The U. S. Government is a Pyschopath

Posted on January 4, 2015 by paulmozina

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.

Jan Irvin showed me this trail in his recent podcast entitled: “Remedy Roundtable 05 – Prof. Jay Courtney Fikes, Lydia & Royce White Calf – “The Lakota, Naropa Institute, and Wounded Knee – From Gen. Custer to Carlos Castaneda.” I’m embarrassed sometimes by my lack of recollection of history and resulting inability to put current events into context. When reminded of the way the Lakota were treated by the U.S. Government following the signing of the Fort Laramie Treaty of 1868, and the way they are being treated now, in the context of the Keystone XL Pipeline debate, I know we are dealing with 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.

(Map sourced from OWE AKU International Justice Project)

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.

(Map sourced from TransCanada)

The debate in congress focuses on man-made climate change, and the potential for a spill on the pipeline route to pollute the Oglala Aquifer.

But, missing in the debate in the mainstream media and congress, is the context that the proposed pipeline would pass directly through territory ceded by treaty to the Lakota: a treaty the U.S. government abrogated within 8 years of signing. The Lakota people are the only military opponent of the U.S. Government to capture it’s flag 3 times and they are not done fighting! They have refused to be bought off and they stand united to protect the earth and assert their legitimate rights.

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?

Turtle caves? Muskrat dens?

See you at The Springs!

The Return of The Buckthorn Man

Posted on September 3, 2014 by paulmozina

It was a bit reminiscent of The Return of Tarzan when The Buckthorn Man returned to his Shangri-La on the shores of Ottawa Lake.

Like the buckthorn thickets of the kettle moraine are ‘a bit’ like the jungles of Africa, The Buckthorn Man is only ‘a bit’ as noble and virtuous as the mighty Tarzan. Yes, yes, if only I could be as self-possessed as the king of the jungle, how liberating that would be.

Imitating the lord of the apes, I aspired to noble contemplation of ethics and aesthetics as I bent over the spotted knapweed on the sand prairie and listened to The Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglas. Sweet freedom. Paradoxically, I do love my servitude to The Creator, which is my free choice to labor at The Springs, because it enables me to manifest my version of Aldo Leopold’s Land Ethic, and satisfy my desire to make the world a more beautiful place.

I finally did read A Sand County Almanac, which includes Leopold’s thought provoking essay, “The Land Ethic”:

A land, ethic, then, reflects the existence of an ecological conscience, and this in turn reflects a conviction of individual responsibility for the health of the land.

Much of what he said resonated with me, but, and I hope you won’t think that The Buckthorn Man simply must have a buckthorn spike stuck in his butt to quibble with Aldo, like other careful readers, I found myself disconcerted by some of the things he said, or, as the case may be, did not say. He fails to mention the highly evolved Seventh Generation Earth Ethics of the indigenous people, while hoping that “we”, homo sapiens (Latin: “wise man”), who violently and rapaciously “conquered” the land, have learned a lesson.

A nation spawned from empires built on the backs of slaves is not easily weaned from gluttonous exploitation. Lest you think my ranting hyperbolic, consider this example from Donald Culross Peattie’s fine work, A Natural History of Trees of Eastern and Central North America:

Until almost the turn of the present century (1900), pecans reached the market largely from wild trees. The harvesting methods in early times consisted in nothing less heroic and criminal than cutting down gigantic specimens — the bigger the better — and setting boys to gather the nuts from the branches of the fallen giants. It seemed to the pioneer then, as it did to every American, that the forests of this country were inexhaustible. Thus it came about that the wild Pecan tree had become rare before men began to realize how much was lost.

Before I proceed with the riveting story of what happened when The Buckthorn Man returned to Shangri-La, I must complain about another, subtle perhaps, line of Leopoldian thought. He espouses a moral relativism that positively rankles me: “An ethic, philosophically, is a differentiation of social from anti-social conduct.”, and later: “The mechanism of operation is the same for any ethic: social approbation for right actions: social disapproval for wrong actions.” No Aldo, NO! There is an objective difference between right and wrong, independent of the whims of society, which Mark Passio eloquently and passionately explains in his Natural Law Seminar.

If you have any doubts, please check with Fredrick Douglas.

I arrived at the Ottawa Lake campground on Friday, August 22, excited to setup camp at the walk-in site #335, only to find that it had been let to another party an hour earlier. It reminded me of that scene where Jerry Seinfeld complained to the car rental company that knew how to take his reservation, but not how to hold it. Undecided about what to do, I took a walk downstream in the Scuppernong River to inspect the work that was recently done to improve the channel.

Here are some views of the stretch of the river just upstream from the gaging station bridge that still need some channel remediation.

While wandering the trails I met Eliot and his son Isaiah, and they graciously invited me to stay with them at site #388, which is a beautiful site on the bluff overlooking Ottawa Lake. Thanks again guys!

Saturday, Sunday, Monday, Thursday and Friday were dedicated to digging and pulling spotted knapweed on the sand prairie. Most of the seed is still firmly attached and, since I did not mow the prairie this year, there is a ton of it.

