Cherokee Park Neighborhood Association

I need you!!! (Your help anyway)

It is almost time for the CPNA Annual 4th of July Bike Parade and Picnic. This wonderful event is great fun for the entire family and for neighbors of all ages. The bike parade will begin at 11:00 and prizes will be awarded for the bikes with the best decorations! We will meet at Burning Wood Court and parade to the park where popsicles, games and a pot-luck picnic will follow. Burgers and hotdogs will be provided.

It does take some work to pull off a party of this size – and that's where you come in! I really need help in the following areas:
Õ Judges for the bike decoration contest
Õ Face painters (any of you middle/high school kids want to help decorate the younger children?)
Õ Games (for the younger children, too)
Õ Grills and people to grill the burgers and hotdogs
Õ Set-up and Clean-up help

If you are able to help at all, please call Dayna Dalton. Any and all help is greatly appreciated.

Annual Cherokee Park Garden Walk

The annual CPNA garden walk is scheduled for Sunday, July 18. We are looking for new participants this year. If you have an interesting garden or landscape that you would like to share with your neighbors, please contact Pat Birkett or Bonnie Carlson. You do not have to have a large garden in order to participate. It is not necessary for you to be home on the day of the walk. We can arrange for someone else to be present, if you wish.

Park Commission needs you

So far, we have 5 people signed up to help us on our new CPNA Park Commission. We need 10 – 12 members to make this work. Also, none of the 5 wants to Chair the Commission. So, we are appealing to you - If you care about our Park, if you want your kids to have a better playground area, and if you can help us lead this Commission, or join the others to serve on it, please contact the Bill Lorge. We will only meet 2 times per year, and the Cherokee T-shirt profits will go to this Fund. We plan to have the T-shirts ready to sell at our 4th of July Picnic, and we need volunteers to help sell T-shirts. The 12 Commissioners will mostly decide what the money is spent on. The City will match any money we raise. This will be a very rewarding project. Please step forward and sign up today! Our first meeting will be a picnic in late July at the Park - Bring your kids.

CPNA Summer Board Meeting

The summer CPNA board meeting will be on Tuesday Aug. 10 at 6:30 pm. For more information contact Bill Lorge.

Speeding and Safety Committee

Lesli Taschwer & Rich Halberg have been appointed to be the Co-Chairs of our CPNA "Speeding and Safety Committee". Madison Police and city officials will join us for our first meeting at the end of July on Comanche Way to discuss ways to make our neighborhood safer and to reduce the speeding. One possible solution is to have '3-Way Stop Signs' installed at the corner of Comanche Way and Menomonie Lane. Please come to the meeting to voice your concerns. Contact Lesli or Rich for more information.

Brush Pick Up - 3rd Monday every Month

Reminder - Brush Pick up for our Neighborhood is the 3rd Monday of each Month from May through October. Let's try and time our brush cutting closer to these days so that we don't have branches and brush along our streets too long before the brush pick-up trucks come. You need to have your brush out on the curb by early Monday morning. If you have an unusually large brush project, you can call 246-4532 to make special arrangements. If ever a tree or large branch is down from a storm, you can also call that number. Let's keep our neighborhood looking great!

Cherokee Neighborhood Welcome Sign

Many Cherokee residents were joined by Madison's Mayor Dave Cieslewicz for the official unveiling of our new Cherokee Neighborhood Welcome Sign at the entrance to our neighborhood. Special thanks to Ken Wilke who coordinated this project and to Molly Lorge who took the picture.

At Home With Nature

When I was a youngster, I once watched a TV program that profiled Dr. Albert Schweitzer. For those who don't recognize the name, Dr. Schweitzer was a widely-renowned humanitarian who made it his life's work to practice medicine in French Equatorial Africa. Apparently, the kindly doctor revered life in all its forms. The reporter described how he had been mildly reproached for his careless disregard of the life of an ant that he had brushed off the doctor's garment while interviewing him.

While no Schweitzer, I have long maintained a live and let live attitude toward critters of all varieties. I confess to even assisting the occasional earthworm back to dirt when it has misguidedly crawled out onto the pavement during a rainstorm. Since moving to the Cherokee neighborhood, where nature presents a very in-your-face aggressiveness about reclaiming (or at least co-habiting) the land, I have often found it challenging to co-exist rather than destroy.

Fortunately, I have few phobias and a great fascination for animal behavior. So, I am content to merely observe the ways of the many spiders that inhabit the house. Should they come too close or grow too large, I relocate them to the out-of-doors. Likewise, I have become adept at capturing the live mice my cats occasionally deliver to me in the middle of the night. Fortunately, I've also learned how to identify where they are getting into the house so I can install preventive barricades.

Every year at this time, though, I am reminded of the saintly Dr. Schweitzer. For all his goodness and gentle nature and care toward the hapless ant, I have to ask myself, "Do you suppose he would swat a mosquito?" How could he not?

Mulching Around Trees

Mulch around trees can be a real benefit when correctly applied. Mulching can provide trees with a stable root environment that is cooler and moister than the surrounding soil. It also helps keep lawnmowers and weed whips away from the tree. Mulch should be two to four inches deep and cover as much of the root system as possible. This can be an extensive area, so try to do as much under the drip line (out as far as the longest branch) as possible. The mulch should not cover the actual trunk of the tree. Leave a mulch-free area one to two inches wide at the base to help avoid moist conditions and prevent trunk decay. Thicker layers (five to six inches or more) may interfere with the gas exchange between soil and air which inhibits root growth.