A new bed for x-mas

The crew graded the banks a bit more and cleared the creek for a new x-mas bed.

 

 

It'll be a bit before this faux waterfall stops.  Your dog can still enjoy an afternoon splash.

 

 

A pair of hawks enjoyed the lack of activity in the park.  I've guessed red shouldered.  You?

Restoration Update

The engineered restoration project has moved beyond setting up the staging area and they are actively working in the creek.  Here are some photos taken this afternoon:

A pipe runs from Rosewood Ave. to the Pleasant Valley Overpass

 to pump water out of the creek segment that's being actively worked on.
 

 

 

where the water reenters Boggy Creek just upsteam of Pleasant Valley
 

 

heavy equipment in the staging area
 

 

creek just downstream of Rosewood Avenue.  water pumped out of it & regrading work has begun
 

 

material removed from the creek bed & ready for composting
 

 

boulders for erosion control, bank stablization

 

An overview of the project is available at: www.austintexas.gov/boggycreekrestoration

19.5 volunteer hours, 16 bags of trash, 7 bags of recyclables

Thanks to the twelve volunteers who came to the greenbelt this morning to celebrate the true spirit of the holidays.  Together we contributed 19.5 hours of volunteer time and collected 16 bags of trash plus 7 bags of recyclables.  Thanks to Keep Austin Beautiful for providing the cleanup supplies and to the Parks and Recreation Department for collecting the full trash bags. 

If you'd like to donate to the park in honor of these hard working volunteers please visit Austin Parks Foundation's donation webpage and select "Boggy Creek Greenbelt - Rosewood Glen Oaks."

cookies for energy

visiting before the cleanup

 

our creek was full of styrofoam, chip bags, and plastic bottles

 

VOLUNTEERS HARD AT WORK

 

 

 

 

 

The most unusual object found during the cleanup was a bone.  Think he's hungry? 

Other unusual objects found this morning included a basketball, gym bag, and a metal arch.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Creek Cleanup! Saturday, 12/15/12

Let's celebrate the holidays by holding a creek cleanup.  Keep Austin Beautiful is going to provide the supplies and one of our neighbors is going to provide the home-baked cookies.  Bring your ideas for future park projects!

Date: Saturday, December 15, 2012

Time: 10 a.m. - 11:30 a.m.

Location: Boggy Creek Greenbelt, 1114 Nile Street - 78702 (There are two pavilions in the park.  We will meet at the pavilion that has picnic tables and a stone fireplace.)

Bring:  your gardening gloves, a reusable water bottle

RSVP: jecawilson@yahoo.com

Dog Found - Sunday, December 2

FOUND

 

 

This elderly gentleman was found in the greenbelt on Sunday morning.  The phone number associated with his microchip and his rabies tag has been disconnected.  If you can help reunite him with his family please post a comment here.

 

“Images of America: Austin’s Rosewood Neighborhood”

Our neighbors Jane and Gilbert Rivera and their new book, “Images of America: Austin’s Rosewood Neighborhood” were featured in the Austin American-Statesman on November 30, 2012.  Just in case the link changes, I've copied the article and photos below.  The book includes photos of Rosewood Park and the history of our neighborhood's Juneteenth celebration which is the largest event that happens in the Boggy Creek Greenbelt each year. 

The book is available in Austin at Book People, 603 N. Lamar Blvd., (512) 472-5050; Resistencia Bookstore, 1801 S 1st St # A, (512) 416-8885. Also, it will be available next week at Monkey Wrench Books,110 N Loop Blvd. East, (512) 407-6925

Gilbert and Jane Rivera stand outside the George Washington Carver Museum & Cultural Center in the heart of the historical Rosewood neighborhood. The couple said their book doesn’t mince words about Austin’s history of segregation.  Photo by Deborah Cannon

 

Austin’s Rosewood neighborhood blossomed in spite of politics, authors say

By Juan Castillo

American-Statesman Staff

                          

Almost 50 years before Rosa Parks refused to give up her bus seat to a white passenger, blacks in Austin organized their own, lesser-known civil rights protest.

