Marvelous February day in the Woods

Saturday morning fog at 9 AM was raining from the trees.. odd to see the ground mostly dry and then below each tree rain falling from the condensation on the bare twigs. Reminded me of autumn fog on Grizzly Peak in the Berkeley hills.
I took a saw and finished clearing the low limbs from the cedar blocking the Fence Corner junction; cleared a few smaller elm branches that had come down in the recent ice storm; and cleared the down tree top and a few smaller saplings from the NE end of the Pipeline Trail.

I went looking for Jason's class at 10 and after walking across the Woods and back covering each trail we met up south of the Elm Bridge as Jason's group was moving on from finishing their soil cores in the SE corner. We walked to the Dune where they pounded a core down 1.5 m(?), measured infiltration rate etc. Good group of 15 students seemed to be actively engaged. From there the group walked to the West Pond (encountered four white-tailed deer along the way). Jason and three others waded out waist deep in the West Pond and took a core of organic muck from the pond bottom. I left as they were extracting the core. They had plans to take one more core on top of the escarpment..maybe along the Ravine Trail on their way back to the NE Gate.

Later in the afternoon I returned with Sarah and we walked from the NW Ponds Trail across the Northern Loop and and back along the E-W Fence Line Trail; Hackberry Alley and back out via the NW Ponds. Sarah tested the best vine swings along the way.