In August and September of this year, directed by State Parks Resource Specialist Irene Frentz and Friends of Pocahontas member Ben Hedges, a series of invasive plant control sessions was conducted to remove Japanese Stillgrass from the park.  To capitalize on the success of those sessions, Irene and Ben would like to organize an on-going invasive plant control volunteer task force for Pocahontas.  These volunteers would continue to help with control of the various invasive plants in the park on a regularly scheduled basis.

A meeting has been scheduled by Irene and Ben at the Heritage Center,on November 9 at 9am, to discuss and define the who, what, how and when parameters for this activity.  All current park volunteers who have an interest in helping control invasive plants in the park are invited to participate in this discussion.

Our 2013 Park After Dark celebration was a roaring success!  

650 visitors enjoyed hayrides and pumpkins and face painting  and campfire tales and cool night time animals and crafts and great food and sooo much more!  This is more than double last year's visitor total.

Thank you to all of the park staff and volunteers that made this such a success and a special thank you to Event Plannner extraordinaire, Jeanie Meikle, and Park Volunteer Coordinator, Andrea Hasenfus who moved Heaven and Earth to make the night a success!!

Our Clean Virginia Waterways litter cleanup event this morning was supported by three Virginia Master Naturalists, at least a couple of FoPSP members and 17 other area residents, including seven students from an ecology club.  It was frosty until the sun hit the grass, but windless, so there was no bite to the air and mist was rising from the water.  Several brave souls went out in watercraft to scour the shoreline of the lake, while the rest explored the trails and wooded areas in the area of the boat launch.  When everybody had returned with their collected items, we had six bags of trash, weighing around 18 pounds.

Our efforts are just a tiny part of the International Coastal Cleanup sponsored by Ocean Conservancy and coordinated in Virginia by Longwood University.  The end result is not just a cleaner park and lake, but the prevention of this litter adding to contamination of the Chesapeake Bay and of course the Atlantic Ocean.  The staff of the Pocahontas State Park and the coordinators at Clean Virginia Waterways pass along their thanks for our participation.

Our thanks to the three Capital One volunteers who ventured out in the woods with me today to help remove invasive Shrubby Lespedeza along Fendley Station Loop A.  It turned out to be a pleasant afternoon in the park, and almost an ideal day to get some serious exercise.  We pulled up at least two dozen plants, plus some Japanese Honeysuckle Vine and one cluster of Multiflora Rose, both of which are also invasive.  It will be an easy task next summer to revisit that trail and pull out any missed or resprouting plants.

--Ben

Cold evenings and dry weekends had their traditionally accelerative effect on firewood usage.  We loaded up the new campground with two trailers full of firewood and put another two into the old campground wood box.  Thank you Chris, Travis, Derrel and Chris!!

The Master Naturalist service project planting was a great success this past Sunday. This was a wonderful partnership and testament to the dedication of volunteers and staff at the park who came together to accomplish something good for the park: beautifying our entrance, and installing native plants for the health and habitat of Pocahontas. With funding from the Friends of Pocahontas State Park, and planning, ideas, and hard work from the Master Naturalists, and support from park staff (special thanks to Bob Redenz, David Yeager and Matt Harvey), we were able to plant 5 native trees along Beach Road and in the "triangle", and native flowers and grasses around the entrance sign.

I think it looks great, and I would like to give a big THANKS to all involved!

The Pocahontas chapter of Master Naturalists have agreed to adopt this project and maintain the plants and trees for several years to come.

Andrea Hasenfus
Volunteer Coordinator
Pocahontas State Park