Welcoming Spring

23 Mar, 2015        Author: Glorianna Davenport

Sensor re-deployment, April 2, 2015

On March 21st, we celebrated the vernal equinox, replete with a super-moon and a total solar eclipse.  According to the dateandtime.com,  there has not been a solar eclipse  on either the March or September equinox since 1662!  What does this mean for the season that lies ahead?

Danielle in thesis mode

Celebration is due to researcher Danielle Hare on two counts:  on March 22, Danielle and Martin Briggs were married in Salt Lake City, Utah.  Well done!  Almost in parallel, Danielle got word that her Master's Thesis "Hydrogeological control on spatial patterns of groundwater seepage in peatlands" (MS #1161) was accepted and is now available here. Danielle was one of the first graduate students to focus her thesis work on Tidmarsh. A frequent visitor, Danielle worked with our interns, other U of Mass students and whomever else she could commandeer to lay out and pull up DTS cable.  The thesis including gorgeous infrared FLIR images of some of the springs on-site offer a foundational investigation into the geo-hydrology of the site prior to the restoration.  We intend to continue to expand the geo-science thread initiated here in the years to come.

A spring meeting for our research team was held at MIT on March 13.  At this meeting, Alex Hackman (Division of Ecological Restoration) discussed the expected schedule; he expects on the ground earth moving will begin in early summer and continue into early 2016.  Almost all the research teams presented updates.

As always, spring brings rapid change to the surround; birds we have not seen for months flock to our garden feeder.  In these last days of March, a volunteer spots a snowy owl atop a pile of retreating snow, and crossing a patch of woods, I encountered my first woodcock of the season! Meanwhile, seeds gathered in the fall are now ready for planting and our basement is filled with trays, makeshift lights, and moisture. Soon all of these small green beings will move to a protected space in the green house and then, as weather permits to field sites, where they will continue to mature.

And then on April 2, the snow retreats sufficiently for the MIT gang to return and redeploy the upgraded sensor set.  You can explore the experience here.   Meanwhile more and more large wood arrives.

More wood arrives daily

For the record

17 Feb, 2015        Author: administrator

In January we received terrific news.  The Tidmarsh Restoration Project received $790,000 in funding from the US Fish and Wildlife Service through the National Coastal Wetlands Conservation Grants Program.  Together with an earlier award from USDA NRCS, this award insures the realization of the project.  This spring, we will be selecting a lead contractor; we expect the restoration earth moving work to begin in earnest early summer 2015!  Many thanks to Alex Hackman of the Division of Ecological Restoration and to all our partners for your continued support for this project!

As the work ramps up, we will post weekly updates concerning activities on this site, and you will be able to follow progress on a variety of channels including our Living Observatoryfacebook site, on the USFWS blog (occasional), and at the DER website.  We will provide an overview of what to find where later this spring.

Ok, now for the weather.   I have it on reliable authority that the arctic inversion we experienced in late November/early December may have been long enough to do real damage to the ticks.  Very cold weather with no snow on the ground seems to be the only natural recourse against these pesky critters.  Lets hope for some relief this spring!

Meanwhile, who has ever seen Southeastern Mass looking so white for so long?  Record snowfalls this month have kept many of us in shape shoveling, but enough already!  Snow and issues with the T in Boston, caused us to postpone last week's planned Living Observatory Research Summit. In the future, I shall avoid planning any large meeting for a Friday the 13!  On the farm, Valentine's day brought us another 8-12" (up to my arm pit in some drifts).  Winds blew the snow over the small snow buttress left by Juno; as a result almost overwhelmed our greenhouse.  Meanwhile, a few of the sensors deployed by the Responsive Environments Group still look out on the white expanse.

Near the entrance, Valentine's day 2015

Springs, cell 4, Valentine's day, 2015

After the storm: a small snow buttress grows and almost overwhelms greenhouse. Time to shovel!

