Preparing for the 2010 field school

UWF students and volunteers took to the field again this past April at Mission San Joseph de Escambe in Molino, Florida. Wielding machetes and even a chainsaw, they took advantage of clearer conditions at the beginning of spring growth to do a bit of clearing of thick undergrowth around last year's excavation units. This year, beginning on May 18, we plan to expand on several of last year's units, and so early clearing makes it easier to lay in new units and utilize remote sensing to guide our work once we get started with a full student field crew.

As can be seen in the video below, small-diameter brush was cleared, leaving larger trees such as sweetgum and oak to maintain the forest canopy above. The students added fresh cuttings to the pile originally started by the landowner earlier in the spring, resulting in a truly huge pile of brush (above).



We will begin posting new blog entries as the project gets underway this month, but we also plan to leave last year's blog entries intact, so visitors can get a feel for the process of discovery that led to this year's project.