It might have been the U.S. Navy that introduced the “force for good” meme 5 years ago with their imperial recruiting slogan, “A Global Force For Good”. And my former employer, Northwestern Mutual, modestly limiting its reach to the world around them, quietly claimed to be merely a “Force For Good” (this thought directing campaign was nestled between the very popular “Be One” and “Embrace Change”.) Even the alternative “B” Corporations have gotten into the act claiming that they are, “using business as a force for good.” I’m going to double down on these usurpers and make the bold claim that people who commit their lives to taking care of the land are A Conservation Force For Good!
I new it was going to be a great day when I spotted a gloriously bold and free, Bald Eagle, in a tree above the Scuppernong River, just below the Hotel Springs where I had stopped to get some water.
These birds are awe inspiring and I recalled that the last time I saw one in the Southern Kettle Moraine Forest was more than 10 years ago, when I took my parents, Al and Elaine Mozina, to visit Brady’s Rocks.
Jared Urban spends half of his time with the DNR nurturing and coordinating volunteer efforts at State Natural Areas in the southern half of Wisconsin, and we could sure use a few more like him to coordinate efforts in the rest of the state.
Jared lays out the plan for the day.
The brush piles were relatively fresh and buried under a couple inches of snow, so it took a little extra effort to get them lit.
Scott Farrell delivers air to the fire.
Some of us worked on lighting the piles while others cut fresh buckthorn and threw brush on the fires. We managed to get 8 piles burned and expanded the perimeter of cut buckthorn in their vicinity.
Scott and Herb worked for a few hours after lunch and Zach hung out with me until we had consolidated all of the burning piles.
I’m looking forward to reviewing the results of these plans, a decade after their conception, that I’m sure the DNR will publish. Well, to be honest, I’m more than concerned: I feel like George Tenet, former CIA Director who said before 9/11 that, “my hair was on fire!”. Can “we the people” succeed in reaching the conservation goals outlined in the DNR documents linked above if the current funding levels are not dramatically increased and we don’t get a much more substantial volunteer contribution across the state?
Winter is a great time of year to appreciate just how ugly buckthorn is. Contrasted with a majestic oak or stately hickory, the buckthorn’s lack of grace and beauty is readily apparent. It grows like a cancer, stealing nutrients, water and sunlight from the healthy flora it invades, and some research indicates it has an allelopathic impact as well. It’s polluting our forests and obscuring the natural beauty of the landscape.
I try to make the best of the opportunity I have to work at The Springs, and that means getting out year-round to do battle with the buckthorn. But, it is definitely harder to motivate when the temperatures drop and the snow begins to accumulate. After bailing out last Sunday, I did get out a couple times this week and I’m getting used to winter again.
Tuesday morning fetching some water at the Hotel Springs.
On my way to signpost #2, I stopped to check out the work that Chris Mann, Ben Johnson and the Kettle Moraine Land Stewards did on Sunday. That was a nasty day that The Buckthorn Man wimped out on. They made good progress pushing back the wall of buckthorn on the east side of the trail as it leads to signpost #1.
I stirred up the coals and warmed up before heading to my destination near signpost #2.
I picked a spot where a huge aspen had fallen, and there was lots of dead wood to start a fire, and was soon joined by Andy Buchta.
After a few hours cutting, my chainsaw was running rough and I had to stop and figure out what was going on; there was a part loose rattling about somewhere inside. There is always something new to learn about chainsaws and, apparently, when I replaced the muffler a few months ago, I did not tighten the screws properly. Fortunately the saw is designed to capture the screws if they work themselves free and I simply had to screw the muffler back on. We got modest results and dispatched some very ugly buckthorn.
Below, looking west, then east.
I took my gear back to the truck and returned to hang out by the fire.
Thursday proved to be a bit more challenging; Andy informed me that it was -4 when he arrived, and snow was forecast for the afternoon. I was joined by Chris Mann, Austin Avellone, Phil Hass, Drew Ballantyne and Andy Buchta deep in the Buckthorn Alley, where the trees were hideously misshapen after years of falling over themselves and resprouting. The views below are looking west, north and east from where I parked my sled.
