More volunteer opportunites

**phittie1100** · April 9th, 2012, 08:43 AM

Passed on from Ada Takacs....

FireWise Garden at Four Mile Road Rest Area in Crawford County

Greetings!

Volunteers installed an educational garden at the Four Mile Road Rest Area (northbound I-75) in the Fall of 2010. The Home Depot of Gaylord volunteered in 2011 to maintain the garden; however, they have had a lot of volunteers drop out recently and we are looking for additional help.

All four sides of the building have been planted with FireWise plants and materials. Interpretive signage and a poster was also installed so folks could see that there are easy ways to protect their homes from wildfires with a little bit of planning.

As you know, Crawford County has been the site of many large fires in the past few years. In fact, the Four Mile Road Rest Area was used as an Incident Command Post during the Four Mile Road fire that jumped I-75.

We are looking for groups and individual volunteers who may be interested in working during a large work day this spring to get the garden presentable as well as for long-term maintenance such as weeding, pruning bushes, and mulching. No special skills are needed because we will have people on-site who can explain what needs to be done.

If you and/or your group are interested in helping us out for the long term, we may be able to get MDOT to install an Adopt a Landscape sign on-site with your group name on it.

Feel free to pass this information on to others who may be interested. Please contact me at the number below with any questions and/or dates that you might be available.

Happy Spring!

Ada M. Takacs - Michigan Dept of Natural Resources - Forest Resources Division
8717 N Roscommon Road - Roscommon , Michigan 48653
voice: 989-275-5151 x 2049 - fax: 989-275-5167 - takacsa@michigan.gov

**Creative Fab** · April 9th, 2012, 08:47 AM

This would be a great opportunity for a "up north" club to pick up a volunteer activity, without having to go look for it!

**phittie1100** · August 27th, 2012, 09:06 AM

New stuff that we could use help with:

1. If you live or play in the Gladwin area, we are looking to supplement a newly proposed ORV route - Amanda has offered to review some alternatives or additions to her pending proposal if we can find anything of interest near what she is already working on.

2. If you live or play near Higgins Lake, same deal - there is a route proposal in it's final stages that will convert a bunch of existing snowmobile trail and/or forest roads into a route that will legalize a well-traveled pathway used by ATVs and UTVs illegally. There are some interesting terrain changes, some scenic optios etc that might add some recreational value to the existing proposal. If you have time to go scout it out, let me know.

3. Trail maintenance opportunities - ATV Offroad is looking at adding more ATV trails to the GLFWDA grant, which is going to stretch them pretty thin on their existing route maintenance projects. If anyone is interested in picking up the Grand Traverse Route (5 miles) or the Indian River Route (24 miles), let me know. Grand Traverse is not worth the effort unless you live or play in the area. Indian River is almost all existing snowmobile route, so the primary job there is signing. Should be manageable by a small group or someone that lives/plays in the area regularly.

4. Other trail maintenance projects may be available too, I'll let you know as they become available.

**mrycar** · August 27th, 2012, 01:27 PM

Thanks Paul. We have some interesting opportunities opening up, and want to keep our trails open and accessible.

Indian river, is a pretty light route, signing and trash pickup is most of the work. Main effort is to drive it, took us 3 hours with a single vehicle to patrol it. 1.5 with two vehicles.

Grand traverse is requires regular brushing, trees are the height that they branch over the road quickly. 2 people on for cleaned it manually in 8 hours.

If anyone takes interest in these trails, atvoffroad club will work with you in transitioning and helping with maintenance. We currently are looking adding near 120 miles, if black lake and bummer's roost are added to our maintenance schedule, and any effort to offload the existing trails we maintain, would enable us to do the new areas justice.

Thanks all.

**Creative Fab** · August 27th, 2012, 06:58 PM

The Gladwin stuff has me intrigued, do we know what area she is looking at? I am very familiar with most everything East of Three Rivers road and can surely find some time to GPS some more dirt road.

**Renegade II** · August 27th, 2012, 09:05 PM

Is it just Gladwin or is there anything bleeding over into the Arenac area? Arenac had some nice trails leading back to and around a crystal clear lake. Back in the day we'd water ski behind the trucks pulling us around the lake from shore.

**hemrides** · August 27th, 2012, 09:35 PM

Once the logistics are completed I can provide some manual labor. Let me know.

**fishyOO7** · August 28th, 2012, 08:38 AM

I might be interested in the Gladwin area also. Used to ride quads there.

**phittie1100** · August 28th, 2012, 05:20 PM

I'll send out some emails with more onfo on Thursday when I am back in town.

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**phittie1100** · August 29th, 2012, 10:01 AM

Looks like Paige is also looking for a new sponsor for the ORV route north of Black Lake. I think (Tim or Mike feel free to jump in if I am wrong) ATV Offroad is looking at the Black Lake trail, but not the route.

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