Some sensors are buried, some are not

Our year in review

28 Dec, 2014        Author: Glorianna Davenport

As 2015 approaches, we pause briefly to look back to give thanks to the many people who made 2014 a great year for the Tidmarsh Farms Restoration Project and Living Observatory.

Alex Hackman of the Massachusetts Division of Ecological Restoration continued to lead the restoration project forward. Throughout the year, as he honed the restoration plan, Alex presented to visitors, agencies, permitting boards and funding sources. Whenever possible, Alex used Eel River as a confirmation of the proposed methods, and rigorously highlighted how, by removing 3 major landscape stressors, the restoration actions will allow Tidmarsh to return to a natural wetland system.  We anticipate that an RFP will be sent to a short list of contractors early in 2015 and that the requisite earth moving will commence in late spring 2015.

In parallel with the design, other aspects of the project have been in motion including work to minimize invasive species and efforts to develop a comprehensive, cost-effective native species planting plan.  In June, Frank Werny, known for his book, Hike Plymouth!, collected a few friends and devoted several mornings to pulling oriental bittersweet, Celastrus orbiculatus, from around the former impoundment.  In August, Chris Polatin of Polatin Ecological Services returned continued his work to control non-native willow as well as phragmites. Meanwhile in May, we germinated over 4,000 Atlantic white cedars, Chamaecyparis thyoides. In an earlier blog, we relate the trials and tribulations of transporting these plants to Tony Reiber's farm in western Mass.  Tony returned in November with a team from Polatin Ecological Services to plant some 170 Atlantic white cedars left over from the Eel River project which he has generously donated to the Tidmarsh Farms Restoration project.

The planting plan for which we owe thanks to Irina Kadis and Alexey Zinovjev of Salicicola.com and Marty Melchoir of Interfluve has finally come into spread-sheet focus. Since August, Irina and Alexey have been busily collecting seed for the restoration to which they have added some seed from earlier years. Volunteers Claire Easterman, Pam Russell and Paul and Linda Williams also contributed to this effort.  With a greenhouse on site, we plan to begin germinating these collections early in 2015.

Throughout the year, Living Observatory also progressed in scope and scale.  In February, 2014, we held our annual Living Observatory - Tidmarsh Farms Research Summit on the theme "What stories will the landscape tell? Tools to document and experience a changing landscape."  The excitement among researchers, non-profit and agency representatives reminded us that we needed to schedule more meetings throughout the year to allow researchers to come together to share progress and speculate on future work. Thanks to all who attended our 4 mini meetings.

Following the summit, Professor Kate Ballantine joined our research team; she along with her students and a post-doc will focus on the carbon story as it emerges post restoration.  The spring and fall semesters brought several classes out to Tidmarsh; classes included geophysical methods, sedimentology, and a class focused on building sensory systems inspired by animals and insects.

Over the spring and into the fall, MIT's low power wireless network to sense microclimates across the landscape became a reality. Brian Mayton and Gershon Dublon have been joined by several other students and work on how the public will experience the restoration is expanding.  Congratulations to Joe Paradiso and Gershon Dublon for the Scientific American July 2014 cover story, "Living in the Connected World: How global sensor networks are extending the human nervous system".  Their work at Tidmarsh was the second half of that article.  Also thanks to EMC Corporation for creating a movie and TV show about this project.

Congratulations are also due to Danielle Hare who completed her Master's thesis on "Hydrogeological Control on Spatial Patterns of Groundwater Seepage in Peatlands". Danielle's thesis work, under the leadership of her advisor Professor David Boutt in the Geo-sciences Department of the University of Massachusetts - Amherst, involved many hours of recording peat depth using ground penetrating radar, laying fiber optic cable in ditches to monitor temperature at a fine spacio-temporal resolution, and taking infra-red images of cold water springs across the bog surface.

Wishing all of our friends and supporters a healthy, happy and productive 2015!

And then there was less trash: thanks to Eric H, Linda, Sara, Alex, Evan - you did it!