Drew keeps our drinks from freezing.
We sent many odious buckthorn to hell that day. Below, mid-day, looking west and north.
Wrapping up for the day.
Compare this view west to the first look above
and, likewise, this view looking north.
Thanks again to Chris, Andy, Phil, Austin and Drew; you guys rock!
The Buckthorn Man enters 2015 swinging a chainsaw and a torch in the hopes that you will see the lay of the land.
Walk this trail with me: Start with an abstraction called government and make it real in your mind (reification); then anthropomorphize it with the worst of human characteristics i.e., psychopathy and you get the metaphor — The U.S. Government is a Psychopath.
It didn’t take but a few years for the U.S. Government to strip the Lakota of the vast majority of the lands, “…set apart for the absolute and undisturbed use and occupation of the Indians herein named…”, as declared in Article II of the treaty.
The U.S. Government has physically, culturally and financially terrorized the Oglala Lakota, or Oglala Sioux, people since they first met. The latest abuse is the continued ignorance of their legitimate ownership claim to the lands ceded to them back in 1868, which, inconveniently, would give them veto power over the proposed path of the Keystone XL Pipeline.
I described the double bind I’m in volunteering at The Springs in a recent post i.e., I Hate Government — I Serve Government, and I tried to resolve it by suggesting that I’m really serving The Creator, not the the temporary owner of the land. And so I carry on…
The snow is swirling and blowing outside as I write this and I’m really glad we focused on burning as many brush piles as we could at The Springs, before they got buried. Thursday I was joined by Chris Mann and his team from the Kettle Moraine Land Stewards including: Andy Buchta, Austin Avellone and Phil Hass. Our goal was to burn all of the piles near the Scuppernong Springs Nature Trail parking lot on Hwy ZZ.
We did that and a whole lot more. I really enjoy working with these guys! The audio on this clip is drowned out by the wind at times, but you’ll get the idea.
Chris and Phil returned after dinner to listen to The Buckthorn Man rant.
I was in the neighborhood, fetching some water at the Parry Road Spring on Friday, and took advantage of the lack of snow to add some gravel to the beginning of the trail where water tends to puddle.
Here are a view perspectives of the areas we burned on Thursday.
I continued clockwise on the trail through the old buckthorn alley until I arrived on the east end and surveyed the areas we recently burned there.
I’ve been working well into darkness for the last couple of weeks so I really enjoyed seeing The Springs in the daylight.
When I arrived at the Emerald Spring, the water was cloudy and disturbed and I suspected a creature had just vacated the premises. In this video I jump to the conclusion that a turtle is making it’s home in the neighborhood, but I think it might be a muskrat. What do you make of this?
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!
Perhaps it was a reaction to my post about the Bluff Creek Springs, where I lamented the inability of the DNR, given the funding available to them, to adequately manage the state-owned lands under their care, that prompted Jared Urban, the coordinator of the State Natural Areas volunteers, to send me the Wisconsin’s Natural Heritage Conservation Program 2014 Annual Report. The report explains some of the complex issues the DNR faces, as they try to manage 673 State Natural Areas encompassing over 373,000 acres with a budget under $5,000,000. I have only respect for the hard working, dedicated staff of the Natural Heritage Conservation Program.
Philosophically, I’m in a bind. Government is literally and etymologically: mind-control. It is a religion based on the dogmatic belief, programmatically instilled in us from birth, that it is OK, even possible, for people to delegate rights that they do not have to an association of people that they call government. People calling themselves “Government” assert rights they do not have, that no human being has e.g., torture, taxation etc., and they take away rights we all inherently possess e.g., prohibition, licensing etc. So long as the vast majority of people continue to believe it is OK to do business and force your services on people at the point of a gun — if you call yourself Government — there will be no awakening of consciousness and immoral acts done in our name will continue.
