Volunteers at the Weller Natural Preserve
by Marianne Russo, Preserve Manager
Published: Spring/Summer 2009

I' d like to take this opportunity to recognize and give a great big Thank You to all the wonderful volunteers who have made all our accomplishments on the Preserve possible. Some folks were only able to join us once or twice while others have come back time after time. However, each and every contribution has been important and an integral part of our success. I would like to single out a few of these people for special contributions and recognition:

We are truly indebted to Scott Redenbaugh who acted as our contractor on the building project. He contributed many days of his time to helping me plan and prepare for the project as well as putting in several hard days of labor during the foundation, framing, and roof sheathing phases. We couldn' t have done this without his guidance and know-how.

Wayne Cedidla also gave us many long days throughout the initial construction and worked hand-in-hand with Scott to build the roof framing. After the framing and sheathing were done he came back several more days to help me finish putting on the roof and installing the skylights. Then he stuck around again to help us clean up all the loose dirt left by the backhoe and spread the gravel we had delivered. We owe you Wayne!

Eileen Belan came up several times to help with the painting. She painted brown coats, trim high and low, primer on the Poop Shed, and then painted some more. She and I spent some really lovely days just painting the hours away. Eileen, you sure made the job go a lot faster.

Another person I don't want to overlook for his generosity is Weller Natural Preserve neighbor, Wes Schultz. Wes saw Wayne, Jerry and me spreading the new gravel with rakes and shovels one afternoon and stopped to offer help with his tractor. He had this neat attachment called a  box spreader and within 45 minutes or so had 90% of the work done for us. Dale Hartwig has been a special mainstay of our vegetation management work. He has been there on all the official work days and on many impromptu days as well. With his background as a fire fighter we have learned a lot about conducting safer brush pile burning. Plus he always puts in a hard days work and on official work days makes sure the volunteers all get to the Preserve and fill out the appropriate paperwork.

He also brings his Personal Assistant, Rebel Hartwig (an absolutely precious Golden Retriever) who is the absolute epitome of doggy decorum. We love Rebel (and Dale). Two other special volunteers are Matt Leissring and Heather McDonald. In addition to their help on the building and at the cave, they rarely miss an opportunity to cut and burn brush or work on boundary survey. Of course their special mission is Scotch Broom annihilation and they do this with an unbridled enthusiasm. With an adversary as canny, tenacious and determined as they have, this is absolutely essential. You go!

I would also like to make a special point of thanking Tammy Meredith for helping out on one of our work days in a unique way. Tammy really wanted to be able to get involved this spring but due to her acute sensitivity to poison oak she is unable to help with the brush clearing. So she decided that what she could do was to provide lunch for everyone on our first work day this year, which was Jan. 28th. It was great having everything all made up ahead of time. We even got to order the kind of sandwich we wanted! Thank you Tammy, that was a VERY NICE thing to do for us.