Glassberg Conservation Area, 400 Acres, Now Open; See It Here

The LaBarque Watershed’s new conservation area is now open to the public: 428 acres with 1.5 miles of easy to moderate hiking trails and good signage, a 3-acre fishing lake called Buder Lake, and Meramec River bluffs from which to view the Pacific Palisades. Formerly residential property, then acquired by the nonprofit Wild Canid Center which never got the funding to build on it, now, thanks to the Glassberg family, it belongs to us all. It opened at noon October 30. I was there. Here is my 7-minute video tour, the first ever, to peek at until you can get here and enjoy it yourself.

Fishing and hiking are encouraged, but camping, biking, and horseback riding are not allowed, dogs must be leashed at all times, and hunting is not yet permitted, but with hunters in the surrounding area you’ll look smart in your hunter orange. Wear hiking boots, bring water. There are no facilities.

The new Glassberg Conservation Area is located in northwestern Jefferson County on Highway FF, and practically across the road from the Young Conservation Area that protects a long section of LaBarque Creek. See you in the Conservation Areas!

Dead Man's Curve

I'm usually lighthearted but a couple things about country living are serious and one is flash-flooding; another is road conditions. After two fatalities in one year people around here organized to petition Missouri Dept of Transportation to "straighten out" Highway FF, a road most of us drive every day.

FF, five miles long, parallels the curves in LaBarque Creek, resulting in three significant curves and a low spot where the creek empties into the Meramec (photo was taken while standing on that bridge), and then it curves again, away from the Meramec toward the bigger highway. For most of its length it doesn't have shoulders and can't be widened. Used to be okay when fewer people lived here and parents didn't hand out cars to their kids, and people weren't so harried as to wait until the last minute to drive anywhere. FF was probably once a footpath and then a horse-and-buggy road. I appreciate that it respects the creek and hated hearing about "straightening" it, even after I had my life's first-ever wreck, on FF during a snowstorm, sliding off into the road shoulder just after the third curve. $4000 in damage but not a scratch on me, thank God. Another gift was in it: a good excuse not to show up at work.

So after a 20-year-old and then a well-liked local merchant (who wasn't buckled) were killed on FF, both in broad daylight and at the same curve, the campaign began with a billboard and some publicity, and because MoDOT doesn't have funds to "straighten" the curves it's going to change the way they're paved to reduce the amount of "super elevation" (slope across roadway) that you can see here is significantly banked. Work begins in 2013. At that time all who use Highway FF will be taking that 18-mile detour I took in '02 during the widening of Highway F (which is different from FF).

Hello, Southern Coal Skink

While I was cutting patches for the porch screens about noon, a rustling next to the pump house made me think, "It's the blacksnake." But the resident blacksnake is usually noiseless. More rustling. I went to look. Saw something unusual, cumin-colored, fat and glossy. I thought, "The glass lizard," but when I went outside with the camera and knelt by the ivy that covers fallen oak leaves, I saw its face and little alligator legs. What intelligent eyes. I said, "Hello."

When I moved too close it backed up beneath the ivy so that only its tail showed. I said, "I can still see you." The Amphibians and Reptiles of Missouri by Tom R. Johnson, the only handbook ever needed around here, ID'd it as Southern Coal Skink, plump body, stubby legs and all. Latin: Eumeces anthracinus pluvialis Cope. This is a female. The male has orange patches on its cheeks because it doesn't know how to blend foundation.

Iced Waterfall

Temps are below freezing for really the first time during this snowless winter, so we are having a January Freeze instead of a January Thaw. The cliffs and waterfalls and creek on the property have started prettily freezing. This is half of the double waterfall situated about 50 yards up from LaBarque Creek. This plunge over the mossy rock and fallen trees is about eight feet top to bottom and those are some big icicles. This waterfall and several others here are much easier to see in winter when the foliage is down. I like to think that I have seen it when it will never be exactly this same way again. In fact that is the way I should look at everything. The mosses are always leafy and green no matter what the weather.

Great News About LaBarque Creek

I would lay down my life for this LaBarque Creek that has given me and all my human and animal friends so much sustenance and new kinds of happiness. A group of area property owners called the Friends of LaBarque Creek Watershed has fought development and other incursions with hard work and fundraising and just plain love. Some facts or information about the watershed: The creek is 6.4 miles long and the watershed is 13 square miles. 86 percent of the watershed is forested. The creek supports 40 species of fish. Rare plants, insects and lichens abound in it and on its banks. I have shown you some  of them in the 470 blog entries I have made about life and nature in this area.

So I was ecstatic hearing that two large tracts of land in the LaBarque Creek watershed have been purchased by the state of Missouri and now belong to all of us forever, the larger tract eventually to become Don Robinson State Park, Missouri's 51st state park. Across the road from me is a 330-acre parcel that borders on the Meramec River and for ten years I have wished to explore it. (I watched the wooden fencing around it fall apart, uncared for.) But that land was private. Soon it will belong to us all. The other substantial tract of 843 acres, the size of Central Park, not a half-mile from the 100-acre Divine property, was willed to the Missouri Department of Natural Resources in 2008 by Mr. Don Robinson.

This Way to the LaBarque Conservation Area

From this sign it's about a mile down Doc Sargent Road to the LaBarque Creek Conservation Area, consisting mainly of a mountain that rises from creek level at 500 feet to the peak at 800 feet. That's a 300-foot vertical climb and you will feel it. A 3-mile circuit hiking path, rated "difficult," pretty exciting, leads you to the top and back down. A while back I showed you the secret glade and water basin at the top.

Let me point out that the cardinal sitting atop the sign isn't alone; to the left, above the arrow, is his wife. And also that some fools around here use the conservation sign for target practice. Cowards, they shoot and run. Looks like some BB, some .22 and at least one .38. That's why I didn't put my Hughesnet dish on the cliff top. This sign was first put up in '09 and has already been replaced once.

I bid goodbye to a beautiful July, maybe the most beautiful ever, but lonely; thanks for visiting. I know y'all just loved that crocheted tire cover earlier this month.