Meet the white tuburculed crayfish, a popular native. — Meet the white tuburculed crayfish, a popular native.

Counting Crawdads in the Creek

How many kinds of crayfish live in the creek? Nobody seems to know for sure. The numbers will help measure the health of the watershed. So Tamara Johnson, an Atlanta-born scientist with the US Fish and Wildlife Service, is planning a multi-year project to find how many of what species, better known as mudbugs or crawdads, are really at Home On the Creek.

US Fish & Wildlife's Tamara Johnson, right,  and students from metro Atlanta colleges explore best sites to survey native crawfish populations in the South Fork. — US Fish & Wildlife's Tamara Johnson, right, and students from metro Atlanta colleges explore best sites to survey native crawfish populations in the South Fork.

Morningside Elementary Hosts South Fork

Tom Tomaka and Diane Ryu took science to the third graders at Morningside Elementary School on May 6 during EarthWeek.

Where does the playground water flow? Into the South Fork, these students learned.

Here's a nice thanks from Beth, the mom who organized it.

Thank you so much (and to your colleagues!) for your wonderful engagement with our MES third graders today! I was delighted to see the kids' interest and curiosity (I heard one boy say to his teacher, 'this is so cool!') and we really appreciate your willingness to share your time and your knowledge with them. Hopefully they left school today with a bit more awareness of the importance and function of their own local watershed, and maybe we even encouraged a future scientist! Thanks again for your time and enthusiasm!

Atlanta workers keep trail in trim

Look at that short clean grass emerging along the new Cheshire Farm Trail. Notice absence of Kudzu on fancy fence? This is Atlanta Parks Dept. doing. Thanks Doug Voss, Tucker Hutmacher and friends at City Hall.

Clipping the trail in their own office backyard

Thanks, Heather Gartner, Laura Page, Leo Keber and Shreyansh Chandra. — Thanks, Heather Gartner, Laura Page, Leo Keber and Shreyansh Chandra.

Four Zonolite grownups who normally design containment bio-labs and hospitals for the business named WSP, formerly Smith Carter took a green break, trimmed up the trails behind their studio at Zonolite. When you see them on the better groomed trails, thank them for keeping the trail clear and the bio-genie in the bottle.

Who is taking the Dog Gone Notes?

Or, Did the Dog Eat your Homework Again?

Rich Sussman tells a class of UGA Environment and Design students what it took to build the Cedar Chase and Confluence Trails. Professor Stephen Ramos, in white beret, brought the class to see how neighbors built backyard conservation and access to greenspace projects.

Five Percent Day at Whole Foods = Big $$$$

Five Percent Day for South Fork at Whole Foods? You Bet!

What a Whole Foods Fine Time! South Fork's Diane Ryu, left, and board member Ruthie Taylor Norton greeted hundreds of Whole Foods shoppers with news of the new trails close to the community.

Barb Tucker, left, and Martha Porter Hall, laughing, share maps and trail guides with a Whole Foods mom and two children ready for a nature walk.

Milkweed For Monarchs moves to Meadow

Dorothy Sussman knows her way around the Love Your Block grant world. But she wondered if new oversight of Love Your Block by the Community Foundation may not appreciate her latest butterfly project. She didn't need to worry. She and her Lindridge Martin Manor Committee sought... and won! A thousand dollar grant to install milkweed, the host plant required to restore Monarch Butterflies to Atlanta. The neighbors are matching every penny with donated labor and South Fork's loan of Tool Bank Tools. Bring on the Butterflies!

Jack Funderburk chomps down on kudzu roots making way for milkweed. How many mattocks does it take to move mulch for milkweed? Many Many Many.

Chestnuts Cropping up on the Roadside

Whole Foods Briarcliff green team volunteers learned of our projects & wanted to help plant American chestnut trees along the Confluence Trail.

Left to right, Charity Francis, Paris Cole and Mark Lawrence.

Signs help more find the way

We're editing new panels for sign posts for the Confluence Trails. Rules signs can encourage or dismay trail users. The best language and pictures mean good times on public trails.

Paige Singer, DeKalb County Parks Project Manager personally fitted the new panel to the Zonolite trailhead.

Girl Scouts put up cookie money to support the South Fork's Trail work.

Atlanta Girl Scouts shared their cookie money to support our trails along the creek. $200! That is a lot of thin mints. Thanks to Judy Adler and her daughter's troop at Garden Hills Elementary School.