Oakological Succession

Posted on May 20, 2015 by paulmozina

What does the future hold for the Oak Savannas and Woodlands of Wisconsin? I left the 2015 Oak Savanna Alliance workshop last Saturday at Camp Timber-Lee with a decidedly unsettled feeling aka, cognitive dissonance. Am I fighting for another seemingly hopeless cause i.e., stopping the War On Drugs, or trying to get a real investigation into what happened on 9/11, when I volunteer my time and attention, my spiritual currency, to restore and preserve the oakosystems in the Kettle Moraine? Can, or rather, should, anything be done to prevent the oakological succession of the oak forests below the “tension zone” to mixed central and northern hardwood forests?

“Oak forests on medium- and high-productivity sites throughout the Midwest have been decreasing in extent for several decades. Historically, regeneration in these forests was facilitated by a periodic fire regime. Today, it is difficult to regenerate oaks on these nutrient-rich sites due to competition from native and nonnative plants that outcompete oak seedlings. Browsing by white-tailed deer also limits the survival and growth of oak seedlings. The lack of successful regeneration along with selective harvesting of mature oaks contribute to the gradual succession of oak forests to mixed central hardwoods, which includes species such as red and sugar maple, basswood, elms, green and white ash, and ironwood.” Wisconsin’s Forests 2004 United States Department of Agriculture

DNR Natural Area Conservation Biologist Matt Zine made an excellent presentation about the progress of the oak succession and the master planning process currently happening at the Lulu Lake SNA. But it appears, given the meager crumbs of financial support they get, that the Bureau of Natural Heritage Conservation should be renamed to the Museum of Natural Heritage Conservation. With an annual budget of around $5 million, supporting 33.5 full time employees (of which only a handful are working in southeastern Wisconsin), to manage the endangered resources on 673 State Natural Areas comprising 373,000 acres, they are hard-pressed to do more than save a few choice relics. Matt explained that they are 10 years behind when it comes to creating master plans for all of the SNAs, and that’s excluding the SNAs above the tension zone, which presumably do not contain any endangered resources, or stand to benefit from any formal management planning. We don’t know how many, or what percentage, of the SNAs below the tension zone have master plans. This limited perspective on our endangered resources ignores the other 5 million acres of publicly owned lands in the state as well as the privately held lands (approximately 29 million acres.)

Wetlands near Lulu Lake

Matt is the messenger and I’m having trouble with the message. Am I fighting Mother Nature when I cling to the ideal of the pre-settlement oak savannas and woodlands and work to restore something that can never be again? It’s not just the trees, it’s the oakosystems and the mystique of the Native Americans who nurtured and mastered a life sustaining and harmonious balance of flora and fauna. I fear that, if we don’t preserve the oak savannas and woodlands, we will loose forever the native wisdom accumulated over centuries, that they intrinsically and beautifully embody.

Thank goodness there are people like Eric Tarman-Ramcheck, Emily Stahl and Amanda Kutka, who organized the Oak Savanna Alliance Workshop, and Zach Kastern and Ginny Coburn, who share my passion for the oak savannas and woodlands of the Kettle Moraine! Zach and Ginny have been organizing volunteer workdays in the Southern Kettle Moraine in partnership with the DNR for three years now. Zach was awarded the Land Steward of the Year award by the Oak Savanna Alliance. Way to go Zach!

Zach receiving the award from Matt Zine.

The Buckthorn Man made a decent presentation baring his heart and soul while sharing his experiences volunteering for 20 years in the Kettle Moraine.

I’m plagued with doubts as I continue my efforts at The Scuppernong Springs Nature Trail: am I doing “The Right Thing” or am I fighting the natural succession? Is it wise to abandon the management practices of the people who lived here for thousands of years, which kept the natural succession in check?

On Tuesday May 12, I spent most of the day cutting garlic mustard with my brush cutter. I am observing that in the areas where I concentrated on cutting garlic mustard last year, there is significantly less this year and the plants that are present are typically 6-8″ tall, spindly, and with relatively few seeds. I am gaining confidence that the strategy of mowing garlic mustard can succeed by focusing on keeping it out of the “best” areas and then gradually expanding the no-GM zone.

