Whacking Weeds at the Fitz 

It’s late afternoon on the 75th anniversary of D-day; 5 of us from Brunswick’s Conservation Commission meet at the gate to the Captain Fitzgerald Park, bearing loppers and other cutting tools. It’s a perfect late spring afternoon — sunny, 70 degrees, dry air — and everyone and thing is jazzed by it. That includes, of course, newly fledged mosquitos, and out there somewhere, everywhere, ticks. We apply some bug dope and walk out the old access road through the forest. The light is a limey, late spring green. 

Right in the center of this 66-acre preserve, we arrive at our destination — the only clutch of knotweed that’s taken root there. We are in the 4th year of our fight with this room-sized stand of weeds. Last year, after many consultations, we took a severe step — we recommended guidelines and then town-arborist, Jay Astle, applied an injected herbicide to the knotweed. 

This decision requires some explanation. Knotweed — in our experience and in its accrued reputation — is one of the toughest invasives out there. Once rooted, it will out-compete any other plant, and it will do so rapidly. As we proved through 3 years of cutting, it cannot by sheared or grubbed out of existence once rooted. It so wants to grow that its cuttings must be bagged and hauled off, otherwise they will reroot themselves as new plants. Even paving over the patch (not one of our options) would have only slowed the weed; it’s easy to find internet pictures of knotweed breaking through asphalt. 

The sand plain grassland at Fitzgerald Park is one of our state’s rarest ecological features, and, after a thorough scouring of the parcel, we’d determined that this central patch of knotweed was still solo in the park. It was worth the fight, even as a cursory glance along roadsides and in fields in Brunswick and Harpswell points out that knotweed is a surefire overall winner in our evolving plant world. Our roads are rife with it. Every year, the patches grow. 

But we could, we reasoned, work to conserve this sand plain grassland and its sites for birds and blueberries, if we could contain this one patch of knotweed and also develop a plan to keep sectors of the plain cut or burned over. We made this plan, and the town’s Parks and Recreation and Fire departments have set to executing it.  

Our part of the bargain was/is to keep returning to contain this stand of knotweed each year. That day, we cut down what’s regrown; we bagged it; we promised the remnant weed that we’ll be back. In 2016, we filled 9 huge garbage bags with knotweed; this year it took only 3 bags. 

Right A Way 

Many of us like to get out on foot daily, and the sooner we reach a trail, the better. It only takes a few days absence from the footworld for us to feel an effect. I have the happiness of living two walking minutes from a trail that links the playing fields of Bowdoin College with the Town Commons, and it’s a rare day when I don’t board that trail. 

The first mile threads through developments and tall pines and works it way around two small ponds, each a shallow, often duck-stippled puddling behind a dam. The first is also called Coffin Pond, and once-a-while-ago it provided ice for refrigeration. It also has rumored (and real) fish populations, including — it’s said — trout. 

But mostly Coffin Pond is a first refreshment early along the path to deeper woods. The other day, I reached the pond and crossed its short bridge and turned sharp left into a stand of hemlocks. There, I stopped, was stopped. A huge hemlock had fallen downslope, uprooted. The root-patch rose ten feet in the air; the tree’s body, 18” thick, crossed the path at waist level; debris from the tree and another it had taken with it was everywhere. It took me some minutes to pick my way through. 

Once underway again, I began to wonder about the tree. Its felling story was pretty clear. A few days earlier, another of our sudden, violent wind-bursts had run through, and this was its leaving. As they reach new heights, our conifers seem increasingly vulnerable to these outbursts. But, I wondered also, what now? The hemlock was down across a right of way. There were still two more developments to cross before reaching the Commons. It could be some time before that tree gets cleared, I thought. 

Two days later I turned down the trail again, crossed the bridge and prepared to negotiate the prone hemlock. No negotiation needed. Clear trailing ahead. 

But the sawed and piled once-upon-a-hemlock told a story of work…lots of it. It had seemed a big enough tree to be beyond a citizen saw. I asked around, and it quickly came clear that Parks and Recreation had sent in a work crew to keep this popular trail open. I felt personal gratitude, of course, but I also felt professional admiration for the way this public department works to keep us all moving. It’s part of what makes our town a great place to be on foot. 

Sighting 

To celebrate July’s advent, we rode the tide in along the Miller Creek estuary at the head of Middle Bay. Our local waters are, of course, a version of public land, what we all hold in common. This year’s rains had given the water a rusty tinge (from soil washed in, I supposed), and the grasses were lush and head high. Part of the pleasure of paddling the meanders of an estuary lies in the way the grasses push you to look up into the trees and sky, which today held painterly clouds. 

As we reached the old bridge that crosses the creek as part of the abandoned road that once connected Simpson’s Point Road to Mere Point, the tide turned. It would float us back out…effortlessly…once we’d turned our kayaks in that narrow space. Summer ease. 

On the way out, I was floating, lagging some yards behind, when I caught sight of a “swimmer” crossing the creek. A few paddle-strokes brought me closer. “Snake,” I thought at first, flipping through my mental rolodex of previous sightings. Unusual, but seen-before; snakes are, after all, good swimmers.  

But no, the head’s not right; the body’s too short; that looks like slicked-back fur. But too tiny for a mink or a muskrat. By now we were close. Chipmunk! Really? Yes, chipmunk. Or, as Thoreau called them, a “striped squirrel.” First such swimmer of my lifetime. 

Unfazed, the chipmunk swam steadily (and well), reached finally the other side of the 20’ passage and disappeared into the thick grass. Which rustled a bit, and then went quiet. The woods were 50 yards away and full of oaks. That must be, I thought, the promise land. Some chipmunk imperative had set him or her swimming; what might that be? Perhaps it’s summer’s call — it sets us all in motion. 

 Sandy Stott is a Brunswick resident and chair of the town’s Conservation Commission. He writes for a variety of publications. His recent book, Critical Hours — Search and Rescue in the White Mountains, was published by University Press of New England in April, 2018; Tantor Media released an audio version of the book in February, 2019. He may be reached at [email protected]