The Peru Gazette

By Adele Douglas

Town employees Mike Hanlon and Rob Wright installing the new sign for the Town’s new park.  Thanks to Kris Bruno for volunteering  and building this impressive sign.  The post was designed and manufactured by John Trombly of Modern Mechanical Fabricating in Champlain.  The design elements represent both saw blades and log sections, to reflect the almost 100 years that this site was home to the A. Mason and Sons Lumber Mill.

Highway Superintendent Mike Farrell takes a phone break while building the additional trail section along the edge of the Little Ausable River.  Now complete, the park hosts a nice 1/3 of a mile circuit around the perimeter of the park for walkers, joggers, cyclists and strollers.  So if you’re looking for a place to learn how to ride a bike, or looking for a place to walk or jog in a car free environment, this is it.  Thanks to Niki LaPlante for helping lay out the additional trail segment.

There are some beautiful sections of the Little Ausable River in the Park and the Town’s working to increase access to, and visibility of, the river.

The 1836 Heyworth Building under a rainbow.  Ann Wilke snapped this and the following photo.  Thanks to Ann and Lynn for cleaning-up trash along the connector trail to Little Ausable Park, keeping an eye on the park, and watering the newly planted shrubs, which was a pretty demanding job through the heat of this summer.

Bucky Beaver hasn’t been seen in the past couple of months but was seen daily for most of the summer. There were also a number of kids who played in the river.  One reported that a fisherman caught a nice brown trout in this stretch, pretty amazing considering how low the water was most of the year.

Thanks to partial funding from the State through a Parks grant, the bulk of the work was performed  last year by Fuller Excavating.  Over the summer  the finishing touches  were put on the Park by local, mostly volunteer efforts. Don and Adam McBrayer cleared a connector trail to Little Ausable Park.  Peru Lions and Kara McBrayer planted the gardens.  Town Park crews installed benches, interpretive signs, a garbage can and picnic tables. Don and Kara McBrayer, with guidance from Bob Gallinger, installed edging around the gardens  and planted 100 lilies.  Town Supervisor Pete Glushko and councilman Brandy McDonald kept an eye on the park with regular patrols while Councilman Jim Douglass kept all the various improvements  moving along.

Next year’s plans include improving the connector trail between Heyworth/Mason Park and Little Ausable Park under the Rte 22 bridge.  This with improve the connection of the new park to the hamlet and allow users to avoid having to cross busy Rte 22.

At the back of the park Mike Farrell has built the connection to the beginning of the Little Ausable River Trail.  It is anticipated that this 1.5 multi-use trail to Sullivan Park will be built next year.  While awarded partial Federal funding in 2006, it took until this year to develop a design plan that was acceptable to DOT and FHWA.  Over that period the proposed budget has increased so the Town is pursuing additional grant funds.