Whether or not I think or believe any government: federal, state or local, is legitimate, counts for nothing when it comes to the reality of the challenges humanity faces if we choose to accept responsibility for preserving and protecting the flora and fauna on the planet. Rightnow, entities we call government, control vast and diverse lands encompassing the treasures of the natural world and they are NOT prioritizing the effort to take care of them. The amount of money spent on the Natural Heritage Conservation Program in 2014 is obscenely trivial compared to the amount required, or the amount spent on the military, industrial, security complex (to keep us safe, of course!)
I’m choosing to cooperate with government by volunteering my time and energy to help take care of the land it controls, but I’m sorely conflicted:
“A really efficient totalitarian state would be one in which the all-powerful executive of political bosses and their army of managers control a population of slaves who do not have to be coerced, because they love their servitude.”
In the past month I have been focusing, with the help of the Kettle Moraine Land Stewards, on the Ottawa Lake Fen SNA.
Chris Mann, and his team from the KMLS, have made a huge difference, reminiscent of the way Ben Johnson super-charged our efforts at The Springs this past year. Thanks again to Ron Kurowski for hiring Chris and to the Kettle Moraine Natural History Association for funding his team.
As we progressed clearing the buckthorn from the tamarack grove and along the north and east sides of the fen, I imagined a trail all the way around the fen connecting with the boat launch on the southwest side of Ottawa Lake. I asked Anne Korman, the Assistant Superintendent of the Kettle Moraine State Forest — Southern Unit, about it and she entertained the idea. I got an email the next day from Eric Tarman-Ramcheck, a long-time land steward recently hired by the DNR, containing The Ottawa Lake Fen Scientific Area Report. This fascinating document, from 1975, provides a window into the management strategy of the DNR at that time, and includes this very interesting map of the fen.
The dashed (——) lines could easily be mistaken for a trail system but they actually demarcate the different plant community zones. Imagine what it was like back in 1975 when the buckthorn was not an issue and the bird watching tower and canoe accessible boardwalk were in place. 40 years of hands-off management “to maintain area in wild condition”, allowed the degradation of the land by invasive species to progress. It has taken the effort of one who “loves his servitude”, to The Creator that is, to reverse that trend.
This past Monday, December 21, Chris Mann and Austin Avellone helped me finish clearing the buckthorn from the east side of the fen, just north of the walk-in campsite #334. Here is how it looked before we got started.
The rain held off until the afternoon and then the gentle drizzle did not damper our spirits. We had a very productive day and I returned the next morning to document the results.
I made a date with Chris and company to meet me at The Springs, just down the trail a bit towards signpost #1, to burn some brush piles we made in late 2013 and cut the nearby buckthorn orchard. Here is what we faced as the sun tried to peek through and a strong breeze from the southwest help dry out the wood.
Jake Michaels joined Chris, Austin and myself and we had a field day!
As I took the video below, two deer crept up behind me, blending in almost imperceptibly with the landscape.
I am amazed and, dare I say, overjoyed, by the progress being made since Chris and the Kettle Moraine Land Stewards joined the fray!
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.
It was a dam cold winter morning at the Hartland Marsh when I carelessly let my hands get bitten by frost. Like gravity, it’s a law of nature: if you don’t understand and protect yourself, you’re going to get hurt. Ever since then my hands are the first to tell me Winter has arrived.
The polarity between hot and cold is really only a matter of degree i.e., the amount of vibratory energy that is present. And the rhythm of the seasons is just Nature’s Way. We have no trouble understanding the physical laws of nature but how about the spiritual laws of nature? What are they?
I’ve recommended Mark Passio’s Natural Law Seminar before on this blog and it bears repeating. The degree to which we, collectively, live our lives in adherence with natural law, will determine the kind of world we create: the reality that manifests around us.
I’ll give you a quick, thumb-nail sketch, using a few slides from Mark’s presentation to wet your appetite.
What are the principles, or first things, underlying natural law?
And what binds them together?
But you already know this!
What are the consequences of following natural law or ignoring it?
At it’s heart, natural law teaches us the difference between right and wrong.
What distinguishes natural law from mans law?
How can we get what we say we want from life?