African-Americans in Austin could not board public streetcars from the front door or sit up front. A 1906 city ordinance prohibited it.

Blacks were outraged, and when the city refused to revoke the ordinance, they began a boycott similar to the one by African-Americans decades later in Montgomery, Ala., after Parks’ arrest. In Austin, owners of horses and wagons offered rides to those who had depended on the trolleys to get to their jobs. The boycott gained traction, and a year later, city leaders rescinded the ordinance.
“We were just amazed. It was a part of Austin history we did not know,” says Gilbert Rivera, who, with his wife, Jane, opened that window to the past in research for their new pictorial book on Austin’s historical Rosewood neighborhood.

Stocked with about 250 photos, the majority from Gilbert Rivera’s private collection, “Images of America: Austin’s Rosewood Neighborhood,” tells the story of the evolution of one of the city’s oldest black enclaves, from the late 1870s to its current incarnation as a diverse, dynamic neighborhood feeling the effects of gentrification and now home to blacks, Latinos and whites.
Rosewood’s traditional, historical boundaries are East Avenue (what is now Interstate 35) on the west, Airport Boulevard, Manor Road and East Seventh Street. The neighborhood is named for Rosewood Avenue, part of the once-bustling commercial heart of the community.
Crucial to understanding the forces that shaped Rosewood, the authors say, is understanding the city policies beginning in 1907 that sought to segregate African-Americans in East Austin. A 1928 city master plan was a key component of the policies.

“It is a work of love and of politics for us,” Gilbert Rivera said of the book.
Rivera, a retired energy conservation representative with Austin Energy and an amateur historian, said the book set out to convey that Rosewood began because of politics. “We wanted to show that though the African-American community was put into a part of town that in many ways had no infrastructure or city services, the strength of the community made Rosewood a very viable, beautiful neighborhood,” he said.

The Riveras have lived together in Rosewood 33 years. Gilbert Rivera, 65, was born there, about three blocks from where the couple live. He often tells the story about the midwife who buried his umbilical cord in the yard. “My mother always said I’ll never be able to leave Rosewood because my umbilical cord is still there,” he joked.

“We wanted to celebrate the community,” said Jane Rivera, a state employee. “Celebrate the community it became, not what the city had envisioned. It’s impossible to write a story of Rosewood without talking about the bad things, and the institutional racism it faced.”
Rosewood and other historically black neighborhoods overcame those barriers, Harold McMillan, executive director of the Diverse Arts Production Group in Austin, says in the book’s introduction. “Jim Crow had a positive impact in that it created strong and viable African American communities,” McMillan wrote.

The Riveras worked on the book about two years, interviewing old-timers and poring through the archives of the George Washington Carver Museum & Cultural Center and the Austin History Center. They learned of the boycott of public streetcars during their research at the history center.
Cynthia Evans, African-American neighborhood liaison at the Austin History Center, had not read the book but said such accounts are important because they preserve teachable information for future generations. “There’s so much information that gets hidden over time,” Evans said. “People kind of forget that.”

The Riveras are longtime East Austin neighborhood activists; they met during a protest march more than 30 years ago. Gilbert, chairman of the city’s Community Development Commission, founded the Brown Berets in Austin and participated in a number of Chicano civil rights and East Austin community groups. A native of Ohio, Jane came to Austin in 1980 and helped lead efforts to build affordable housing in East Austin. She is the chairwoman of the city’s Parks and Recreation Board.
“At the end of the day, we sit down and talk about what we did for the neighbors,” Gilbert Rivera said. Of Rosewood, he said: “The people who live here are very proud of what we’ve been able to build out of basically nothing. … That’s what we tried to show.”

