July 21:
Amy, Zack Burke and I patrolled all of Paige Brook for their first training on the water. Although there was wind that ruffled the water here and there we managed to round up a really fine selection native plants. At first the Burkes needed to understand what to “see” through the water’s surface and along the shoreline then their eyes began to focus in an exciting way. We rounded up a good selection of Pipeworts, sedges and rushes, Arrow arum, Pickerelweeds, Floating hearts, yellow, white and pink water lilies, pondweeds (those that float, those that partially float and the rest stay submerged,) and a lot of the native water naiad N. flexilis of green and red colorations along the entire west shore and a bit up the east shore.
At the very end we worked against a headwind to head home. Amy and I were on either side of the brook and Zack patrolled the middle. Just beyond the Godbold’s dock (grid 3674) Zack called out when he saw a good sized reddish haze of plants below his paddle board. NATIVE MILFOIL!! a really lovely ~3ft square growth of it. See the GPS notations. And it is located just below the word “Brook” on Zone map 3.
Go and find it!