The river is starting to make a head cut at the Hotel Spring bridge location where the DNR recently excavated (scroll down to the leprechaun image in this post for more details.)

The sun made a dramatic appearance late in the afternoon.

On Wednesday, May 13, I was back at it whacking garlic mustard and pulling water cress. I also spent some time weeding the spotted knapweed from the patches of lupine that are proliferating on the west slope of the sand prairie.

Sunset at Ottawa Lake.

On Saturday, May 16, Pati and I stopped at The Springs on the way home from the Oak Savanna Alliance Workshop to check out the lupine.

And finally, on Monday, May 18, I spent an absolutely beautiful spring day cutting garlic mustard, pulling water cress and digging out spotted knapweed.

I weeded quack grass and water cress from the Indian Springs.

In the late afternoon I joined Pat Witkowski and the Ice Age Trail Alliance “Monday Mudders” to do a little trail maintenance near the tower at Lapham Peak State Park.

Views from the tower.

See you at The Springs!

SEWRPC Surveys The Springs

Posted on June 15, 2014 by paulmozina

I love to landscape the landscape at the Scuppernong Springs. This distinguished tract of land deserves our love and attention for the sake of its beauty. So please, come out and help me dig a little spotted knapweed from the sand prairie!

The lay of the land at The Springs was evoked beautifully by John Muir, in his classic: The Story of My Boyhood and Youth, and I had to pinch myself last night as I walked alone behind the Scuppernong Spring and thought: ‘this is my garden’.

I’m intrigued by how others experience my garden.

Here is a great image from Landscape Photographer Byron S. Becker: “The photograph was taken in the spring of 2008 along Suppernong River near sundown. The camera was a 4×5 with a 90mm lens, using TriX 320 film and the exposure was 2 minutes; the developer was Pyronal.”

Below is an example of Kristen Westlake’s Fine Art Photography. You can see more of her images of The Springs, and all of her other outstanding work, here.

I had a wonderful week of beautiful weather for landscape gardening at The Springs! Last Monday, June 9th, I tried something new, per the advice of Jared Urban, and burned the first-year garlic mustard off the cut-off trail with my blow torch. Below is where the cut-off trail joins the main trail at signpost #13.

And after…

I got the worst patches and now the trail is officially “burned in” as Don Dane would say. I spent the afternoon digging spotted knapweed from the sand prairie and was glad to have Ben Johnson’s help with this seemingly Sisyphean task. We focused on cleaning up the lupine patches.

On Friday, June 13, I was joined by Dan Carter, Senior Biologist with The Southeastern Wisconsin Regional Planning Commission (SEWRPC). Dan was continuing SEWRPC’s ongoing effort to document the vegetation at The Springs and invited me to come along.

SEWRPC has divided The Springs into 4 areas for their vegetation surveys:

1) The dry prairie at the springs (aka, the Indian Campground)
2) The dry woods
3) The springs, immediately adjacent wetlands, and upper reaches of the creek
4) The fen and sedge meadow in the vast open area immediately to the west (includes trench where marl was mined).

The first three areas listed above are located in the blue circle on the right below and the fourth is in the larger blue circle to the left. Click the links above to view SEWRPC’s preliminary vegetation surveys.

As we walked through Buckthorn Alley on our way to the hotel spring, Dan and I stopped frequently to make notes and take pictures. Dan recently completed his PhD in Biology at Kansas State University and he has a wealth of knowledge, understanding and wisdom. Here are just a few of plants he identified.

Be careful at The Springs! Poison Hemlock.

Bulrush

Forked Aster, a state threatened plant!

Valerian

Horsetail

We visited the Ottawa Lake Fen State Natural Area and Dan showed me two new springs that I had never seen before. They emerge from the east side of the wetlands and you can find them by walking across the fen from campsite #334 towards the north until you come across their outflow channels.

Of course, there were lots of interesting plants here too.

