It’s time to go for a walk

Posted on March 29, 2015 by paulmozina

Pati and I met Dr. Jim Meeker, and his wife Joan Elias, when their neighbors, Greg Legault and Janette Christie (Legault), introduced us on the memorably challenging, private, cross country ski trails they had woven across their adjoining properties in Gurnee, Wisconsin. We began renting Greg’s cozy cabin back in the early 90’s and I remember how starstruck Pati was when we met Jim, who already had a reputation for the manoomin, aka wild-rice, research he had done in the Bad River’s Kakagon Sloughs.

Jim and Greg at the South Point Banyan Tree house

One of Jim’s best pictures of the Kakagon Sloughs

Jim and Joan befriended us and we stayed in touch over the years. Pati and I were truly saddened when we heard that Jim had “walked on” (see page 10 in this issue of Mazina’igan, or expand the article shown below.)

I felt lucky and blessed to be in Gurnee on March 21 for the Memorial Service and Celebration of Jim’s Life (Pati had a business commitment in South Africa.) Here are a couple of testimonials:

Great Lakes Indian Fish and Wildlife Commission is grateful for Dr. Meeker’s many contributions as a former staff member, scientist, teacher and mentor, but mostly as a very gentle, approachable human-being, filled with kindness and concern for all living creatures, but especially those plant-beings!

or, this from the Northland College Magazine (see page 8)

A professor of botany and natural resources, Jim shared his passion for the outdoors with students in the classroom, field and laboratory. Jim fostered an inter-disciplinary approach to solving problems and used an experiential pedagogy before those approaches were being promoted within higher education.

Jim loved to share what he learned from nature: “It’s time to go for a walk!”

One of Jim and Joan’s favorite places in the neighborhood: Potato Falls.

That is the upper falls above cascading over multiple tiers, and below we see the lower falls.

I got a real treat when I met a team of kayakers who had just run the upper falls!

Check out Jonathan Sisley’s run down the upper falls, which begins around 1:00 into this video (thanks for sharing this Jonathan!)

Back at The Springs, there was buckthorn to cut and pile. Andy Buchta stacked all the brush I laid down near the marl factory.

I continued clearing the areas on both sides of the trail a couple hundred yards from the parking lot on Hwy ZZ, in what used to be, The Buckthorn Alley.

Tuesday I focused on the left side of the trail…

…and cut many a buckthorn, though it’s hard to tell (below, same three views after.)

On Thursday I continued cutting on both the right and left sides of the trail (below, before cutting, looking right, then left.)

Below, the same three views after a 6 tanks of gas in the chain saw.

Ben Johnson joined me after work to help rake out and rehabilitate the burn rings/scars from the last brush pile burning season. The skunk cabbage is emerging.

Believe it or not I was back at it on Saturday. I’m trying to cut as much buckthorn as I can while it’s still dormant. Andy is following close behind piling the brush. Thanks Andy!

Ben has been helping Anne Korman, Assistant Superintendent KMSF – Southern Unit, work on a plan to make the Scuppernong Springs Nature Trail handicap accessible from the parking lot to the Hotel Spring and we had a date to review project. The removal of the bridge by the Hotel Spring has opened up some new perspectives on how to route the trail. Anne, and her boss Paul Sandgren, scoped out the situation and they are seriously considering building the new bridge over the river at the old sawmill site at signpost #12. The new trail would follow the berm that formed the lower pond.

This would be a beautiful spot to cross the river, with the added bonus that the east bank of the old bridge site, which has some very unique springs and flora, would be allowed to return to a natural state. The DNR Water Regulations and Zoning engineers will have a say in the matter for sure.

While Ben moved boardwalks and cleared a trail along the berm, I continued cutting buckthorn on the left side of the trail, where I left off last time.

That is how it looked before I got started. Andy joined me and piled tons of buckthorn while I cut.

I can’t wait to see how these wetlands respond in the absence of the buckthorn cover!

Ben and I had an excellent adventure exploring the northeast corner of the Scuppernong Springs Nature Preserve and then we took a tour.

I’m excited to share that the Natural Resources Foundation has added the Scuppernong Springs Nature Trail to their 2015 Field Trip Schedule.

See you at The Springs!

p.s. Thanks to Mark Miner for monitoring bluebird houses!