You don’t have to look far to see which way we are heading… but, we can change that by seeking and speaking the truth.
I like to think I’m combining the laws of nature (physical) with natural law (spiritual) by voluntarily giving my time and attention, my spiritual currency, working to reveal the beauty of God’s creation. For my reward, I get to keep my sanity in a world gone mad.
This past week I continued prepping The Springs for the prescribed burn that the DNR plans to execute next spring. I’m focusing on the sand prairie area now cutting buckthorn, cherry, red oak, black locust and honeysuckle seedlings and resprouts.
I’m taking my time and poisoning as many cut stumps as I can find after each tank of gas burned in my Stihl FS-90 brush cutter. One reason the buckthorn is coming back so strongly here is that I took the shortcut of not poisoning the stumps the first time I brush cut here back in 2012. For every stump I didn’t poison, a half-dozen new shoots appeared.
Hey Ed, thanks for inviting Pati and I to take a tour of Growing Power’s headquarters here in Milwaukee with you!
Pati joined me for the sunset at Ottawa Lake.
Last Wednesday, I picked up where I left off on the sand prairie. It was another cold day swinging the brush cutter.
I’d really like to get all the brush laid down in the areas that I have previously cut before the snow falls, so I hit the trail again on Friday. Here are a couple of views Friday morning.
And the same two perspectives in the afternoon. Can you tell the brush was cut?
Pati and I were dumbfounded as we walked up the trail to the Cottonwood Gazebo at The Hartland Marsh. What was that monolithic tower poking through the treetops at the top of the hill? I pulled my coat across my face, cowering like quasimodo behind Pati, and, turning slightly to avoid looking directly at it, I pointed with my right hand asking with trembling voice: “what is it?”
I’ve walked up that trail a thousand times and it was absolutely jarring to see a brick tower at the trailhead.
… and the fact that one of their favorite resting spots in the Village of Hartland was scheduled for destruction. Thousands of lives were at stake! Ramsey Schlissel does a brilliant job telling the story.
The whole Village of Hartland came together spurred by the passionate environmentalism of their vibrantly conscious youth. Wow! They still need some help paying for the new Chimney Swift Tower. Visit them on Facebook or at SaveTheSwifts and make a contribution.
Can a movement in the village to Save The Oaks Of The Hartland Marsh be far behind? The buckthorn has returned, thick as thieves, since I abandoned my valiant (or was it vain?) effort to save the oaks there 3 ½ years ago.
∞∞∞
One of the reasons I “gave up” at the Hartland Marsh was the resistance to the use of fire as a tool to restore the landscape and control the buckthorn seedlings and resprouts. I was lucky they let me finish burning the hundreds of brush piles I left there. At the Scuppernong Springs Nature Trail, on the other hand, I have the total support of the DNR, and, in fact, they are hoping to burn The Springs in 2015. To that end, I continue to focus on prepping the land for the next burn.
On Monday, November 3rd, I used a brush cutter to “mow” the woods on the northeast side of the loop trail. The DNR has never been able to get a hot ground fire to run through this area. Now, with the removal of the black locust and my brush clearing, we’re hoping for better results in 2015.
I recently replaced the bar oil pump, clutch and muffler on my Stihl 361 Pro chainsaw and I was eager to see how it performed. On Wednesday I returned to the cut-off trail to finish cutting a little patch of buckthorn on the east side of a wetland that sits between the cut-off trail and north loop trail. Then I moved 100 yards to the east to cut buckthorn on the east side of another wetland near an old building foundation.
And after cutting… the same three perspectives shown above.
Pati joined me and we walked over to the north loop trail to check out the view from that perspective and to see the newly minted brush piles that Andy Buchta made. Thanks Andy!
Here is a view of the work area as seen from a bit further east on the cut-off trail.
And video tour of the area.
My chainsaw ran perfectly and on Friday I was back at it again this time on the south end of the Scuppernong Springs Nature Preserve. There was a patch of buckthorn on a little knoll between the Scuppernong Spring and Hwy 67.
