How are you? Isolated and wishing for a good walk at SFNC, even with a class of excited kids? “We surely are down” as the Nature Center is closed! Could it be possible for us to reopen sometime next spring?? Hope so! We have had 2 groups of kids wanting to be outside on the trails this fall, and, of course, the answer was “we’re sorry, but we’re closed.”
I, probably like you, feel a real void without activities at SFNC and wonder at times if there isn’t some way for us to get our “nature fix,” even meeting with social distancing and masks at the pavilion. A project to bring some of us together might be cleaning up the downed trees. There are a number of big cedars down at the bridge which need to be dealt with, a project with distancing outdoors that could take care of brush and ready some good cedar logs to be dragged out of the glade where they lie.
Late last August we had grant monies come available to conduct a burn on our glades, an activity that Clint Johnson, our Game and Fish advisor, has noted in his upkeep plan for SFNC. Such a late season burn usually knocks down sapling growth; our pine and sweetgum saplings in the glades seem to have been significantly burned like we had hoped with that prescribed burn. Perhaps a downside of the burn is the destruction of about a quarter of our bridge over the glade behind the cabin; it could be time now for significant replacement of the wooden bridge floor, much of which is rotting between boards that had already been replaced. Perhaps this could be the time to consider a new type of crossing of that glade, one that would require even less maintenance; time will tell.
Anyway, South Fork is ready and itching for activity whenever healthy conditions return. Everyone, please keep safe and well!
South Fork Nature Center 
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