The Pike Lake Springs

Posted on January 26, 2015 by paulmozina

I love springs. They’re pure and simple, shimmering musical, bubbling forth life and hope; just what I need. So it was serendipitous that Pati and I decided to hike the Ice Age Trail in the Kettle Moraine State Forest Pike Lake Unit, where we discovered that the lake is fed by numerous springs along its eastern shore.

The Rubicon River flows through the lake on its way to the Rock River, providing refreshing circulation.

In 2001 a 60′ observation tower was built at the top of Powder Hill that provides a unique perspective of the the surrounding Kettle Moraine topography.

The highlight of the extensive trail system is the Black Forest Nature Trail, which takes you through a remnant of Southern Dry-Mesic Forest that includes spring-fed wetlands.

We are definitely going to visit this beautiful place again as the seasons change.

Back home at The Springs, I had another great week thanks to a little help from my friends. On Martin Luther King Day, I was joined by my old friend from Northwestern Mutual, Mark Mamerow, who helped me for many years to clean out the Bark River and make it navigable for canoes and kayaks from the Village of Hartland to Lake Nagawicka.

Before I dive into our modest accomplishments, I want to call your attention to An Act of State: The Execution of Martin Luther King, by William F. Pepper. While the nation was distracted by the O. J. Simpson trial, the family of Dr. King was successfully pursuing truth and justice via a wrongful death civil trial against Loyd Jowers. The jury deliberated for about an hour before delivering their verdict:

THE COURT: In answer to the question did Loyd Jowers participate in a conspiracy to do harm to Dr. Martin Luther King, your answer is yes. Do you also find that others, including governmental agencies, were parties to this conspiracy as alleged by the defendant? Your answer to that one is also yes. And the total amount of damages you find for the plaintiffs entitled to is one hundred dollars. Is that your verdict?

THE JURY: Yes (In unison).

There is overwhelming evidence that James Earl Ray did not shoot Dr. King and that others, “including governmental agencies” were involved. Yet, every year on Martin Luther King day, the nation’s collective amnesia is “refreshed” by the total blackout of this important information in the main stream media. This is the kind of thing that drives The Buckthorn Man crazy. You can listen to William F. Pepper tell the story here.

I met Mark at the DNR parking area above the Hotel Spring and we headed to the area north of the old barn site along Hwy 67, where I have been working recently. Our goal was to burn the brush previously cut and continue clearing the buckthorn from the hillside below the highway. Here are a few shots taken after we got the first fire started.

We allowed time and energy to take a tour of The Springs afterwards and I got to show off all of the cool things we did last year. Thanks Mark!

Last Thursday I was joined deep in the Buckthorn Alley by Chris Mann and the Kettle Moraine Land Stewards (Brian Brandt and Austin Avellone.) We are clearing the north side of the trail, which, now that you can see, consists of rolling uplands interspersed with wetlands. Here is how it looked before we got started (the views are looking east, north and southeast.)

Lunch break update.

The results far exceeded my expectations! Brian Brandt really kicked ass, putting Chris, Austin and The Buckthorn Man to shame. I think he might even be able to give Ben Johnson and Lindsay Knudsvig a run for their money! Below are the same three perspectives shown above.

Finally, on Saturday, taking advantage of the mild weather, I headed over to the east shore of Ottawa Lake to burn some brush piles that Andy Buchta stacked this past Fall. Thanks again Andy!

Mark Miner joins us when he can, and I really appreciated his help on Saturday to watch and tend the brush piles after I got them lit. We had a safe and effective day burning piles along the lake shore all the way up to the east side of the Ottawa Lake Fen SNA.

Views from the campground, site #380, where I parked my truck.

Views from the east side of the fen.

It’s a load off my mind when I can get brush piles burned!

A couple of closing shots from our adventure at Pike Lake yesterday.

See you at The Springs!

Fire Works at The Springs

Posted on December 31, 2014 by paulmozina

We’ve been celebrating the end of 2014 at The Springs

with fire works of our own.

It’s been a great year, and we’ve accomplished a lot — some of which is really good. Visit the Archives drop-down list, on the right side of the Scuppernong Springs Nature Trail Home page, and pick a month to scroll through. I did just that, and added my favorite moments of 2014, one for each month, to the Posts I Like section of the Home page (scroll down and look on the right side.) I hope you have enjoyed your journey on The Scuppernong Springs Nature Trail with The Buckthorn Man in 2014 and that you will continue with me in 2015! I welcome your comments, suggestions, clarifications and corrections.

