Today Jon Bradely, aka JBtheExplorer, makes another guest appearance. Check out these interesting and beautiful pictures from his recent adventure (Nov. 3) at The Springs.
I went today expecting the Autumn colors to be over and wildlife to be gone or dormant. It was a pleasant surprise to see quite a bit of color still there. The trail was also loaded with snakes today, 10 that I remember. Most of them were Garter Snakes however I also found two Red-Bellied Snakes. The first one (first 2 images) was found at the sand prairie and only about 3.5″ long. The second one was found at signpost 10 and was roughly 6″ long. In 2009 found a Red-Bellied Snake on the trail but didn’t know what kind it was at the time and it slipped away before I could see its belly. This time I made sure to photograph it!
The Garter Snakes I found were mostly along the Marl Pits. Admittedly I don’t know how to tell different types of Garters apart however the stripes below the eye of the Garter in the first picture look like the Plains Garter Snakes I see quite a bit where I live. If it is a Plains, its the first one I’ve seen at the trail.
Red-Bellied Snake.
Finally, I have some scenery shots I took at various spots along the trail.
Marl Pit bridge view.
The bird house Jon put up this past summer. (ed. note I Haven’t seen any tenants yet!)
Cloud gazing. (ed. note, if you love clouds, check out the pics on this incredible site!)
The Big Spring and the steps leading up the trail from it. (ed. note, this location is begging for an extended time exposure shot ala Toby Gant)
The view from the deck leading to the Emerald Spring.
The old Hotel/Cheese Factory/Sawmill site.
Ruins on the cut-off trail. (ed. note, in a recent post I speculated that these ruins were part of the marl pit factory because of a long concrete structure with a rectangular hole in it. Pati said it looked like a chimney that had simply fallen over. hmmm… applying Occam’s razor, I’d have to agree with Pati.)
The make-shift bridge connecting the cut-off trail to the main loop trail at the marl pit factory.
Near signpost #2.
I was lucky enough to visit The Springs four times this year and can’t wait to return next spring!
(ed. note Thanks Jon! Pati and I were at The Springs on Nov. 3 too. Maybe next time we can coordinate and meet there.)
I’m riding a lymes roller coaster physically, mentally and emotionally frequently checking in with myself; how do I feel? The doxycycline antibiotic helped with the more acute symptoms and now I’m working on next steps with Dr. Norm Schwartz and we’re seeking consultation from Dr. Robert Waters as well (see this interesting story about Dr. Waters for more on lymes and the insurance industry). There is nothing like a day at The Springs to help me forget about it.
I was reminded yesterday of the wonderful opportunity we all have to nurture the land and, more specifically, how lucky I am to be realizing my vision for the landscape at the Scuppernong Springs Nature Preserve and Trail. This article from Wisconsin Trails includes a wonderful quote from John Muir that has inspired me ever since I first read it on a sign at the Hartland Marsh Ice Age Wetland trail head.
A year before his death, John published “The Story of My Boyhood and Youth,” in which he wrote extensively of his time at the farm and his adventures there:
“Our beautiful lake, named Fountain Lake by father, but Muir’s Lake by the neighbors, is one of the many small glacier lakes that adorn the Wisconsin landscapes. It is fed by twenty or thirty meadow springs about half a mile long, half as wide, and surrounded by low finely-modeled hills dotted with oak and hickory, and meadows full of grasses and sedges and many beautiful orchids and ferns. First there is a zone of green, shining rushes, and just beyond the rushes a zone of white and orange water-lilies fifty or sixty feet wide forming a magnificent border. On bright days, when the lake was rippled by a breeze, the lilies and sun-spangles danced together in radiant beauty, and it became difficult to discriminate between them.”
The valley along the Scuppernong River headwaters is transitioning from a brush encircled, phragmities and cattail filled marsh, to an open, wet meadow, alive with grasses, rushes, sedges and flowers of all kinds. Thanks to Lindsay Knudsvig for the many volunteer hours he contributed last year to making this happen.
