Yet another noxious weed pulling effort on Candy Mountain is planned for this coming Wednesday. Yellow Star Thistle is reaching bloom stage and will soon be forming seed. The volunteer crews are trying to prevent any seed formation and dispersal this year. The manual pulling efforts last year yielded very good results in the areas we were able to cover. However, the invasive weed pressure is still strong in some areas not reached last year. Continued volunteer help for a couple more weeks, should give us a good start towards returning the Candy Mountain Preserve to a more pristine natural state.

When: Wednesday, July 18th, 2018
Meet at: Candy Mountain Trail-head parking lot, off Dallas Rd. on PR 669 Rd.
Time: 7:00 – 10:00 am, but feel free to join us at any other time that fits your schedule. Dave Beach will meet volunteers arriving at 7 am in the parking lot.
Duties: Hand pulling Yellow Star Thistle plants ranging in size from small seedlings to larger plants already starting to bloom and developing spikes. We will bag and remove any plants nearing bloom stage. Less-mature plants will be pulled and left to dry up on the ground. The blooming plants are becoming more abundant.
Tools: Bring good strong gloves! Some volunteers have used small pruning clippers, or small forked root-cutting “stabbers” on a handle (like an asparagus harvesting knife).
Pulling location: Approx. 1/2 – 3/4 mile up the trail on the north slope, facing West Richland. If you don’t meet up with the group in the parking lot, hike on up and look for us down-slope from the trail. If you get to the first big switchback turn on the trail, looking down on the West Richland water storage tank, you should see us down the hill. Terrain is sloped and uneven.

Please forward this notice to anyone else you think might be interested. For those who might not be experts at knowing the difference between noxious weeds and native plants, we will give guidance.

Reply to Dave Beach at [email protected], so we have an idea who to be looking for, or just show up with your gloves, sun protection, drinking water, snacks and find us. Since we are working some distance from the trail-head and are constantly moving along, having a small back-pack or fanny-pack is useful to carry your “stuff”. If you have some plastic grocery bags, bring them along for the blooming plants and we will have larger garbage bags to collect in also. See you on the mountain for a “fun wildland experience”!