There is one thing that buckthorn fears more than The Buckthorn Man: FIRE. Buckthorn will fight you until you subject it to the flame. When you’ve been offended, slapped, pricked, tripped, mocked and poked by buckthorn, like The Buckthorn Man has, then you will understand how satisfying it is to cut, poison and burn this vermin foliage in a few hours time.

Usually we wait for snow cover before burning brush piles, but this Winter has been wet enough that I considered giving it a try. Our first burns at the Ottawa Lake Fen SNA were safely conducted and very productive. It saves a tremendous amount of time and effort when you can throw freshly cut buckthorn onto a raging fire, as opposed to piling it to burn another day (when it may be buried under 6″ of snow.)

Last weekend I began burning brush piles along the northeast rim of the loop trail. I tried, and failed, to light some of these piles last year, and was glad to get another chance at them sans snow.

I’ll never get tired of saying ‘it was a great day’!

Andy Buchta came out to help me and mentioned that he had finished piling the brush we cut, and did not burn, at the Ottawa Lake Fen SNA. Thanks Andy!

On Sunday, I had a date with Chris Mann and the Kettle Moraine Land Stewards and we continued where Andy and I left off on Saturday. But first, here are a couple of “the day after” views of what we accomplished.

The slope from the wetland shown above, east to Hwy 67, transitions from mostly buckthorn to mostly black locust. The black locust has been harvested but many of the buckthorn were simply pushed over. The ones that were cut did not appear to be poisoned. The combination of battered buckthorn and slashed black locust resembled a war zone, and I wanted to clean up the mess.

Chris, Andy and Austin joined me as we re-cut and poisoned the buckthorn stumps and fed huge fires with buckthorn and black locust slash. We cleaned up the lower portion of the hillside, leaving the rest for a contractor that the DNR hires. They grind everything up, which contributes fuel for a prescribed burn, but it is necessary to come back and poison the resprouts from the undamaged buckthorn root systems. On the other hand, our technique leaves much less fuel for a prescribed burn but kills the buckthorn the first time. It will be interesting to see how fire carries through these areas if the DNR is successful at executing a prescribed burn here in 2015.

The conditions for burning brush piles are still very good, so I’m going to try to burn as much as I can before the snow finally arrives. We got out again yesterday and continued on the west side of the wetland shown above, approaching The Buckthorn Alley.

It was a cold day and the fires felt real good. Andy, Chris and Austin standing before a huge blaze.

One of my favorite things to do is hang out by a fire on a cold winter’s night. I propped myself up with a pitch fork and watched the smoke trailing up from the embers and through the trees into the moonlit sky.

Happy New Year and I hope to see you at The Springs!

The Buckthorn Man Unocculted

Posted on November 23, 2014 by paulmozina

Ask me anything.

I’ve got nothing to hide.

Ok Buckthorn Man. Are you a misanthrope?

Hmmm, that’s a tough question; better define our terms first. Per wikipedia:

Molière‘s character Alceste in Le Misanthrope (1666) states:

My hate is general, I detest all men;
Some because they are wicked and do evil,
Others because they tolerate the wicked,
Refusing them the active vigorous scorn
Which vice should stimulate in virtuous minds.

Ok, I confess: whether it be from honesty or hubris, I don’t know, it’s true, I do feel that way sometimes. I barely saw a soul last week working at The Springs, and that was fine by me.

To occult something is simply to hide it from view. As Mark Passio explained in his Natural Law Seminar, people occult knowledge to create or preserve a power differential they use to their advantage. Take the idea of satanism; what is the first thing it conjures up? Mark was a priest in the church of satan, and when I heard him explain their 4 basic tenets, which he knew first-hand, it opened my eyes.

Survival: self-preservation is the top priority
Moral relativism: if it’s good for me, it’s good, if it’s bad for, me it’s bad
Social Darwinism: it is right and desirable for an elite few to dominate the other 99.9999% of humanity
Eugenics: who is allowed to procreate, and at what rate, must be controlled

That is satanism unocculted.

At the Scuppernong Springs Nature Trail, it is U.S. Highway 67 that has been unocculted. The removal of huge colonies of black locust trees from both the north and south ends of the preserve, along with the buckthorn cutting, have exposed the sights and sounds of the highway to major portions of the trail. I won’t occult the truth: this is very obnoxious, especially in winter, and worst of all, at night. The bright, rolling headlights, intermittently blocked by trees, evoke the feeling of prison bars and clandestine interrogations; not very relaxing or natural. And on Saturday night, it was one car after another… I don’t like it one bit. We have to get some native shrubs planted and recreate a healthy understory.

