the Trek to Taste event and explore Woodstock’s beautiful trail network while snacking on local farm-fresh treats placed at strategic “pit stops” throughout the trails! For more information, see http://www.walkwoodstock.com.

This month, we are starting a new and recurring section of the VYCC Enews. “On The Land” will be a forum to describe the activities and initiatives on our 400-acre property. We have lots of exciting things happening here, all directed at meeting our broad goals for our land, including stewarding the land sustainably, developing an effective outdoor classroom, and using the land as a valuable community resource.

This month, we started a partnership with Camels Hump Middle School (CHMS) to monitor reptiles and amphibians on our property. Our first step was hosting a training led by the Vermont State Herpetologist and Director of the Vermont Reptile and Amphibian Atlas, Jim Andrews. Jim trained over 30 CHMS teachers and parents, as well as VYCC staff and instructors, on the identification and ecology of frogs, salamanders and snakes that we are likely to find on our land. Jim also discussed how to construct monitoring stations (called cover boards) for snakes and amphibians. This week, 80 students from CHMS visited our property and constructed 15 cover boards for amphibians and 10 for snakes. More students will be visiting next week to construct an additional 5 stations for amphibians and 30 or more for snakes.

If you would like a map showing the locations of VYCC monitoring stations, contact our Land Stewardship Specialist, Bradley Materick and he will send you a copy. This partnership represents a perfect example of the use of our land as an effective outdoor classroom and a valuable community resource, and we want to thank Jim Andrews and the teachers at CHMS who have helped get this project of the ground!

The Woodstock School Crew is building upon a strong foundation of partnership with Marsh Billings Rockefeller National Historic Park by adding the Vermont Land Trust’s King Farm and Woodstock Union High School to the mix. This crew of five males, freshmen thru senior, is solo-led by Kevin Chap, Community Crew Leader, ’08. The crew focused their first quarter of work on building their community through construction of a 30’ x 6’ stone turnpike, designed to elevate trail tread above a perpetually wet drainage on the One Less Traveled Trail within the park. They are now setting their sights on designing a work-plan for the park’s new Stewardship Trail. The Corps Members are all resident experts on animal tracking, anything related to hunting, and many features of trail design and drainage. They will be hosting a Solstice celebration in collaboration with WUHS’ Agriculture and Earth Beat clubs as well as the Farm to School Committee. The crew hopes to team with Farm to School to establish a garden in the spring that will feed students in the cafeteria next year.

Our Mount Mansfield Union and Champlain Valley Union year round school crews are very close to completing a large project on the West Monitor Barn property that began this past summer. The final steps in the construction of an on-site composting toilet are almost complete. The structure is designed to serve the eight lean-tos on the Monitor Barns property which are frequently used by our Crew Leaders & Corps Members during trainings or when they are working on projects in the area. The toilet will also be available for hunters and others from the general public using the land.

The VYCC Champlain Valley Union High School (CVU) Crew has been hard at work this fall. The crew’s start date was September 3rd, and they have taken part in some exciting projects around the local area.

So far they have:

-Participated in watershed conservation projects with the Montpelier Parks and Conservation Commission
-Completed a trail clearing project on local nordic ski trails
-Worked on land stewardship projects here at the VYCC West Monitor Barn campus, which included sumac removal by the East Monitor Barn and cover crop planting in the garden

These students have also helped Maple Wind Farm harvest vegetables. Maple Wind Farm has been a strong educational partner of VYCC’s. VYCC swaps work on the farm for time on their ropes course, use of their farm equipment, and their advice for productive vegetable growing. It is a wonderful partnership!

As for the rest of October and November, they will be continuing land stewardship work at the VYCC, beginning with the VYCC Trail System and specifically the trail past the lean-tos. Their main focus will be drainage and erosion control, as water needs to be successfully guided off the trail, and drainage dips need to installed.

To learn more about the fantastic CVU School Instructors, Hillary and Matthew, click here.

School is in session for our VermontFutures School Program Crews! The VYCC is now operating five school crews throughout Vermont. Partnerships with local schools include The Center for Technology – Essex, Mount Mansfield Union High School, Lamoille Union High School, Woodstock Union High School, and Champlain Valley Union High School. Over 50 high school students from around the state will be participating in the School Program this year completing projects in agriculture and natural resources in and around their home communities.

Visit the School Crew Leaders webpage and learn more about the amazing people leading these crews!