First CITO

Your mission, should you choose to accept it...

Yesterday I attended my first CITO event--cache in, trash out. A local geocacher coordinated with the group Alachua County Forever to have a workday clearing out invasive species from the Sweetwater Preserve.

It was kind of amusing that we were working to undo what humans have been working to achieve for thousands of years. The sandy soil was being turned into richer soil due to the detritus from the oak trees that have invaded the sandhill. This was ruining the habitat for animals like the gopher tortoise who rely on burrowing into the soil. The roots from the oaks are too dense for the tortoises to dig their burrows, so our assignment was to cut out one particular species of oak tree--the laurel oak.

Public Enemy #1--the dreaded laurel oak

There were 2 Alachua County Forever employees there to give us our marching orders--Sandra and Kevin. Sandra showed us the leaves of the laurel oak so we knew what to look for, and Kevin laid out the procedure. We were to saw or clip the small oak trees, mark the "stump" with a flag, and drag the cuttings to a collection spot where another group would be throwing them into a wood chipper in a few days. Sandra had some herbicide she was spraying on the stumps, to ensure they would be killed. She would look for the flags, spray, pull up the flag and move on to the next. The people cutting would then get a restock of flags so they could continue marking their progress.

Seek and Destroy!

Getting final instructions

 Fun with flags

More fun with saws ;)

I started out with a pair of clippers, but quickly ran out of flags. The kids in the group were either setting flags or dragging smaller cuttings to the collection pile, but about the same time I ran out of flags was when the sawyers were getting to larger trees that the kids couldn't handle. I returned my pair of clippers and started dragging cut trees to the collection site as well. There were 4 main sites where people were cutting and I moved around between them. Others were also trading off between cutting and dragging. It all worked out fairly well.

 Haul 'n' Oaks, what a band ;)

 Collection pile

Along with water breaks, I stopped to take some photos periodically--of people as well as scenery.

I don't like mushrooms, but these little guys just caught my eye

We were scheduled to work from 9 am until noon, but around 11 am, Kevin called it a day because Sandra had run out of pesticide to spray on the stumps--the 2nd time that had happened with the geocaching group. The group gathered around the water jug on the truck and wound down while waiting to carpool back to our starting point.

Hydrate!

Ft. Flag :)

Back at our starting point, another local cacher who couldn't join us in the clearing met us and handed out some rewards to the rest of us. I got my first geocoin from her and I will need to think about when and where to send it out into the wide world :)

It was an educational, exhausting morning, but it was worth it for the experience. Late April will be global CITO day and there are two events in the planning stages. I hope to participate in at least one of them.

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