Despite my deeper appreciation for those who prefer a wall of buckthorn to highway traffic, I continued to work the brush cutter last week at The Springs. Tuesday was cold and I had to rest my water bottle in the relatively warm river to keep it from freezing solid.

Here is how it looked before I started…

… and after

It’s subtle.

While on my evening stroll, I got a call from my old friend, Randy Schilling, who came out to The Springs 2 years ago to harvest some oak, hickory and cherry logs. He had some presents for me: vases and bowls turned with care into art on his wood lathe.

Thanks Randy. I love you man!

Friday was perfect and I worked on the south side of the river just upstream from the gaging station bridge.

Again, before …

… and after.

I think this is the best use of my time now: solidify the gains that have been made in the last few years and prepare for the burn next spring.

Yesterday I did some work on the south end of trail focusing on black locust.

I took a walk as night fell …

See you at The Springs!

Kettle Moraine Land Stewards Coming To The Springs!

Posted on October 12, 2014 by paulmozina

In what could be a landmark in the history of the restoration of the Scuppernong Springs Nature Preserve, the Kettle Moraine Natural History Association is funding Chris Mann and the Kettle Moraine Land Stewards to come and work at The Springs. Chris graduated with a Biology degree from the University of Stevens Point in 2007 and started the Kettle Moraine Land Stewards in 2008. Since then, he has left his mark on the land in the service of the: Wisconsin DNR, U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, Friends of Lapham Peak, Kettle Moraine Land Trust, Muskego Lakes Conservancy, and many private land owners. Chris can do it all from designing an ecologically sound restoration, to clearing invasive species, executing prescribed burns and replenishing the native flora.

It’s always a pleasure to see Ron Kurowski at The Springs because he loves the place so much. Time is spiritual currency and last Friday afternoon Ron paid me a visit and spent his time celebrating the work we have accomplished at The Springs, and imagining what we could do with more help. The next thing I know, I’m walking on the Sand Prairie with Chris Mann discussing the work we want him to do. It is going to be a great partnership and I’m looking forward to learning a lot from Chris.

I had a fantastic, three day run, at The Springs this past week and the weather could not have been any sweeter. My immediate goal is to cut the buckthorn, and other woody brush, that has sprung up in all of the areas of the Scuppernong Springs Nature Preserve in which we have done major buckthorn clearing operations. The cut brush and stems should be nicely dried by the time the DNR does their next prescribed burn, hopefully in the Spring of 2015. On Thursday I continued where I left off last time on the cut-off trail. Here is what it looked like before I got started (the first picture is looking west at the ruins of an old building foundation, and the second is looking southeast towards the Scuppernong River.)

I am very careful to avoid cutting oak seedlings and, native flowers and shrubs.

Here are the same two perspectives shown above after 8 tankfuls of gas in the brush cutter.

When I arrived on the sand prairie to watch the sunset, there were two women, obviously having a deep conversation, sitting on the bench that Ben built. I respected their privacy and caught the last rays from the Marl Pit Bridge.

Friday was another gorgeous, Fall, day and I strapped on my brush cutter to work along the Buckthorn Alley trail, just north of where I had been the day before.

I find this work very relaxing and conducive to having thoughts; one of which struck me out of the blue was the relationship between the Greek Trivium…

… and the Shield of the Trinity.

I first heard about this three years ago from Richard Grove, who asked the famous educator (at 26:00 in), John Taylor Gatto, about it at the start of the outstanding, 5 hour, interview he recorded with him. For some reason, the power and implications of the idea — that the Christian Trinity was a metaphor for the Greek Trivium — took that long to sink in.

Jesus, The Son, is Grammar. He is knowledge: who, what where, when. He is the way, the truth and the life. The only way to know The Father, is through The Son i.e., the only way to come to understand something is through knowledge. We gain knowledge via our five senses; only if we have eyes to see and ears to hear that is.

The Father understands all: God only knows why. There are no contradictions between The Father and The Son just as there are no contradictions allowed when you apply logic to grammar.

Who doesn’t want to be filled with the wisdom of The Holy Spirit and speak in tongues persuading all who hear? Don’t worry if you’re not a skilled rhetorician; The Holy Spirit knows how.