I had to tie a rope around some of the buckthorn to pull them pack away from the road as I cut them.
Then I moved over the west a few yards to tackle a nasty thicket of buckthorn mixed with black oak slash.
Like Wednesday, it was a sunny warm morning that turned cloudy and chilly as the day progressed. Here are the same three views above at the end of the day.
I hope you enjoyed the marvelous stretch of blessed Fall weather we recently experienced here in Southeastern Wisconsin as much as I did.
I chose to camp in late October at Ottawa Lake site #335, aka My Shangri-la, back in January because I wanted to enjoy the 5th annual Halloween Bash, and the event turned out to be magical indeed.
The campground was almost full Saturday evening for the climax of the festivities and a crescent moon hung over the lake. As Pati and I strolled amongst the fantasmicgorically decorated campsites, we were occasionally startled by ghoulish outbursts piercing the sweetly scented campfire smoke.
The pumpkin carving was exquisite again this year.
It was pure good fun, except for the premature report of the demise of the Buckthorn man, which I found very disconcerting.
Contrary to the epitaph above, I had a super productive week working on the Scuppernong Springs Nature Trail and the Ottawa Lake Fen SNA. I setup camp on Monday October 20th…
… then proceeded with my empty truck to the gravel pile Anne Korman (Assistant Superintendent of the Kettle Moraine State Forest — Southern Unit) had directed us to.
There were a few spots on the trail that tended to puddle and I filled them with stone.
Back at camp I enjoyed a dinner of fresh vegetables, stir-fried with the Buckthorn Man’s secret recipe curry brown lentils and wild rice.
On Tuesday and Wednesday I began clearing buckthorn and honeysuckle on the south side of a channel that drains a spring that emerges from a ditch just below Hwy 67.
Here is the view before I got started standing on the shoulder of Hwy 67 and looking towards Ottawa Lake.
People I meet on the Scuppernong Springs Nature Trail tell me that they used to be able to see Ottawa Lake from the highway. Now, the only way you could possibly do that is via the drainage shown above. I was determined to reopen this view as a tease to draw people into exploring this beautiful area. At the end of the day on Wednesday, I followed the drainage up expecting to see the water emerging from a culvert that drains wetlands on the northeast side of Hwy 67. Instead, the culvert was dry and I found the source was a bubbling spring on the west side of the highway.
On Thursday I took a day off, sort of, sharpening my chains in camp and later meeting Ben Johnson at the Hotel Springs to work on positioning a boardwalk that we had relocated to the cut-off trail. The rain didn’t dampen our spirits one bit! It was a pleasure to have Ben over to the campsite for dinner afterwards and we dried our butts off by the fire.
Lindsay Knudsvig joined me on Friday and we began clearing the north side of the channel that flows from the spring I “discovered” on Wednesday. Ottawa Lake is fed by many springs and I think this one may be the most substantial. Here are a couple views after we finished for the day.
There is a massive, pre-settlement, white oak near the spring’s channel.
Unfortunately, Lindsay could not stay for dinner, but Pati came out and we enjoyed the sunset and campfire.
There is an embankment on the north side of the channel that extends out to where the water joins the pond that is at the center of the Ottawa Lake Fen. There are excellent views south, west and north from this vantage point.
On Saturday I started to clear the buckthorn from both sides of this embankment. Here is what it looked like before I got started (looking left, then right).
I finished the left side on Saturday and began clearing the debris from the channel with the intention of getting a current flowing all the way to the union with the fen pond. That evening Pati returned to stay a couple nights with me and it was sweet.
On Sunday morning we took a nice walk around the Scuppernong Springs Nature Trail waiting for the day to warm up and then we headed to where the Scuppernong River passes under Hwy Z to do our last river monitoring of the year. You can view the data we collected in 2014 at the Water Action Volunteers site by searching by site (Scuppernong River at Count Hwy Z) and specifying the date range of April thru November and the “select all parameters” button.