I didn’t care if it rained.

It was hot, humid and buggy, but beautiful nevertheless.

The Hillside Springs.

The Indian Springs.

Ottawa Lake sunset.

On Tuesday and Wednesday I was determined to finish clearing the buckthorn along the trail that follows the east shore of Ottawa Lake between site #380 and #335. I was concerned about the bar oiling mechanism not working properly on my chainsaw and, sure enough, it was kaput. So, I carried a little pint bottle of bar oil in my chaps and stopped every couple minutes to manually apply some lubrication to the bar and chain. No problem!

Tuesday, before…

… and after.

The sights and sounds of The Springs:

Buckthorn seedlings along the cut-off trail.

The cut-off trail.

Giant thistles that I should have positively identified as friend or foe a few months ago.

The Hidden Spring.

The area of phragmites that I poisoned near the Emerald Spring deck is finally coming back to life.

The Emerald Spring.

The Scuppernong Spring.

The Indian Spring.

A beautiful, unidentified flower near the Hotel Spring.

The valley of the headwaters.

Wednesday morning and I had a date with buckthorn.

Before…

… and after.

You can follow the lakeshore trail all the way from the beach to the north end of site #334 and enjoy wide open views of the lake and fen to the west the whole way. It’s lovely.

Thanks again to Carl Baumann, for splitting and restacking my stash of firewood!.

And thanks to Dave and Lindsay for coming out to visit; I really enjoyed it. I had a couple of uninhibited and inspired guitar jams by the fire and, despite all the rain, never had to setup my tarp at camp. It was excellent.

See you at The Springs!

The Ruby Spring

Posted on April 7, 2014 by paulmozina

Melanie’s brow furrowed focusing energy from her third eye as she studied the weather beaten old sign she found in a closet at the DNR maintenance shop. It was done in the style of the signs at the Scuppernong Springs that she replaced last year with her volunteer trail crew and it read: The Ruby Spring. “Hmmmm…” she thought, “I’ll bet The Buckthorn Man knows where The Ruby Spring is.”

There are stories behind each of the springs you’ll find along the Scuppernong Springs Nature Trail and I invite you to share yours on our new Facebook Page. You may have grown up with The Springs like Pete Nielsen or Steve Brasch, or you’ve been coming for a long time, like John and Sue, or Dick and Shirley, or Terry and Lisa. Share your favorite memories and pictures of The Springs on our Facebook timeline.

“Ruby Spring”, “Ruby Spring”, I thought “…is this in the Land of OZ?” Melanie and I made a date to meet with Ron Kurowski, at the Kettle Moraine Natural History Association‘s annual meeting, to learn the story of this spring. The amphitheater at Forest Headquarters was alive with many excited faces and voices when I arrived.

Ben Johnson and Zach Kastern.

Ron Kurowski, retired DNR naturalist, and Chris Mann, owner of Kettle Moraine Land Stewards LLC.

My spiritual father, Mike Fort.

Don Reed, Chief Biologist with the SEWRPC, making opening remarks.

Ron Kurowski and Paul Sandgren, Superintendent of the Kettle Moraine State Forest — Southern Unit drawing lucky numbers.

Matt Zine, a conservation biologist and longtime leader of the State Natural Areas crew in southern Wisconsin, took us for a walk down memory lane, or rather, through an oak savannah landscape, as he explained what God and Man have wrought to put us in the state we are today, and why it is important to understand and take action. Thanks for the great presentation Matt!

It was a pleasure to meet Dan Carter, a member of SEWRC’s environmental planning staff after Matt’s presentation. Ben Johnson joined us and that led to the parking lot, where Dan identified the seed/spore heads of a fern that Ben and Karen found in the wet prairie just west of the Indian Spring. Just then, DNR trail boss, Don Dane, arrived to take me into the inner sanctum of the maintenance facilities to pick up two huge seed bags: one with a dry mesic prairie mix, and the other with a wet prairie mix. Thanks again to Don Dane and Amanda Prange for organizing and leading the seed gathering volunteer workdays!

After Don left, Ben and I wondered if we needed to wet the seed or mix it with anything prior to sowing. I couldn’t reach Don, who was already engaged on a project with the Ice Age Trail Alliance, so we headed back to the amphitheater to get some expert advice. I invited Melanie to join us and we found Ron busy in a back office. He explained that we could just sow the seed as is, and we talked about lightly raking afterwards, and then Ron shared the secret of The Ruby Spring.

After THE PONDS OF THE SCUPPERNONG were drained in the early nineties, the DNR began the slow process of rehabilitating the Scuppernong River stream bed, which had been submerged under 3-5 feet of water for over 100 years and was thus thoroughly silted in with marl. It was quickly apparent that they needed to name the springs to facilitate planning, meeting and, bringing them to life in the mind’s eye.