Comparing the two shields above:

Grammar (knowledge) is/est Consciousness: The Son (knowledge) is God
Logic (understanding) is/est Consciousness: The Father (understanding) is God
Rhetoric (wisdom) is/est Consciousness: The Holy Spirit (wisdom) is God

Truth is at the heart of consciousness. Truth is what has actually occurred: the reality that is manifested moment by moment. Yes, I see now: Grammar, Logic and Rhetoric united in truth is consciousness, and The Son, The Father and The Holy Spirit united are God. Hmmmm… Richard Grove’s first question to John Taylor Gatto was: “Is a metaphor a lie, or is it something else?”

á Ω

Whoa there Buckthorn Man! You better stick to your brush cutting.

Yeah… where was I?

The day flew by…

… and soon I was joined by a beaming Ron Kurowski. Thanks for your support and encouragement Ron!

Ottawa Lake sunset.

The harvest is plentiful but the laborers are few. I was brush cutting under the canopy just west of signpost #13 on Saturday and I had that special feeling I love of knowing I was in the right place, at the right time, doing the right thing.

Before doing my thing…

After doing my thing.

There are wonderful, late afternoon, views to the west from the cut-off trail. Check out the north side of the Scuppernong River under a canopy of massive white oaks on this trail that was once lost, but now is found.

Sand Prairie sunset.

See you at The Springs!

Living Waters

Posted on January 10, 2014 by paulmozina

It was late afternoon and the light was beginning to fade as I made my way westbound on the cut-off trail along the north side of the Scuppernong River. My footsteps crunching the snow alerted the dabbling ducks near the bend in the river in front of the old barn site of my arrival, which they discussed with noisy quacking. “It’s OK, don’t go, I won’t bother you…”, I said to myself as I attempted to quietly exit the area, while simultaneously stealing glances over my shoulder at the beautiful mallards floating and foraging in the swift current.

Too late. Their survival senses, keenly tuned to the habits of the hunter, drove them instinctively to flight. Wings flapped and water splashed as a score of noisily quacking waterfowl flew downstream over the gaging station bridge. Oh well. I continued on the cut-off trail, which lay buried and indistinct under a foot of snow, and suddenly another flock took flight. Wow, that was at least 25 birds! By the time I made it all the way to the marl pit factory, I had roused at least 200 birds from the peace and prosperity of the living waters.

The springs that flow in this “sweet scented land” invoke a feeling of mystery and awe in me. I drink the waters in body and spirit and thank the Creator for these blessed springs, as people have since time immemorial.

Thursday morning dawned clear and cold and I fetched some living water at the Hotel Spring.

I made my way down the Buckthorn Alley to resume cutting the nearly impenetrable thicket that borders the trail. My eyes were sharper than my blade and I imagined laying down a huge swath on both sides of the trail.

It was tough going as I slashed with steel and Stihl on the south side of the trail. Pati joined me and stoked the fire with freshly cut buckthorn. We both simply enjoy being outside; our work is play.

When I finally arrived at the gaging station bridge, after spooking a multitude of mallards, I noticed the river was cloudy with disturbed marl, vegetation and, probably duck poop. I wondered if the activity of the dabbling ducks might actually help reveal the stoney river bottom and thus improve the habitat for brook trout. I scared up more flocks of ducks in the vicinity of the Emerald Spring and was surprised that the bubblers there were completely hidden by the cloudy waters.

I wondered if the recent deep freeze had driven the birds to the temperate, living waters, of The Springs, and I speculated that hundreds of hunkered down mallards might indeed be responsible for the milky color of the water and the heavy dusting, of what I suspected was duck poop, that had collected on the sandy marl dunes that cover the river bottom in this area.

See you at The Springs!

Born of a Virgin

Posted on December 25, 2013 by paulmozina

During the night the sun/son of God was born of a virgin. I pondered this as I arrived at The Springs on the last day of the winter solstice; Christmas. What would happen if the whole world shook itself free of the myth of the historical Jesus and recognized the ancient astrotheological origins of the symbols and characters portrayed in “The Christmas Story”?

I walked quickly to the gaging station bridge hoping to get some cool pictures of the fresh snow. Compare the photos below to the headline image for this site above. The river was crowded with buckthorn on that sunny morning and the fresh, wet, snow hung thickly on the branches.

I walked to the marl pit bridge and recalled the connections between the constellations Orion and Virgo and “The Christmas Story” that Jan Irvin and Andrew Rutajit explained in their fascinating book Astrotheology & Shamanism Christianity’s Pagan Roots (video here).