Bracken Fern

Lake Sedge

And the carnivorous Pitcher Plant

Thanks Dan, for showing me around the place I love!

I spent the afternoon pulling and digging spotted knapweed on the sand prairie. There is a bumper crop of this noxious invader!

A soothing sunset at Ottawa Lake.

A “Honey” moon at the Lapham Peak Tower.

I had the pleasure of spending yesterday, June 14, at my favorite spot again.

The Indian Spring is being quickly overrun by quack grass and water cress so I spent the morning pulling these invasive plants. Before…

… and after.

Then I moved up the hill to the sand prairie and continued pulling and digging spotted knapweed. It’s going to take years to get rid of this stuff unless I get a whole lot of help.

Speaking of which, my good friend Carl Baumann, who has been harvesting black locust on the south end of the trail, split all of the logs in my woodpile setting the stage for some cozy fires at My Shangri-La. Thanks Carl!

And Andy Buchta noticed the freshly cut buckthorn by the main entrance on Hwy ZZ and he has commenced to piling. Thanks Andy!

It was a great week!

See you at The Springs!

The Sauk Spring

Posted on May 25, 2013 by paulmozina

After a couple days, I start to miss The Springs. They draw me away from the present moment into a dreamy future, which became reality for me last Thursday as I worked, wandered and wondered in a Garden of Eden. This place is flowing with living waters and I drew some for the day at the Scuppernong Spring.

I crossed the Indian Campground on my way to an area at the bottom of the slope to girdle some Aspen trees.

It wasn’t until I started working with real Indians, I mean people born in India, that I started to become frustrated with the common use of the term here; a case of mistaken identity. Language is so powerful! Who were the “First People”, the “Native Americans”? If only we could have learned from them how to live in harmony with the land and honored them with their own names.

Watercress and quack grass are two non-native plants that can really take over an area. Lindsay pulled a ton of these invaders from the Indian Spring, or maybe we should call it the Sauk Spring after the tribe, along with the Fox, that ceded over 50,000,000 acres of their tribal lands to the United States in the Treaty of St. Louis back in 1803. Cede — to surrender possession of. We didn’t expect these deeply rooted plants to disappear and I thought it would be a good time to clean the spring again.

After girdling aspen for a while, I donned some rubber knee boots and pulled the new batch of water cress and quack grass that were rapidly spreading. Here are a series of videos and photos taken later in the day that give a tour of the Sauk Spring.

I love the sound of the water.

This view is a bit downstream from the source where an earthen dam was blocking the channel.

There is a second spring source that merges with the main channel on its way to the Scuppernong River.

The Sauk Spring is a relatively quiet place to hang out with a great view of the prairie.

Next, I headed to the old barn site, which is quite a bit noisier, to pile some buckthorn. Garrett and Jenny, two new volunteers, joined me and we did some stacking. I’m hoping to work with them again soon!

Finally, it was time for some fun and by this time the clouds had been blown away by a refreshing north wind.

This vernal pool as at the south end of the loop trail.

The Sauk Campground is a sand prairie that really comes alive with color in the spring. The Hoary Puccoon is in full bloom.

And so are the Wild Lupine!

On my way to the marl pits at the north end of the Sauk Campground…

At the pits looking east towards the Sauk Spring area.

May Apple on the cut-off, aka “lost”, trail.

It was a lovely, cool, bug-free, full-moon evening and I watched the sun go down from the Marl Pit bridge.

See you at The Springs!

Quackgrass Attack!

Posted on August 3, 2012 by lindsayknudsvig

Before

After from opposite Before

July 26: After removing watercress from the Indian Springs quackgrass quickly moved in. So we took care of that, too. I didn’t have Paul’s brute strength around because he was away acquiring inspiration from another one of our precious planets natural gems- Isle Royale I think he called it- so, as per WDNR, I knocked it back with some Aquaneat and dug it out with my trusty three-prongued groundbreaker and a garden pitch fork. We gotta give those Native Sedges, Rushes, Forbs and Brook Trout a chance, don’t we.