Barton Creek Greenbelt – 4 pm Wed

Here’s a shot through the trees on Barton Creek Greenbelt around 4 pm yesterday.  We were out on a 6 mile hike looking at the trail from Zilker Access to Loop 360 Access, cataloguing the priority projects along the trail for the 5 person Barton Creek Trail Corps, funded by Impact Austin, Hill Country Conservancy, the Austin Parks Foundation and individual donors beginning in January 2011.  We’ll be hosting a large number of volunteer workdays to help the crew with some of the bigger tasks, including lots of invasive species removal and management.    The big focus along the trail will be fixing drainage and erosion issues.

Give Thanks to our parks – volunteer

We have been seeing 5-7 park volunteer projects each Saturday in October and November and the next two weekends – Sat, Nov 13 and Sat, Nov 20 are no exception.  Give thanks to our amazing parks system by volunteering at one of the many projects on either (or both!) Saturdays:

A complete list of projects – you can also sign up online!

Of particular interest to us is finishing up the Zilker Tree Rescue effort on 11/20 – we have 75 trees left to mulch and Kyle from APF will join Keith and staff from the Parks Forestry Division at Zilker.  This is part of ServiceAustin day – sign up here for project #34

Thank you!

In Memory: Wayne Gronquist

We’re sad to hear of the passing of Wayne Gronquist, lawyer, environmentalist, naturalist, neighborhood preservationist, and lover of all things on and in the water.  Definitely one of the good guys….

Main Plaza San Antonio

It is amazing what happens when you leave the Riverwalk in downtown San Antonio.  You discover the rest of San Antonio. We discovered Main Plaza, operated by the Main Plaza Conservancy a few weeks ago.  It has many of the right things going for it, including vendor, moveable tables and chairs, foundations, shade and events.

Volunteer Workday Report for Sat, Nov 6th

There were quite a few volunteer workdays this past Sat, Nov 6th.  Among them were:

• Planting of 115 trees at Brentwood Park (Thanks to Rick for the photos)
• Trail work and invasive species removal at Barton Creek Greenbelt
• Planting and invasive removal at Blunn Creek Preserve
• Invasive removal at Mayfield Park and Preserve
• Trail repair and work at Bull Creek Greenbelt

There are many more opportunities to volunteer coming on Sat, Nov 13 (Bull Creek Greenbelt and Pease Park) and Sat Nov 20 (Service Austin Day – with projects at Country Club Creek, Zilker Tree Mulching and more…)

Riverwalk Museum Reach In San Antonio

Mom was visiting over the weekend, so we took a break and made a trip down to San Antonio, where we walked much of the new (2009) portion of the Riverwalk on Museum Reach.  Great examples of an urban path (a few quibbles about the trail not being wide enough in sections) but wanted to share some photos taken for a little inspiration.  They are now working on the longer and more complicated southern segment to connect to all of the missions.  More photos here.

Election Day

Happy Election Day everyone!  We have lots of stuff to share with recent and forthcoming workdays on Barton Creek Greenbelt, a trip to San Antonio and some of their cool parks and plazas over the weekend and a lot more, but we’ll hold off until after Election Day is over.  Don’t forget to vote!  If you are a city of Austin resident, please vote for Proposition 1!

Update on Election Results: Thanks to everyone who supported Prop 1 on Tuesday, we greatly appreciate your support.  In the end, it received 56 percent of the vote.