In the middle of the valley left when the upper pond was drained, they found the largest complex of springs on the property. A red algae made its home there giving the waters a distinct ruby color, hence the name: The Ruby Spring. As the restoration work progressed and the environment changed, the red algae disappeared and the bubbling spring pools located at the end of the observation deck took on an emerald hue, and were rechristened The Emerald Springs. The names evoke ruby slippers and emerald cities for me.

Ben and I headed straight for the sand prairie, aka, the Indian Campground, and began sowing the dry mesic prairie seed at the intersection of the main trail with the spur trail that leads down to the Indian Spring. This is an area where we dug out a lot of spotted knapweed last year and the soil is bare.

The plant below has heretofore escaped my identification skills. I suspected it was an invasive plant, but which one? Ben suggested we send a picture to Dan Carter.

Dan responded quickly that it was motherwort and advised us not to worry too much about it because it will give way to native plants as we introduce them or they re-emerge. It’s not fair to characterize this plant as a weed, which, according to Ralph Waldo Emerson, is: “A plant whose virtues have never been discovered”, given its long history of use as an herb.

We had enough seed to cover a huge area of the sand prairie and it will be exciting to watch the results develop.

Upland/Dry seeds:
Prairie dropseed
Sand dropseed
Rough Blazingstar
Wild rose
Boneset
Prairie smoke

Wet/Prairie mix:
Prairie blazingstar
Brown-eyed susans
Bottle gentian
Blue valarian
Swamp sunflower
Cord grass
Little bluestem
Big bluestem
Compass plant
Prairie dock
Indian plantain

After our labors were done, we went for a walk intending to explore the trail south along the marl pit. Along the way we met Jill Bedford, who works with the Tall Pines Conservancy, and switched gears to give her the grand tour of The Springs. Jill is involved in writing grants to conserve and restore land and it was exciting to hear of all the developments in her world. We got up to the sand prairie just in time to watch the sunset.

My weekend at The Springs was only half over and I returned on Sunday to sow the wet prairie seeds in the many, many burn rings left from our work in the Buckthorn Alley and the Cut-off Trail.

After the last seeds were sown, I returned to the cabin at Ottawa Lake, where Dick Jenks and I cut buckthorn last week, to “mop up” with my brush cutter.

I tried using a little sponge to daub poison on the little buckthorn stubs and it worked pretty well; a lot less waste than if I would have used a sprayer. The view from the deck is really nice.

See you at The Springs!

I Am the Buckthorn Man

Posted on February 8, 2014 by paulmozina

Most people don’t see the buckthorn that dominates the understory of our forests here in southeastern Wisconsin. They don’t see it spreading to fill wetlands and abandoned pastures or understand the impact it is having; it’s just another tree — it’s “natural”. But, like the protagonist John Nada (John Nothing) in the great science fiction thriller They Live, I do see the environmental damage that buckthorn is doing.

I hope Willie Dixon doesn’t turn over in his grave when I sing “I am the Buckthorn Man” to the melody of his blues classic Back Door Man. It still sends chills down my spine when I hear him sing and recall the great shows he performed at SummerFest with Sugar Blue on the harp.

This past Wednesday I was working in the Buckthorn Alley and two women, along with kids and dogs, paused as they walked by and one of them exclaimed, “you’re the buckthorn man!” Yes, “Iiiiiiii aaaammmm the Buckthorn Man!”

If you are, or want to become, a SuperFriend♥ of The Springs, or you just love The Springs, or you just want to help the Buckthorn Man celebrate his birthday, then come to our open house in Milwaukee on February 16th from 2-8:00pm. If you have not already received an invite via email and want to come, please contact me! Pati is going to make some crazy good food and we’ll have beer and wine and a roaring buckthorn fire outside on the patio. We hope to see you on the 16th!

I spent two excellent days this past week working at The Springs continuing my effort to open up views along the part of trail that I christened the Buckthorn Alley. The map below shows the progress made so far from the west (shown in black) and the east (shown in white) and the gap that remains. I roughly outlined wetland areas in blue that are filling in with brush (the Buckthorn Man will put a stop to that!)

This was the scene when I arrived on Wednesday morning.

I was gratified to see that Andy Buchta

had paid a visit and made 8 or so brush piles. Needless to say, this is hard work in the current conditions and I really appreciate Andy’s contribution.

I enjoyed a relaxing day and was not perturbed by any technical difficulties with the chainsaw. I experienced a curious, and seemingly contradictory mix of emotions, including deep calm and overflowing excitement. Here is how it looked at the end of the day.

Some classic perspectives of The Springs in the subdued early evening light.

Yesterday, Friday February 7th, I was back at it. It was a cold, bright sunny, morning and I stopped at the Hotel Springs to get some water.

I resumed where I left off on Wednesday and made a new fire in the same place as last time.

The views to the interior wetlands are beginning to open up! John, Sue and Tim stopped by to offer encouragement and John said they have seen 20+ robins playing in the springs just north of the Emerald Spring boardwalk. I had a fine day swinging the saw and got farther than expected.