Wow, what a difference. Two new volunteer forest stewards Brian and George made a major dent in some of the demolition necessary in the Back Woods. The lush invasive filled picture shows our picnic platform in the western flatwoods. It was dilapidated, rotting out from underneath, and collapsing from soil subsidence.
Needless to say, it was in even worse shape than pictured here.

The second photo shows the fruits of some dedicated volunteer labor. New volunteer Brian (demolitionist extraordinaire) started his first day tackling the platform. On a second day he and new volunteer George (saw palmetto slasher extraordinaire) finished up the job! WooHoo! All that is left is some tidying up, repairing the waste can, and deciding on how to use the area in the future.

A comment on the brown: A fan to the MOSI Facebook page mentioned concern about the appearance of the Back Woods. Here is what I said in response; The Back Woods is undergoing an habitat restoration process which includes treating non native invasive plant species mechanically and with herbicides. Top that with a notable nippy and dry winter, and there appears to be a lot of brown in the Back Woods. Already we are seeing native shrubs and herbaceous material that was smothered by invasive competitive air potato vine making a come back even in this challenging weather. Please check out our forest blog TheLongleaf at http://thelongleaf.blogspot.com/ for more details about the restoration process. In addition to pictures on the blog, you can see more pictures of the Back Woods at our Flickr site MOSI Outside http://www.flickr.com/groups/mosioutside/ where you will definitely find plenty of beautiful things very much alive in the Back Woods.Thank you for your concern! Cheers, TheLongleaf