Dedication

Mimi Cavender

The truth? Folks still call it “Patsy Glen” for short. On a spring day in Wimberley, Texas, we pack a sandwich and binoculars and head for a secluded patch of forest tumbling downhill behind a supermarket and the Community Center.

A new stone marker at the trailhead reminds us that this beautiful place is Patsy Glenn Refuge (PGR), named for its founder, avid birder and beloved resident of Wimberley. It’s important right now to know her story—enjoy a few minutes’ read and pretty photos: In the Glenn Again in the May 2022 Hays Humm. It’s about vision and generosity and cooperation. It’s about dedication. As is this story today.

Patsy’s initiative was supported by Wimberley Birding Society (WBS). Hays County Master Naturalist PGR project leader Bob Currie praises WBS for “always working to maintain and improve the visitor experience at Patsy Glenn Refuge.” WBS partners with the City of Wimberley, Wimberley Parks and Recreation, Hays County Chapter of Texas Master Naturalist™, Cypress Creek Project of The Meadows Center for Water and the Environment at Texas State University, and the Burdine Johnson Foundation. The Hill Country Chapter of Native Plant Society of Texas maintains the education garden. Other nature-oriented groups, such as Keep Wimberley Beautiful, contribute volunteers or monetary support. The consortium’s dedication to the success of this little bit of nature in Wimberley is unflagging—even when Mother Nature is her own worst enemy.

April 2022: Last year those volunteers came together for several much-needed enhancements to the Refuge. Rainwater runoff from surrounding commercial development had been pouring into the park’s natural basin, flooding the birding station and feeding area and eroding the historic dry stacked stone wall. A cedar pole fence and higher brush barriers would solve a deer problem. But recurrent flooding was the real challenge.

Bob Currie tells the backstory: “Years ago, long before the retirement center became a neighbor of Patsy Glenn Refuge, the Wimberley Birding Society commissioned a review of the potential of the park as a place where the public could view the native wildlife, especially birds. Bird habitat expert Rufus Stephens conducted the study and concluded that the best thing to do would be to build a water feature. Then, runoff erosion from the retirement center’s construction turned ‘would like to build’ into an urgent priority.”

Jerry Lunow designed and continues to improve his enhanced wetland. Photo: Mimi Cavender

Wimberley resident, award-winning architect and Master Naturalist Jerry Lunow brought his professional experience designing wetlands to the problem. Taking the lead, he proposed engineering the park’s natural flood basin into an “enhanced wetland”—it was lemons into lemonade. After official approval of his design, Jerry supervised the earthwork [deepening the basin].

Jerry: “We used recycled stone from the Johnson farm [Sabino Ranch, just over the Refuge’s back fence]. I found aquatic plants and got a seed plan for the banks and berm. I dragged that old stick—it’s called a ‘snag’ in the bird world—and propped it out over the water. You know, this basin used to be a pioneer family’s cornfield. They built the stone wall to hold in the rainwater. I knew what could be done when I saw that wall.”

March, 2023. A year’s drought, a tree-splitting ice storm, and some welcome bluebonnets later, it was time for spring cleanup in Patsy Glenn. The combined volunteers were again out in force, but this year with extraordinary purpose: only a week away was the one-year anniversary of the park’s enhanced wetlands feature, and it would have a new name: Jerry Lunow Wetlands. There would be a dedication ceremony, replete with dignitaries. And speeches.

So everything had to look great. Charley and Kim Dein re-decked the bird blind bridge. Jerry Lunow’s and Lance Jones’ muscle power put the finishing touches on the wetland weir. Gina McKinney and Gordon Linam cleared downed junipers away from the pathway, Susan Evans and Pam Zirley tidied up the butterfly garden, Lee Ann Linam cleared vegetation in the pathway, and Mimi Cavender weeded and restacked pathway rocks. Jim Miller took care of some of the major downed trees, especially one large juniper fallen into the wetland pool. Photos: Bob Currie and Lance Jones

Work day crew. L-R: Bob Currie, Charley Dein, Kim Dein, Pam Zirley, Lee Ann Linam, Mike Glenn, David Glenn, Gordon Linam, Gina McKinney, Laura Legett, and Jerry Lunow Photo: Mimi Cavender

March 25, 2023. A cadre of, yes, dedicated volunteers had been dedicating whole days and weeks to sprucing up the park for the Enhanced Wetlands dedication. Others had planned the speakers’ list and the program. Let’s open the printed program, produced by Laura Legett and Wimberley Birding Society.

Folks converged on Patsy Glenn Refuge at 10 o’clock on a cool spring morning. Cedar elms and new grasses glistened brilliant green in the slanting light. People just kept streaming down the trail, around the birding station and the old rock wall, around the wetland weir, into the shady “classroom grove” of young elms on the water’s far side. Here is where the city’s third graders come to learn about Patsy Glenn’s glen.

Larry Calvert, Robin Gary (kneeling), Lin Weber, Bryce Burkhalter, David Glenn, Jerry Lunow, Mayor Gina Fulkerson, Lisa Giberson, Susan Evans, Laura Legett

Bob Currie updates us: “Since the enhanced wetlands’ completion, PGR has seen new arrivals, including raptors and a Night Heron, and the pond is filling up with frogs. It’s something to see.”

The glen is where the adults in love with Hays County nature came today to see how their combined dedication is repaid in greenspace and birdsong. They saw how Patsy Glenn’s vision continues, protected from flood and erosion. The frogs are singing, and at least one Night Heron is hunting them in the Jerry Lunow Wetlands.

We celebrate Jerry. We celebrate our Glenn Group of powerhouse cooperating organizations and their dedication to maintaining—and perpetually enhancing—Patsy Glenn’s gift to us all.

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