Local Boy Scout
Eli Edwards of Oakton earned the prestigious William T. Hornaday Badge for his 18-month conservation project to remove the invasive plant pachysandra from Fairfax County Park Authority land along the Gerry Connolly Cross County Trail in Oakton.
Over the course of 18 months, Edwards mobilized 164 volunteers to spend more than 400 hours removing 124 large bags of pachysandra that was carpeting parkland and preventing native plants from surviving and thriving.
He and his volunteers planted 170 native plants to restore the parkland and provide food for local wildlife.
Edwards partnered with Fairfax County Park Authority Invasive Management Area program on the initiative.
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In 1946, Nat King Cole recorded The Christmas Song, the most-performed holiday song of all time. Its opening lyric, Chestnuts roasting on an open fire, evokes images of Christmas – a wistful version of the holiday most of us have never actually experienced, because a blight caused the American chestnut tree, once the most predominant tree in the country, to go extinct.
Chestnuts were synonymous with Christmas in the United States even before the popular carol hit airwaves. In fact, they were one of the most popular ingredients in American dishes throughout the 18th and 19th centuries, and for good reason: the Eastern seaboard was covered in chestnut trees.