“Animal Olympics” Activity Added to Cheshire Farm Trail in Atlanta

An unlikely parade of animals is set to entertain, educate and exercise children of all ages on a creekside trail in the heart of Atlanta.

The ANIMAL OLYMPICS is an activity kids will find on the Cheshire Farm Trail, which runs between Lindbergh and Cheshire Bridge Roads in Atlanta. The new signs are illustrated with fun facts, and encourage passers to be active and creative by imitating the actions of animals. 

"We love this new way to encourage children of all ages to get outside and have some fun learning their animal neighbors," says Bob Kerr, Chairman of the South Fork Conservancy Board.

Left to right, Kevin Lowry, US Fish and Wildlife Service; Mike Fynn, VP Operations, Greening Youth Foundation; Bob Kerr, Chair, South Fork Conservancy; Angelou Ezeilo, CEO and Founder, Greening Youth Foundation; Sally Sears, South Fork Conservancy.

"With our partners at the US Fish and Wildlife Service, we are making the new trail built by the Georgia Department of Transportation a great place for people to walk, explore and rediscover the beauty of Georgia's creeks inside the city."

Georgia DOT Board Member Stacey Key agrees. 

"Just about everybody wants a chance to get outside and enjoy nature, plus exercise and maybe learn something about the wildlife around us. This project stimulates so many good ideas. I'm happy to support these important concepts of  wellness and diversity education in such a fun way."

The signs are in English and Spanish, and feature ten different animals and insects native to the creeks around Atlanta. 

"I particularly like the Great Blue Heron sign," says Angelou Ezeilo, Founder & CEO of Greening Youth Foundation, a diversity leader in outdoor career placement. "Working with the US Fish and Wildlife Service helps to embrace the very highest standards of wildlife awareness. They know how to make wildlife important and attractive, particularly for urban neighbors who are hungry to re-connect to the outdoors around them."

The sturdy, weather-resistant signs are at home on the new trail, named Cheshire Farm to remember original settlers to the area. It runs beside the creek for half a mile between Cheshire Bridge Road and Lindbergh Drive. Already popular with neighbors, the trail is an early part of the South Fork Conservancy's plan to connect to the BeltLine and the PATH400 trails and up the South Fork of Peachtree Creek to Emory University.  

Parking is available on the Lindbergh Drive end of the trail along Armand  and Lindridge Drives. For more information, visit the South Fork Conservancy website at www.southforkconservancy.org.  

Headwater Highlights, July, 2015

Can't Talk. 2 Busy Hydrating!

IT'S HOT! Watch the weeds grow.

Every Monday this long hot summer volunteers bring fun and a keen eye to conditions along the hot Meadow Loop Trail south of Lindbergh Drive. 

Today the Johnson grass was out of control. We tugged out the high blades between the shorter milkweed and were rewarded with a few butterflies. Hot, wet and glorious work. I'd tell you more but I'm hydrating!  -- Sally Sears

Meanwhile Facebook friend Michael Williams reminds us the Monarch Butterflies will be thick on their migration route over Atlanta very soon. Our milkweed should be ready.

Monarch Butterflies require milkweed for laying eggs. Photo by NatGeo. 

Late summer (late Aug/mid Sept) monarch butterflies migrate from USA down to Mexico...passing right over Atlanta. This spot should be very active with them during that time. - Michael Williams

South Fork & Partners Win Prestigious Grant 

The National Fish and Wildlife Foundation (NFWF) announced July 22 that 64 community-led wetland, stream and coastal restoration projects across the nation have been awarded more than $2.3 million in grants. In addition, the grantees have committed an additional $4.8 million in local project support, creating a total investment of more than $7 million in projects that will restore wildlife habitat and urban waters and will engage thousands of volunteers, students and local residents in community-based environmental stewardship projects.

South Fork Board Chairman Bob Kerr acknowledged the importance of the two-year $28,900 grant and thanked the Five Star leaders funding the work. 

"We appreciate every supporter helping this critical work. The Southern Company, EPA, the US Forest Service, the US Fish and Wildlife Service,  FedEx, Alcoa Foundation, and Pacific Gas and Electric Company."