The Riveras worked for two years on the book, “Images of America: Austin’s Rosewood Neighborhood,” interviewing old-timers and researching the archives of local history centers.  Photo by Deborah Cannon

Workin' 9 to 5

While lots of us were working 9 to 5 in office buildings the contractor was busy along Boggy Creek.  The staging area has been in place for weeks but when I took the dogs for a walk this afternoon I saw that the crew had a very busy day.  Here's a photo map of what's going on in the park walking upstream from the Senior Activity Center to Rosewood Avenue and then downstream from Rosewood Avenue along Hargrave.

Nile Street staging area near park's restrooms

 

 

inside the fenced in staging area is covered with mulch

and rocks where the heavy equipment enters/exits to reduce soil compaction

 

 

some of the heavy equipment ready to roll

 

 

erosion berms being moved into the staging area (a pretty unusual sight for Nile Street)

 

 

fencing and wood being put around trees to protect them during creek restoration

 

fencing to reduce pedestrian access to the work zone. 

The contractor is going to start at Rosewood Avenue and work their way downstream.

 

loose rock dam runs perpendicular to the creek's flow

 

fencing to keep pedestrians out of the work zone runs from the

Pleasant Valley overpass all the way to Rosewood Avenue

 

 view from Rosewood Avenue looking downstream

 

 fencing and erosion control in place along Hargrave

 

rocks at an access point off of Hargrave

 

Hargrave staging area

 

It'll be exciting to see the work progress over the next year.  More details about the restoration project are available at -  www.austintexas.gov/boggycreekrestoration

Plethora of Pecans

It’s been a bumper crop year for pecans in the greenbelt and every day you can see neighbors gathering these nourishing treats. Cultivated thin-shelled varieties are commercially grown throughout the Southeast but our pecans are smaller and sturdier with thick shells that give squirrels and humans a sense of accomplishment when you crack one open.

 

Since it is holiday time, which often means lots of good food, I asked our City of Austin Council Members to share their favorite pecan recipes and will list those below as they come in. 

 

Happy pecan gathering and eating during this holiday season!

Rusty Banks of Boggy

Rusty metal and concrete are so ingrained in Boggy Creek that the literally hold it in place and concrete carves a path down the middle. Bumpers make up the banks and surprise visitors since they expect to see a rock outcropping when they peer over the edge but are greeted by disintegrating cars. Over time the beauty of the slowing vanishing vehicles grows on you as you watch roots entwine with them and imagine the path that led them to hold up the creek bank.

English lovers can't help but think of T.S. Eliot's "The Waste Land" as you wander along the banks.
          What are the roots that clutch, what branches grow 
          Out of this stony rubbish?

 

 

 

 

 

This Fall, Boggy is going to begin its transformation into a more naturalized creek.  Details are posted on the City of Austin Watershed Protection Department's page: www.austintexas.gov/boggycreekrestoration  While many neighbors have a sentimental attachment to our cars parts creek, we look forward to one that's safter for kids to play, will have stable banks and reduced erosion, more native plants, and still have points where we can access the creek.

 

Artist rendering of what one of the drainage areas that flows from Nile Street to the creek will look like with native flowers and grasses in bloom.

 

 

Stay tuned to this blog for photos as the project progresses. 



 

It's Adopted!

The Boggy Creek Greenbelt, 1114 Nile Street - 78702, is a quiet greenbelt with lots of pecan trees, two pavilions, picnic tables, open areas for families to gather, and Central Texas vegetation and songbirds.

In November 2012, the greenbelt was formally adopted by the Rosewood - Glen Oaks Neighborhood Association and paperwork signed with the City of Austin Parks and Recreation Department.  Financial donations are being managed in partnership with the Austin Parks Foundation.  The section adopted is between the Senior Activity Center and Rosewood Avenue. 

The group will participate in large volunteer days like It's My Park Day and Clean Sweep. 

Initial Projects May Include:

Painting Over Graffiti

Repairing Benches

 

Repainting Tables

Uncovering the Sand Volleyball Court

Longer Term Projects May Include:

Native Tree Plantings To Replace Trees Lost in Drought