New Tools, to Serve You Better

We just took delivery of four new Discovery Carts. These carts were custom-made by the Central Alberta Woodworkers Guild. Each cart will have a theme and will hold props, games and activities relating to theme.

Each weekend interpreters will set up one or more carts in the Discovery Room. You'll be able to self-guide you and your kids through the activities, take activity packs outside or, have an interpreter lead you through some natural history. At the end of the weekend, the carts will roll under the counter in the Discovery Room; leaving the room clear for Nature Nursery.

Our thanks to Chuck, Denis and Guy for their hard work in building the carts, and to Kaley for her great design.

Watch for the carts to begin duty, this fall in the Discovery Room at the Kerry Wood Nature Centre.

Tomorrow Would be a Good Day to Visit

Why would tomorrow be a good day to visit us here at the Nature Centre? Tomorrow morning, the hoarding and barriers around the bird blind entrance will be removed and you can go for your first walk on the new structure. The benches are in place, the second story deck is secured and telescope is sitting atop its new perch. For, now though you'll have to make do with this teaser shot, taken from the deck, looking south down West lake.

Bird Blind Update

Here is the 9:00 am, Monday morning picture. As you can see the build crew made good progress over the weekend. The long curved catwalk that leads to the blind is largely decked and the framers were out creating the structure that ties all the screw piles together. The latter will form the base and subfloor for the blind.

Keep watching this space. We'll be madly updating as the next three days progress.

Todd

The missing bird blind

Visitors to the Dr. George Trail will notice that the side trail to the bird blind has been temporarily blocked off. That's because we no longer have a bird blind.

The old bird blind has been taken down and a new and improved version will be completed before spring thaw to minimise habitat disruption.

Watch for information on this, building improvements, ways to keep unwanted squirrels from your house, and much more in our spring newsletter. It'll be coming out soon!

We Know, We're Living With It

Those of you driving up and down 45th Ave past the Nature Centre, Parkland School and River Glenn School have probably noticed this scene being played out on the east side of the road.

Trust us, we are well aware of what's happening and to be perfectly honest, we're not all that concerned at the moment.

The City of Red Deer is installing some much needed water supply and sanitary lines. Four of them to be exact and they're pretty large. What the digger/bulldozer brigade is up to is site preparation so the pipe crews can safely excavate & shore their route.

The plan did go through the Gaetz Lakes Sanctuary Management committee and while the work is happening on the Sanctuary buffer zone, it's outside the Sanctuary proper. The land being prepped & excavated is not pristine, untouched land. It has been disturbed in the past and will be replanted & returned to a natural state at the end of the project.

This is a two-phase project. There are two lines going in this year and then two more proposed for 2008.

The City's news release is located on the City website here.

We are not anticipating any changes to the Nature Centre's hours, operations or programming.