The South Fork Conservancy will partner with Park Pride, Trees Atlanta, the Atlanta Audubon Society, Atlanta Botanical Garden, the Georgia Aquarium, and the US Fish and Wildlife Service to promote community education and recreational enjoyment of the urban watershed. The partnership will bring scientists and trained volunteers together to establish protocols for monitoring and recording population data on birds, fish, frogs and invertebrates at the Confluence. The data will be shared through newsletters, field trips, and school and youth group activities, increasing awareness and support for conservation and improved biodiversity along the creek.

The Grit of Young Professionals

Four of a dozen volunteers organized a Young Leadership Council to help guide work along the South Fork and the Olmsted Linear Park. 

Nathan Shannon and Ian Karra share a hike with  Druid Hills High School alumns Allie Brown and Katie Bleau. Join them with regular hikes & events. See calendar here. 

So, What's in YOUR pocket?

I'm washing my jeans after a day working with volunteers along the South Fork Trails.
And when I clean out the lint trap, ouch! Something sticks into my finger.

Sucking out the thorn, I examine a truly astonishing variety of stuff fluffed into the dryer lint. Flower seed heads, slivers of vine bark and a crunchy plastic wrapper from a strawberry cigarillo.

I remembered putting the cigar wrapper in my pocket when we overflowed our trash sacks picking up litter along the trail. For new volunteers, it's an eye opener, seeing the traces of the people who are learning to love the trail. 

Today, nine months after the Cheshire Farm trail opened, the litter is mostly beer cans, some fast food wrappers, and light weight paper blown down from the Georgia 400 ramp high over head.
The leaf litter is something else. Every Monday morning since June began, we are clearing the meadow downstream of Lindbergh.

Every day makes the opening more inviting.

On the first Monday, the neighbors in Lindridge Martin Manor came to weed the weed garden. (Love that idea.Weed the Weeds.) Together they won a fat grant from Atlanta's Love Your Block program, and spent it on critical milkweed, the host plant required to entice monarch butterflies to return. Now we get to keep the kudzu and honeysuckle from eating the new milkweed plants. 
On the second Monday, Whole Foods Briarcliff led by manager Marisol Maldonado poured and Mark Lawrence raked mulch to define the walking trails around the oval.
The third Monday Georgia Conservancy brought Johanna McCrehan and Monica Thornton plus a half dozen other people to yank vines. 

Two blue herons flew above us as we worked.

Johanna McCreahan & Leah Barnett make Ga. Conservancy greener.

The fourth Monday belonged to Boy Scout Kai Mehra, his mom Lisa Ohno and neighborhood president Carey Sherrell. Barb Tucker led the vine pulling from trees bowed over with the weight of seasons of invasive vine growth.
Every week I worry we will need to borrow the watering pump and hose offered by Park Pride. Every week I wonder where we'll get the extra volunteer in case we need it to get the hose to the creek, the gas in the pump, and the heavy lifting to move it around to our baby plantings. 
On Saturday or Sunday, when it rains, I breathe relief. We will need to water one day. But not this Monday. 
July is seething hot. August is always a challenge. But then there's September, and the gorgeous October in Atlanta is in view. 
We are building a nest of committed volunteers caring for the creek and the trail. Maybe not so much the strawberry cigarillos.

--- Sally Sears

Who is Home at the Confluence?

Tamara Johnson is finding all kinds of surprising wildlife in the creek. She's an Atlanta born scientist with the US Fish & Wildlife Service. Monthly, she and science students including Gabby Griffin are researching which species and how many are able to thrive in the urban waters.

Long-neglected urban waterways like the South and North Forks of Peachtree Creek are often assumed to be lifeless. But new interest by biologists looking at restoring city creeks means Tamara's work has important potential. Sampling and documenting what wildlife is already here will offer a base line of populations to against which progress in restoring more life can be measured.

This white tuberculed crayfish seems happy and healthy.

What's Next?

Thanks for generous volunteers supporting the South Fork trails this summer.  We are planning regular workdays every Monday , 9 a.m. to N oon,  now through the growing season in October.

