From Tom McCrumm - A few of us went and helped Tom out a few weeks ago. He did
all the chainsawing and we cleaned up after him. Hawley definitely needs help!
I can't make it this time unfortunately.

Thanks,
Brad.

From: Tom McCrumm - South Face Farm
Sent: Friday, May 08, 2009 9:57 AM
To: Brad Herder
Subject: Hawley work day

Brad:

Can you please post this on NoRules and BerkNEMBA list-serv's? Thanks.

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Where: Hawley (Dubuque) State Forest. Saturday May 9th. We will meet at
9:30am at the Americorps HQ upper parking lot at Hallockville Pond on Rte 8A
near the Plainfield/Hawley town line. (NOTE: This is not the firehouse parking
lot in East Hawley where the kiln is.)

Directions:
From Rte 2 in Charlemont: Follow Rte 8A uphill quite a ways, eventually you'll
see a sign on the right for Americorps HQ, you'll also see Hallockville Pond
with a small dam. Drive in and keep going up to the upper parking lot.

From Rte 116 coming from the west: Pass the Savoy/Plainfield town line into
Plainfield, after a few miles you'll see Plainfield Pond close on the left side
of Rte 116. Go another mile or so, and turn left on Rte 8A. Go about one mile
downhill to the Americorps HQ and Hallockville Pond on the left. Turn left and
drive up to the upper parking lot.

From Rte 116 coming from the east: Go through the 4 corners at the top of the
hill in Plainfield Center, down and up a long hill to Rte 8A on the right. Turn
right and go about one mile downhill to the Americorps HQ and Hallockville Pond
on the left. Turn left and drive up to the upper parking lot.

When: Saturday May 9th, 9:30am meeting time, we'll plan to leave the parking
by 9:45am.

What: We will drive into the forest in whatever 4WD and high clearance
vehicles we have. The road is washed out and badly rutted, so 4WD is needed.
We'll park at the wood shelter at Gould Meadow and work on some of the four
trails that disperse from there.

Bring: Small chain saws (98% of the stuff down is under 4"), safety equipment
(helmet and chaps), rakes or pitch forks, loppers, work gloves, maybe a folding
saw. Also bring some water and maybe lunch. Black flies are out - bring bug
dope!

Update: A bit over 25% of the trails have been cleared so far, taking well over
100 man-hours to date. Every trail is a mess and will need to be hand cleared,
even some sections of forest roads are not passable.

What is needed: Mostly we need bodies to pull, haul, rake, pick up and move all
the sticks and limbs covering the trails. Three-person or four-person crews of
one chain saw person and two/three rakers/haulers/pickers seems to work the
fastest.What we need most is BODIES - to pick up, haul and drag the thousands of
limbs off the trails, and to rake off the smaller stuff. Please help. If you
ride, ski or hike on the trails in Hawley, please volunteer some time to "pay
back" to the land.

Weather: Heavy rain cancels, a drizzle does not cancel.

Questions: Get back to me.

Other Work Days: Other dates will be scheduled soon, including our regular
Thursday evening work sessions. The next weekend work day will be over Memorial
Day weekend.