In the last post I made the bold and unsubstantiated assertion that: “We do not see the diversity of macroinvertebrates typically found on stoney, sandy, bottom riverbeds…”, in the muck and marl filled stretches of the headwaters of the Scuppernong River. So, Pati and I repeated the same biotic index study we did at Hwy Z as part of our river monitoring, at four locations in the Scuppernong River headwaters where the DNR is planning to remove material to enable the river to headcut. We investigated the areas just upstream from where the changes will be made. Here is what we found (refer to this link to see pictures of the Macroinvertebrates):
Where the Scuppernong River crosses Hwy Z, which has a stoney and sandy riverbed:
Aquatic Sow Bug
Crawfish
Amphipod or Scud
Dameslfly larva
Giant Water Bug
Back Swimmer
Water Boatman
Riffle Beetle Larva
Pouch Snail
Caddisfly Larva
Now, at the four sites in the headwaters. First at the Old Mill site:
Aquatic Sow Bug
Crawling Water Beetle
Amphipod or Scud
Dameslfly larva
Predaceous Diving Beetle
Back Swimmer
Riffle Beetle Larva
Orb Snail
Caddisfly Larva
At the Hotel Spring Bridge site:
Aquatic Sow Bug
Fishing Spider
Amphipod or Scud
Nematode of Threadworm
Leech
Pouch Snail
Riffle Beetle Larva
Orb Snail
Caddisfly Larva
At the bridge to the Hidden Spring site:
Aquatic Sow Bug
Amphipod or Scud
Nematode of Threadworm
Whirligig Beetle
Pouch Snail
Predaceous Diving Beetle
Dobsonfly Larva
Caddisfly Larva
And finally, at the first bridge to the Hillside Springs:
Aquatic Sow Bug
Amphipod or Scud
Riffle Beetle
Riffle Beetle Larva
Dobsonfly Larva
Caddisfly Larva
Backswimmer
Water Strider
I think it is fair to say that I was wrong to conclude that there was not the same diversity of macroinvertebrates in the headwaters area, where the riverbed is generally full of muck and marl, as further downstream, like at Hwy Z, where the riverbed is stoney and sandy. I did have to literally drag the net through the muck and marl in the headwaters to get the samples so it may be the case the the macroinvertebrates there are not as accessible to the trout as they are in the areas downstream that are stoney and sandy. In any case, we will continue to collect data in the headwaters at the sites listed above next spring, before any changes are made to remove material from the former embankments, and continue to collect data after the changes are made.
Sunday evening we finished dinner early and raced over to the Indian Campgrounds to catch the sunset.
And finally, this past Monday, I finished clearing the buckthorn along both sides of the embankment that follows the Ottawa Lake Spring channel to its entrance to the fen pond.
One Last view from the highway.
I also pulled out a lot more junk from the spring channel including: a car tire, one 5 gallon bucket, three 1 gallon plastic plant containers, bottles, cans, logs, planks and deck boards. Walk with me as I follow the channel from the fen up to its source at the spring. There is a bit of drama halfway through when I get stuck in muck up to my chest and let a few choice words fly.
Last but not least, I captured these images of the brush piles that Andy Buchta made on the east side of Ottawa Lake in the area that I cleared last month when I camped at My Shangri-La. Thanks Andy!
Think of The Springs as the heart pumping life giving water into the main artery of the Scuppernong River. When I began working at The Springs, 3 ½ years ago, I found the heart clogged with watercress, silt, marl and muck.
How do we measure the health of the heart of a river? The Wisconsin DNR does a fish count, on the stretch of the river between the gaging station bridge and the hotel springs, every year as a way to measure water quality. The counts have been going down since I began intervening by pulling out watercress, opening up the channels from the individual springs to the river, and stirring up and releasing muck and marl downstream.
Are my actions, metaphorically speaking, my heart surgeries, diminishing the quality of the water? Yes, if you go by the fish counts alone and you assume that my actions are the main causative factor for the decline. But, consider the river, choked with watercress, as a weight lifter dependent on steroids. The watercress dominated habitat provided shelter and macroinvertebrates the trout depend on, thus artificially boosting the fish counts. And, just like a weight lifter depends on steroids to maximize his power while ignoring the long term effects, the high fish counts at the Scuppernong River were dependent on an invasive plant dominating the river, to the long-term detriment of the heart.