I was at it again yesterday pulling spotted knapweed on the sand prairie and purple nightshade on the south end of the loop trail and using my hedge cutter to lop off the flowering tops of the cattails and phragmites. In most cases the seed heads were just above the height of the flowers emerging from below so I was able to leave the later undisturbed. Hopefully, I have my phenology right, and the phragmites and catails will not set seed again before the winter.
The Sand Prairie was lovely as I pulled spotted knapweed (pics and video courtesy of my iphone since I forgot the camera).
I started with the hedge cutter at the Scuppernong Spring, at the south end of the valley, and worked my way north on both sides of the river up to the spur trail that leads to the Hidden Spring, and then focused on the east side of the valley. I covered a lot more ground than I thought possible and that is really encouraging.
Last Saturday’s effort on the north end.
And yesterday’s work on the south end.
Its been a bumper year for mosquitoes at The Springs, in contrast to here in Milwaukee, where I don’t think I’ve seen more than a couple mosquitoes all season. It was cool enough to wear a pumori and I tucked the bug net inside, keeping hands pocketed as I watched another day ending.
I’m still absorbing the wonder-full wisdom Atina Diffley eloquently expressed in Turn Here Sweet Corn; I’m definitely going to have to read it again. She tells beautiful stories about miracles manifest in the life cycle of seeds, and the imperative of planting the right seeds. Every seed planted at Gardens of Eagan has a story and was planted with attention in just the right soil, location and time. Getting and preserving the right seed is an art, one that our good friend Rich Csavoy has been practicing while feeding his family from their organic garden for over 30 years.
I raised the question about how we wanted to approach reintroducing native sand prairie plants and now the importance of the seed we use is much clearer to me. Don Dane said they did not have any appropriate seeds gathered at the time and that only locally harvested seeds could be used. I’m looking forward to seed collecting adventures with Don and Amanda! In the meantime, we’ll let the native plants that are thriving on the sand prairie contribute their seed. We do need to review whether or not the native plants we currently find there are simply highly adaptable, opportunistic plants, from a different ecosystem, or, are they the right seed for a sand prairie. Any botanists out there?
My Lymes test came back positive showing active antibodies fighting a current borrelia burgdorferi invasion. I can feel it in my head and body and am pursuing a remedy in earnest. The sunshine, fresh air and water at The Springs provided some relief and I was chomp’in at the bit yesterday to try Don Dane’s idea to use a hedge cutter to remove the cattail and phragmites seed heads before they mature. After the ponds were drained, invasive cattails and phragmites began to dominate the valley along the Scuppernong River headwaters.
The hedge cutter was like a hot knife through butter and, just like when brush cutting the sand prairie, slowly “hedging” the valley gave me a perfect opportunity to look closely and carefully at the land. I’m encouraged by the variety of native plants, like joe pye weed, goldenrod and blue vervain trying to make it just below the canopy of cattail and phragmites; their blooming flowers will become very evident in the next few weeks.
Now, I just need to learn how to keep the hedge cutter sharp!
I’m looking forward to getting my truck back tomorrow and thank Pati for letting me use her Subaru Outback.
I feel so much better about my work at the Scuppernong Springs Nature Preserve since making the commitment to go organic. One barometer of healthy human consciousness is whether or not your thoughts, emotions and actions are in unity. The cognitive dissonance I was feeling about using poisons in the restoration effort is gone now and my thoughts, emotions and actions are unified in a renewed commitment to take care of the land; naturally.
Yesterday, it was my great pleasure to participate with a dedicated team of Wisconsin DNR Water Resource specialists as they conducted their annual fish count of the Scuppernong River. Fish Count in that they are viewed as key indicators of the quality of the water, the health of an ecosystem and even global climate change. We made significant changes to the Scuppernong River headwaters and valley last year by removing water cress dams, which freed the river’s flow lowering its depth 4-6″, and cleaning out springs to allow the water to join the river more directly. In theory (because I don’t have any data to prove it) these efforts should have reduced the “thermal pollution”, i.e. the temperature increase caused as the water warmed while slowly filtering through dense mats of water cress, which is a good thing because native brook trout like cold water. The downside is that we reduced a source of food and cover (water cress) and we disturbed a lot of muck. Did we inadvertently tip a delicately balanced system out of favor for the brook trout? I’ve been waiting for this year’s fish count with nervous anticipation since we heard about it from Craig Helker last November.