It's exciting to see so many people helping crate a new urban meadow for pollinating birds and bees along the creek at Lindbergh.  

The jobs include mulching, trimming tree branches, pulling vines, installing signs and other light-and medium-weight tasks. 

Neighbors in the Lindridge Martin Manor Association agreed to volunteer on the first Monday of every month.

Whole Foods Briarcliff is already engaged for the second Mondays.

The Georgia Conservancy volunteers will be up to their elbows on the third Mondays.

The Fourth Mondays and the two fifth Mondays will see other neighborhoods and organizations working hard to keep the trails attractive, walkable and sustained.  

See the pics on our South Fork Facebook page. Join us and let us put your picture there, too!

Headwater Highlights, June, 2015

Milkweeds, Meadows, Mulch Ado with Volunteers

The Gift of a Meadow

Girl Scouts and Great Neighbors! - with Dorothy Sussman, John Burger, Kate Koch Presley, Scott Presley, Scott Webb and Kerry Tate

You helped us keep the neighborhood's dream of milkweed alive and growing. The early milkweed planters put in the dirt-churning tasks of scraping away kudzu and brambles to find a home for humble weeds. Humble weeds that feed birds and bees!  Without Milkweed, no monarch butterfly families can take wing. It's a critical host plant. Milkweed populations around the country are in decline. This will help restore the meadow and the butterflies.

Your work on May 16th outlined the trails to enjoy the meadow, and roped off the 915 square foot garden plot for concentrated attention to pollinator habitat.  The White House is pushing the idea to improve honeybee homes, too.  read here.

As we work every Monday morning through the summer until the end of the growing season in October, we will train and entertain enthusiastic volunteers. Our jobs will begin with appreciating what is before us: open public space, with trees to nurture, undergrowth to control, birds to identify and a creek to enjoy.

Location: MEADOW LOOP TRAIL,  860 Lindbergh Drive, Atlanta
30324 

Much Ado about Mulch!

The Home Depot Buckhead is killing us with generosity. Four (count em!) Four! Pallets of bright mulch will curve the trail at the Meadow around the edge to the Milkweed Meadow made ready for Monarchs by the crowd above. Hooray for every lovin' bag totin' volunteer who put the M In Mulch!

And yea for Home Depot's Orange Trail taking us all back into the Meadow.

Whole Foods Briarcliff Delivers! 

Thanks Jasyn, Earl, Deshawn, Matt, Marisol and Mike. We loved the red buds you planted at the trailhead circle, and the rope line around the milkweed. We'll see you again on second Mondays, through the growing season!

Reading this on Monday morning?

Paul & Tiffany gave thumbs ups to the Saturday trail mulching with Tucker and Oscar on their leashes. Glad to get another Lindridge neighbor approval.

Volunteers are working right now to keep and maintain the trails along the creek. Each Monday in the months from now through the growing season, volunteers from across Atlanta are helping us build the Meadow Loop trail, maintain the Cheshire Farm trail and support the years' long efforts of Bob Scott and Wayne Owen on the Cedar Chase and Confluence trails.

The new commitment from neighbors and trail supporters means you can count on seeing progress all summer. And you can join us. Just pick a Monday morning, and send an email to Sally@southforkconservancy.org.  

South Fork Featured on WABE's A Closer Look

Hosts Denis O’Hayer and Rose Scott

South Fork Friends at WABE gave us a wonderful boost on A Closer Look, the popular noon show with Dennis O'Hayer and Rose Scott. cough cough who looked a lot like Jim Burris when I was on the air. They knew where the creek is, and how precious it is to the people who are finding it.

Zonolite Park Trailhead gets a yes from the Commish

DeKalb County Commissioner Kathie Gannon with the South Fork's Sally Sears

DeKalb County Super Commissioner Kathie Gannon brought friends, enthusiasm and bug spray for a June trip walking all the developed trails. She liked the new Zonolite Park and approved of the distinctive trail signs. 

DeKalb County's Parks & Recreation Department's Dave Butler is making real the dream of a community garden on the once-contaminated county land.  More pictures on her Facebook page, linked here.