April 5, 2025 Legrand Reynolds Horsemen’s Camping Area, Exeter RI
Seventeen volunteers from various horse organizations under the umbrella of the RI Federation of Riding working under the threat of showers that mostly held off while we cleaned up the campground. Many thanks to the BSTRA members that volunteered, Phil & Jane Rutledge and Neil & Shirley Standring for putting in a total of 16 hours worth $672
April 27, 2025 Park Serve Day Upton MA
We had a total of 15 volunteers and 3 DCR staff members for a total of 42 hours of service work.
The trail crew consisted of Anna-Maria Paul, Becky Kalagher, Sheila Shafer and Sylvia Stewart. Our goal was to tackle the Old Hopkinton Spring Trail.
Where the trail heads in from Southboro Road, it’s pretty much straight up the hill and we know that is not a good layout for a trail. With a meeting before the trail work day with DCR Upton supervisor Ray Longvall, we discovered someone beat us to the punch with laying out a more friendly track going up the hill which incorporated switchbacks. With Ray’s approval, we were good to clear that up some.
Not only did we get that cleared up, we also cleared and cut back Old Hopkinton Spring Trail down to where it turns left up the hill. All totaled we improved .48 of a mile for our total of 14 hours.
The rest of the volunteers worked at the headquarters building raking, picking up tons of branches and spreading mulch. Those hard workers were Charlotte Canning, Cameron Ostiguy, Suzanne Nicholas, Ellen Arnold, Angie Knott, Bill Taylor, Deb Deschenes, Brian Gallagher and the Perry Family. Park staff working with us and the Friends of Upton State Forest were Ray Longvall, Amber Drummond, Chris Hollenbeck. The volunteers put in 28 hours of service.
Using the 2024 Independent Sector Volunteer rate for Massachusetts ($42) our volunteer work was worth $1,764
May 10, 2025 Hodges Village Dam, Oxford MA
I had asked Aidan which trails he wanted us to tackle, and he sent over a map. Armed with loppers, hand saws, and a pole saw, we set out for the day’s work. There were a few spots where a brush cutter or battery-operated hedge trimmer could have come in handy, but that will have to wait for another time.
We were also joined by Briana Johnson from the Army Corps of Engineers for part of the morning. As it turns out, she has a horse, so we were in very good company!
In less than an hour, we had already finished the section Aidan had assigned to us. With time and energy to spare, we forged ahead and worked until noon. By the end of the day, we had cleared 0.86 miles of trail, logging a total of 12.75 hours of volunteer work—an effort valued at $535.50!
A huge thank-you to Joyce Sandvik, Kelly Berthiaume, Barbara McCumber, and Becky Kalagher for their -hard work and dedication on the trails!
May 11, 2025 Thompson CT Trail Work Day
Before we had the “official” trail work day, on May 6th and 8th, prework with a chainsaw was done by Becky Kalagher with a total of 3.83 hours worth $160.86.
We had a nice turn out for our work day which fell on Mother’s Day.
We were very happy that the trails were not in bad shape this year. Nothing major that needed to be cleaned up. Just a lot of branches and smaller dead trees. Breaking into two groups we headed out.
The chainsaw group headed out to the one trail that we knew had some small trees that needed to be cleared up. This section of trail was .4 miles long. We got the trees all cleaned up and worked on some trimming back. The other group caught up with us and helped us finish up the trimming.
Many thanks to the following: Rita Ballou, Becky Kalagher, Bill & Angie Knott, Laurie Smigelski, Valerie Clark, Janeen Rose, and Denise Leonard who all put in a total of 23.25 hours valued at $976.50. Lunch for the volunteers was $81.96
Aug. – Oct. – Nov. 2025 Town of Douglas Property
With the weather being a bit more conducive for doing trail work, we started working on the trails behind the Douglas Schools.
Now that we had finished up the BSTRA property trail connector from the SNETT to the town owned property and with permission from the school committee, it was time to move to the next phase.
On Aug. 19th I scoped out and flagged the small connector to make a usable loop for trail users. On the 20th we had Sue & Steve Sanders, Phil Rutledge and myself targeting that newly flagged connector. We did have one patch of mountain laurel and another patch of thick brush that we really had to work to get through. But with the hard work of all four of us, we actually did get it done that morning. All totaled we put in 9 hours worth $378.
Aug. 21st trail work was Rita Ballou, Joyce Sandvik and myself. The picture of the above map shows the work we did, the trails with the purple slashes on it are the ones that we cut and brushed backed. It was mostly trimming up to the proper height. That was almost .4 of a mile that we did. All totaled we put in 6.75 hours worth $283.50
On Oct. 23rd Rita Ballou, Phil Rutledge and Becky Kalagher met up to do some more trail trimming on the trails behind the Douglas Schools. Once we walked in to where we needed to start we did a total of .37 of a mile of trail clearing. All totaled we put in 9 hours worth $378.
On Nov. 6th Phil Rutledge and Becky Kalagher met up to do some more trail trimming on the trails behind the Douglas Schools. We headed right up to the top of the hill section to work on trimming up that trail. Surprisingly we finished that and did a bit of trimming around the corner that also had pine branches in the rider zone. All totaled we put in 4 hours worth $168. A job well done!
The total worth of all four trail work days is $1,207.50
Nov. 11, 2025 Thompson CT Trail Work Day
We had six volunteers show up to work on cleaning up the trails for the ride on the 16th.
For the most part the trails were in pretty good shape. Lots of branches picked up, three trees that needed to be cleaned up with the chainsaw, and some brushing/trimming back. With an early start at 8:30 we finished up in time for an early lunch. For those that stayed for lunch we had a nice time eating lunch in the field along with some entertaining stories.
All totaled we put in 14.5 hours worth $609 and lunch for the volunteers was $42.77. Thanks to following for their trail stewardship; Rita Ballou, MaryEllen Coyne, Brandee Viens, Becky Kalagher, Joyce Sandvik, and Valerie Clark!