A pan-Sabre group of folks gathered in Wheaton, IL to volunteer at St. James Farm, property part of the Forest Preserve District of Dupage County. The group continues to enjoy outdoors work and this year all hands were on deck to make the area look great for an upcoming gala event at the Farm.

The property used to be private and the owner allowed the area to be sold to the Forest Preserve District at an incredible deal. That was several years ago and it has taken some work to get the property ready to be open to the public. On May 23, St. James Farm will host thousands of people for a horse show, so the farm was in great need of a little extra TLC so that it could open to the public for this special event looking its best!

The employees were split into 3 groups. A couple of ladies needed to rejuvenate the area surrounding one of the outbuildings on the property.  One of those tasks was installing lines underground throughout the area, which required a lot of digging. One of the biggest needs was for someone to even out the area so that it wouldn’t cause anyone to lose balance, especially around one of the bigger barns where a lot of people would be gathering. Then, grass seed needed to be planted over the area so that the ground could return to it’s normal state. A few ladies got to work with rakes, shovels and their feet to even out the area around this barn. Then we were given grass seed and it was spread over the area. After that, the area was watered well to encourage quick growth!

Another group of us received pruners, saws and gloves and got to work trimming back a non-native plant (European Buckthorn), which we are getting used to in Chicago. Last year we did a lot of trimming of this invasive species and this year, another area met it’s match with our handy folks. It seems counter-intuitive to cut living things down when we are out to conserve public lands and spaces, however when an invasive species grows out of control, it doesn’t allow the species of plants and trees native to the area to grow…the invasive species steals all of the available water, light and food. Along one of the primary entrances to the Farm, European Buckthorn was running rampant, so we cut back about 4 feet of it to the natural tree line. We are confident now that there is room and resources for the proper plants to grow and flourish.

The guys in the group were given the heaviest load! With 6 young-mature evergreen plants over-ready to go in the ground, they were given shovels and asked to dig six 3-5 feet holes along another entrance to the Farm, one along a busy road. When the evergreens grow to fully mature, mixed in with the other trees already there, the whole area will be completely protected from a busy road. For more than three full hours, they were consumed with finding the right spot, opening up the ground and shoveling out a hole big enough for the trees. The trees were too large for us to handle, so the farm’s staff came with equipment to move the trees to the right spots, place them in the holes and begin to finish the planting process. Some of that dirt that the guys worked so hard on got thrown back in the hole around the trees and the area was patted down and watered so that the trees get a good chance to thrive and grow to be big tall, carbon-dioxide eating evergreens!

Since we volunteered for a full day, the group got to gather in the middle of the farm to do some socializing, catching up on things and learning more about our group’s impact on the farm. At the end of the day, we surprised another lucky recipient of our services by being able to do more work than they thought we would be capable of doing, and a fun time was had by all!