Summarizing our work at San Bernard National Wildlife Refuge.  It included a few construction projects and routine maintenance stuff.  We feel pretty good about our contribution this winter.

Project 1: Tear out and replace a 60 ft boardwalk to the bunkhouse at the office complex.  We did this one entirely on our own and it came out pretty nice – we think so and so did the Refuge staff.  Tear out was good practice for a later project to remove a much longer boardwalk on a trail further out in the Refuge.

Project 2: Tear out an 800 ft boardwalk out at the San Bernard Oak trail. Before we could even start demolition, we had to open up the construction trail through the woods to haul materials out and new material in.  Thankfully when we got to the tear out, some special pry bars Kent and volunteer Bob used two years ago were still around.  It was still hard work; some of it in hot sticky Texas weather; all of it among snakes and spiders but mercifully few mosquitoes.  It went fairly smoothly, about 2 weeks of work mostly by three of us, Kent, Me and volunteer Warren with a bit of help from Daryl (refuge staff) and Jason (vol).  Once decking and stringers were out, Kent got lots of practice maneuvering the tractor between trees and palms to pull hundreds of posts!  We hauled old material out by the wagon-load and stacked onto the tractor to move it out for disposal.

We transferred new materials back to the site and the guys (Kent and Warren) spent a day digging post holes but rebuild was handled pretty much exclusively by the Friends group.  It’s their thing.

Project 3: Signs and kiosks.  We built frames for visitor information signs and repaired the Hudson Unit Kiosk. In total we hung or rehung 8 signs.  All looking good!

Project 4: earth work for the Friends’ project to extend the Bob Cat Woods boardwalk.   Kent’s tractor work relieved them of a lot of shovel work.  He tore out an old raised gravel walk through the native plant exhibit to clear the way for a level ADA compliant boardwalk.  The entire loop will now be on level hard surface making it much more accessible.

Chainsaw certification – woo-hoo.  Kent is official (Warren too) he can now run chainsaw on refuges.  They definitely make me nervous (the chainsaws not the guys) but are sometimes the only tool for trail clearing. One day with Roland and another just Kent and Warren on the saws and we got trails out at Hudson clear for the first time in years.

We mowed and trimmed and weeded flower beds, cleaned bathrooms and office and bunkhouse, and replaced the pumphouse door.

Cool critters: a guard owl nesting (or at least persistently present) in a low fork of a live oak along the entrance road, a guard alligator who lolls on a small dock at the entrance, and a determined cottonmouth who now guards the boardwalk out at San Bernard Oak.  The wintering geese showed up too, the white-fronted and the snow geese. Sandhill cranes and Roseate Spoonbills as well.