2011: A Garlic Mustard Odyssey

Since the garlic mustard season is rapidly coming to a close, I wanted to end with my most rediculous post about it. With a little help from Windows Paint I think I’ve succeeded!

We have eradicated garlic mustard from nearly all of our preserves including Arcadia Dunes, Greenpoint Dunes, Betsie Dunes, Fruithaven, Sagaser and more for a total of ~ 4,400 acres of preserved land clear! I’d like to personally thank our guys at GLEM, our volunteers, staff and partner organizations for making this possible, it’s been great!

This week has certainly seen its ups and downs as the stormy weather looming overhead was our constant companion. On a particularly promising Monday, Paula, Liz, Heather and I scouted and pulled the Dry Hill trail in Arcadia Dunes. We were surprised with some tiny (but delicious) wild strawberries after the hike; life was good! We spent about 10 minutes hunched over, stuffing our mouths as quickly as we could. With our sweet tooths satisfied we reluctantly stopped picking the little treasures (better than Morels in my opinion) and hopped in the Subaru to pick up our garlic mustard bags. What a surprise that in the midst of the rain and thunder we were able to enjoy such a beautiful day hiking the #1 mountain biking trail in northern Michigan (rated by traverse magazines red hot best!) then were lucky enough to end the day with strawberries!

I should have known it was too good to be true. We were two tracking out of our parking spot back to Matzinger road and all of a sudden… POP! Flat tire. From now on I will always keep a four way lug nut wrench in my car; and that’s all I have to say about that.

All in all I’ve had a great time pulling GM this season, but I’m excited for

 a change! (Blue Lyme Grass on the shores of Lake Michigan sounds pretty good!)