“The three wise men, or the three kings, are anthropomorphisms of the three stars of Orion’s Belt. Like the sun, Orion’s Belt also rises on the eastern horizon. In early December, Orion’s Belt will rise above the horizon approximately an hour after sunset. In mid-January, it will rise above the horizon approximately an hour before sunset. However, on Christmas Eve it will rise above the eastern horizon just after the sun sets. This occurs on the evening of December 24 to the morning of December 25. Symbolically, the three kings (Orions Belt) are following the star of “Bethlehem,” known as Sirius (also called Sithus by the Egyptians).

Field and fountain, moor and mountain
Following yonder star

O Star of wonder, star of night
Star with royal beauty bright
Westward leading, still proceeding
Guide us to they Perfect Light
~ We Three Kings

The tale tells us that these kings traveled a great distance. This is because on this day, the three stars of Orion’s Belt begin their journey across the night sky immediately at twilight. When this alignment with Sirus occurs, it appears to point strait down at the earth as if it were pointing down to the place where the sun in the sky is about to rise. On this night, we know that God’s son, the sun in the sky, is about to be born. When this occurs it is Christmas morning. It is the dawning of God’s sun/son, the beginning of the (real) New Year, and the first day of the sun’s journey to the north.

During the summer months the belts of Orion and Sirius are turned up in the sky at a different angle and are often hidden by the daylight sun. Only one night of the year do they swing fully down and point directly at the earth in alignment with the sunrise while appearing on the horizon just after twilight.”

And what about the virgin birth, I thought while gazing from the marl pit bridge?

“The sun in the sky is born under the constellation of the virgin, Virgo, on December 25th. As a result, the sun deity is born of a virgin as well. As the Age of Pisces began, its opposite sign in the zodiac, Virgo the virgin, was on the western horizon. As we pointed out in chapter three, Horus was born of the virgin Isis-Meri on December 25th. Isis-Meri (Isis the Beloved) was the Egyptian name for the constellation of Virgo. Meri (Mary) also happens to be where words like marina and marine (references to the sea) come from, because cultures who watch the sun rise over the ocean witnessed God’s sun being born out of the ocean and walk on water.” Astrotheology & Shamanism Christianity’s Pagan Roots

Would love and compassion disappear from the earth if people knew the truth about the origins and Christianity? Check out Bet Emet Ministries for more interesting info: “Bet Emet’s Websites are intended to be a “Spiritual Pilgrimage” in ones study of “the Christ”; moving from the assumed Historical Jesus Christ to the Mystical Jesus Christ and finally to the Mythical Jesus Christ.”

I tucked this reverie in a back pocket in my mind and dragged a sled-full of gear down the Buckthorn Alley, where I planned to meet Ben Johnson (pictured by the fire below) and Jim Davee to cut and pile some buckthorn.

It is definitely more challenging to work in the winter snow, but we had a nice fire to warm up by and this area is too wet to work in any other time of the year.

I was happy with the results!

Ben and I talked about the work the DNR did on the scuppernong river, that I recently reported on, and we decided to take a look from the south side of the river.

From there we walked along the river’s edge all the way up to the “Big Spring”; that was a workout.

I hope the sun/son will be shining the next time I See you at The Springs.

Oakology

Posted on November 17, 2013 by paulmozina

Oak-o-logy

: area of knowledge : theory : science related to the genus Quercus.

Wisconsin DNR Conservation Biologist Jared Urban is one of the preeminent Oakologists in the state. Restoring and preserving oak savannahs and woodlands is an important goal of the DNR’s Endangered Resources Bureau, which has been newly christened as the Natural Heritage Conservation Bureau, and Jared has been focusing on this as he helps manage the State Natural Areas in Southeastern Wisconsin. Organizing volunteers is an important part of this effort and I had the pleasure of participating yesterday, along with the UW Whitewater Ecology Club, in a work day at the Oak Opening SNA in the southern unit of the Kettle Moraine State Forest.

The skies were threatening rain as Jared, and fellow Oakologists Ginny Coburn, Zach Kastern and Diane filled ingeniously engineered stump poison delivery dauber devices. Note the use of a sawdust filled tray to catch any spills (thanks Zach!)

By the way, if you are receiving this post via email, you should be able to double click the video frame above to watch it on the internet. Much to my chagrin, being a 25 year I.T. veteran, none of the links to embedded Youtube videos delivered via email posts have worked since July 1 of this year. Oh well… if you want to see any of the cool videos I have linked to since then, you’ll have to visit this site. Hopefully the video links in the emails are working now.