What’s wrong with a river choked with watercress and filled with muck like a lake bottom? After all, the fish counts were high and we used to see trout in the river all the time.
It isn’t natural and it isn’t healthy long-term for the river watershed. The remnants of the entrepreneurial spirit of the European settlers on the river are four separate embankments that span the valley of the headwaters. Upstream of these four humps, muck and marl have backed up completely changing the hydrology. We do not see the diversity of macroinvertebrates typically found on stoney, sandy, bottom riverbeds. Now, I’m asserting that without data to back it up. I’m simply assuming that a muck and marl riverbed will not have the same diversity of species as a stoney, sandy riverbed. To address this lack of data, I plan to begin collecting biotic index data at various points in the headwaters so that we can compare it to after the four “humps” are removed, which will happen next Spring.
The width of the river in the majority of the headwaters above the hotel springs is 2 or 3 times normal and it resembles more a lake bottom than a riverbed. This widened and shallow system provides an ideal water source for the invasive cattails and phragmites that dominate the headwaters valley. Their root systems are hollow tubes ½ to ¾ inch in diameter, strong as pvc but much more flexible, that tap into the river The key to addressing this problem is, as Tracy Hames would say: “Fix the water“. Removing the humps will generate a headcut, which will cause the stream channel to narrow increasing its velocity and exposing a stoney, sandy bed. This will make it much easier to intercept the root systems of the cattails and phragmites and turn off the spigots that are feeding them. And keeping the watercress to a reasonable amount, so it does not impede the river like a vegetative dam, will help keep the water cold as it rushes downstream.
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I had a dramatic, three-day, run at The Springs this past Wednesday – Friday swinging my chainsaw with boundless energy. I’ve been chomp’in at the bit for 6 months to take down the buckthorn in many key areas, where a small amount of work can yield dramatic new vistas, and I tackled the areas marked in blue below this past week.
I’ll take you on a video stroll along the trail later below.
On Thursday, I was joined in the morning by a new volunteer named Dave Kieffer, who took a vacation from his project management role to help me out. Dave worked the brush cutter and I swung the chainsaw in the area marked in blue above that is closest to the cut-off trail.
We had a date in the afternoon with Ben Johnson and another new volunteer, Ryan Wendelberger (a senior at Brookfield Central High School), to relocate two boardwalks so we shifted gears around 2:00pm. Here is how it looked when we finished.
Dave and I staged some logs to use as pedestals for the newly relocated boardwalks and then we met Ben and Ryan at the DNR parking area above the Hotel Springs, where we planned to take the boardwalk sections. Amazingly, Ben, Dave and Ryan were able to transport the boardwalk sections using Ben’s hand dolly. We were soon busy positioning one of the sections as a bridge on the north loop trail, where water is clearly attempting to cross the existing causeway and join the outflow of a spring just south of the trail.
Ben explains what we are doing.
Everyone pitched in for a great team effort!
The light was fading as we nailed the last boardwalk pieces and applied the final touches. Thanks again to Ben, Dave and Ryan for your outstanding contibution!
Here it is in the daylight.
Friday I was still raring to go.
I wanted to cut in an area on the northeast edge of the loop trail (shown in blue on the map above) to connect the opening along the trail and former cranberry bog to the opening made by Steve Tabat and his crew as they harvest black locust trees.
View from the trail.
The views looking right , center and left from where I staged my gear.
It was surprisingly warm and I had to strip off my long johns after the first tankful of gas. I put a new spark plug in the machine because it was running rough the day before and that did the trick! The views below are right-center and left as compared to those above.
Come along with me as I stroll down the north loop trail past the areas that were cut.
Afterwards, I took a blissful walk along the river towards the Scuppernong Spring.
The sunset was dramatic!
See you at The Springs!
p.s. I’ll be camping all next week at My Shangri-La. Do drop in and surprise me.
Scuppernong Springs Nature Trail 