Camp Cleanup has Begun!

lschultz • March 22, 2019

The snow is gone, and that means it’s time to start making improvements down at camp! This week, we began our cleanup of the property by removing massive pines (a white pine and an Austrian pine) from the property. Both trees were dead and beginning to rot away. The Austrian pine was in the middle of the field, but the white pine was in a tough spot tucked between a cabin and a shed. The white pine had started to lose branches, and they were falling all around the shed so we knew it was time to get rid of them.

We called in a crew of professionals (J’s Tree Trimming and Removal Inc.) to come and help us out, and they did a great job taking down the trees. After all the work was done, they came up to me and told me how much fun they had. Apparently, they don’t get to work on trees like ours everyday. The top of white pine was extremely large and tricky, but they took it down no problem. They said the Austrian pine had such a massive base that they were not quite sure how they were going to take it down. But they got that one down with ease. It looks like we will have plenty of firewood this summer and probably many summers to come!

There is still a lot of work to be done, down at the Cedar Lake Outdoor Center. If you are interested in coming and helping out, we are having a cleanup day on May 3, where volunteers and staff come to camp to help us get ready for the summer. We also provide lunch to all our volunteers! If you are interested in helping out, shoot me an email at mbass@mucc.org.

Camp registration is still going on and we are almost 50 percent full! If you know of someone that would love going to camp, get them registered online here: http://app.campdoc.com/register/mucc. Make sure to register your camper before we run out of spots!

If you are looking for a scholarship to send your camper to camp, the SCI-Novi Chapter sponsors 80 campers a summer through the Riley Wilderness Youth Camp Scholarship program. If you are interested in this, check out the SCI-Novi website and fill out their application: http://www.scinovi.com/RWYC/rwyc_application.html

If you know someone that would love camp but might be a little too old to attend, we are still looking to hire summer camp staff! We are looking for conservation educators/counselors, a waterfront director and a facilities manager. If you know someone that might be interested have them, check out our staff page: http://www.mucccamp.org/about/staff/ and submit an application.

 

Recent Posts

May 2025 NRC Recap

By Justin Tomei • May 8, 2025
The Natural Resources Commission (NRC) met for their May meeting today at Lansing Community College West Campus. The commission voted to return antlered opportunities to the Independence and Liberty hunts at the May Natural Resources Commission meeting. The amendment to restore this opportunity passed after Commissioner Walters withdrew his amendment from April to only partially restore antlered opportunity during these hunts. MUCC testified for the complete restoration of antlered opportunity during these two hunts, per a member passed policy from our 2025 Annual Convention. The commission also voted on, and ultimately accepted, a proposal to allow archery antlerless take in the high snowfall zone in the Upper Peninsula. Additionally, the commission also chose to leave on the table and postpone indefinitely the order to reopen the illegally partially closed coyote season. This prevents the order from dying after today's meeting and makes it eligible for action at a later date. This amendment will remain postponed until the June meeting at the earliest.  MUCC has created the Coyote Coalition to assist in unifying the voice of conservationists in support of Proposal G. To join the Coyote Coalition, visit https://www.mucc.org/coyotecoalition . The commission did adopt proposed fall turkey regulations unanimously. The June commission meeting is Thursday, June 12 in Bay City. To ensure our natural resources remain protected and managed thoughtfully and our outdoor heritage defended, join Michigan United Conservation Clubs today: http://bit.ly/JoinMUCC .

On The Ground: Volunteers at the Annual Jack Pine Planting Day

By Olivia Triltsch • May 8, 2025
In total, volunteers improved about 6 acres of habitat and planted around 6,000 trees in this stand to continue regeneration.

On the Ground Junior: Spring Event Recap

By Katelyn Helsel • May 7, 2025
Our student volunteers have been hard at work improving wildlife habitat on public lands! MUCC’s On the Ground Junior (OTG Jr.) program, a subset of the On the Ground program, is a fully funded field trip program that brings grade-school classrooms into the outdoors to improve fish and wildlife habitat in their local communities. Through activities like native plantings, brush pile building, and invasive species removal, students gain hands-on experience with conservation and positively impact the world around them. Students also participate in educational activities like predator-prey tag to teach them about population dynamics and other natural resources concepts. So far this spring season, MUCC welcomed 69 students, teachers, and chaperones who participated in multiple OTG Jr projects with more on the way! In total, they improved over 12 acres of wildlife habitat. Read on for a recap of each OTG Jr project and see what all our awesome student volunteers have been up to. 
More Posts