Jared explains what we are trying to do and how we will do it.

The UW Whitewater Ecology club made an excellent contribution!

The rain arrived just after noon and I took shelter in Jared’s truck as we shared lunch and conversation. I wanted to finish cutting a swath of brush between two of the brush piles we started, and around 2:00pm the rain quit and I was able to get after it. Here is what it looked like at the end of the day.

The sun made a brief appearance and I saw blue skies behind the gray clouds that were rushing by so I headed over to Bald Bluff hoping to see a cool sunset.

Sundown at Bald Bluff.

Instead, the rain returned and chased me back to my truck. Nevertheless, it was a thoroughly enjoyable day.

See you at The Springs!

Scuppernong Spring House

Posted on April 3, 2013 by paulmozina

The headwaters of the Scuppernong River were coveted by early settlers to harness as an economic engine. Chester Smith built a saw mill there around 1847 and Curtis Mann and Talbot Dousman created THE PONDS OF THE SCUPPERNONG for their trout farm and built a cheese factory in 1870 at the site of Chester’s mill. As the reputation of ponds, trout and serene location grew, so did the number and frequency of visitors, prompting Mann and Dousman to convert the cheese factory into a hotel, which they called the Scuppernong Spring House. You can read all about it in Robert Duerwachter’s great book, THE PONDS OF THE SCUPPERNONG where he explains “The Last relic of the Scuppernong Ponds, the building which at one time had been a saw mill, a cheese factory, a hotel, a restaurant, and a club house, was destroyed by fire on August 21, 1972, the work of an arsonist.”

Looking south from the site of the Scuppernong Spring House.

Since the fire, the hotel site has been colonized by huge aspen trees and buckthorn. There are some very fine oak and hickory trees on the slopes above the site and these too were under assault from buckthorn. Here is a view of the area as seen from Hwy 67.

Down at the hotel site there was a buckthorn thicket laced with huge fallen aspen and cedar trees; a lot more work than I thought!

I took my time with this mess and when I finished the 6th tank of gas it was almost 4:00pm.

A strolling tour.

Revisiting the view from Hwy 67.

A close up study of the gnarly oak.

I enjoyed a nice walk around the trails and stopped at the stream gaging station to upload .30 to the Crowd Hydrology site. The sunset was beckoning, but I was tired and a little chilled so I headed for home back in Milwaukee.

See you at the Springs!

WDNR Awarded $75,000 NAWCA Grant

Posted on March 30, 2013 by paulmozina

There was quite a buzz at the South Kettle Moraine State Forest Headquarters as news of the $75,000 North American Wetlands Conservation Act award echoed in the surrounding oaks. Phase IV of the Scuppernong River Habitat Area restoration effort will proceed full speed ahead thanks to the efforts of Project Officer Matt Zine and Grant Preparer Dave Hoffman, who did an excellent job on his first grant proposal. The majority of the $75,000 matching funds required to secure the grant is being provided by the Kettle Moraine Natural History Association. Our volunteer efforts are as good as gold and will also be used to help make the match.

The NAWCA grant represents another step in the leadership transition at forest headquarters as they try to do the impossible and fill Ron Kurowski’s shoes. Dave Hoffman was a limited term employee when I ran into him at the Scuppernong Springs last October and since then he has accepted a full-time position as an Wildlife Technician (Advanced) working for the Bureau of Endangered Resources in the Southern Unit. He is back “home” in Eagle and couldn’t be happier. I think he deserves a raise!

Here are a couple pictures of the north and south sections of the Scuppernong River Habitat Area showing the work described for Phase IV in the grant proposal.

We share the “buzz” with the DNR staff and look forward to seeing the Phase IV goals realized!

Meanwhile, back at “The Springs”, there is plenty of buckthorn that needs cutting. There are a couple of gaffes in the narrative below: Robert Duerwachter wrote THE PONDS OF THE SCUPPERNONG (not William!); and no, this was not the last of the buckthorn that needs to be cut.

Lindsay and I cut a heap of buckthorn and Pati helped pile the brush.

Later, Pati and I took a dreamy walk visiting all the springs.

The cut-off trail has some wet spots so be prepared if you want to take that path. Hopefully, the DNR will be able to make improvements to complete the resurrection of the “lost trail“.