Meet Craig, Rachel, Adam and Chelsea.
Craig and Rachel explain the fish count.
And Adam provides the safety explanation.
That was on Tuesday, August 6, and unfortunately, there were problems with the equipment that could not be resolved and we had to reschedule for Thursday. I’m waiting for the crew at the gaging station bridge and here they come.
We reviewed what the problem was on Tuesday (a faulty probe) and I got a more detailed explanation of the system. The generator in the white boat creates the electrical current that flows from a plate on the bottom of the boat, which acts the cathode, to the probes held by the shockers, which act as anodes (I mix this all up in the videos) creating an electrical field. There is a separate system, powered by a battery, that shuts the current off if either of the shockers looses control of their probe. The current flow is also stopped if a probe stops working for some reason, which did happen again on Thursday, but this time the team was prepared and simply reverted to using only one probe.
Here is my first attempt to use iMovie to string a couple videos together showing our shocking actions. Note that Shelly, also from WDNR Water Resource team, has joined us.
We finished at the Hotel Spring and they setup buckets and began sorting the fish.
Adam, Craig and Rachel measure and count the fish.
Chelsea gives us a close up look at four of the eight different fish species that were collected.
And Rachel delivers the final tallies.
I got 2010 – 2012 data from Craig. Let’s see how we’re doing (note that we may have also impacted the 2012 numbers since we began our work that spring).
The numbers are definitely down from previous years and I wonder if the appearance of Northern Pike is significant. There are a lot of variables that could affect the number of fish collected, including the changes we made to the river last year, but I don’t know if we can go beyond speculation to identify specific cause and effect relationships. We are assuming that removing as much water cress as we did last year did reduce the food and cover that brook trout need, and hence we are letting it grow this year, but not to the extent that it forms dams like it used to. We did collect some “young of the year” brook trout, which indicate that they are still spawning in this area of the river.
Anne Korman, Assistant Superintendent of the Southern Unit of the Kettle Moraine State Forest stopped over to say hello and take this picture of the crew (Craig, Paul, Chelsea, Rachel, Shelly and Adam).
I managed to pull a few weeds yesterday before meeting the DNR team. I got this queen anne’s lace along the first bridge over the river downstream from the Scuppernong Spring.
And some of this purple nightshade on the south end of the loop trail
Rachel showed me this chara plant, which is the source of the calcium carbonate that forms into marl.
I spent the rest of the afternoon pulling spotted knapweed, common ragweed and hoary alysum on the sand prairie, which is poised for an explosion of color from rough blazing star, golden rod and many other flowers. Come and see the prairie!
Summer is flying by and you no longer have to walk way out along the marl pit channel to see the sun going down. I got these pictures from the marl pit bridge.
Its finally dawned on me; Go Organic! Stop using poison on the land if you don’t want to poison the land! It’s obvious to me now after reading Atina Diffley’s award winning memoir Turn Here Sweet Corn. The organic approach is the embodiment of the Hippocratic Oath; do no harm. Atina’s love story with the land opened my eyes to the potential of applying organic farming techniques to our work at the Scuppernong Springs Nature Preserve. Atina and her husband, Martin Diffley, (Organic Farming Works LLC) are pioneers in the organic farming movement in Minnesota, their efforts culminating in a “Kale versus Koch, Soil versus Oil” pipeline smackdown where they stood up to the Minnesota Pipe Line Company, which is operated by the Koch Pipeline Company, a subsidiary of Koch Industries, and prevented a pipeline corridor from being routed right through their Gardens of Eagan Organic Farm. They saved their land AND Atina contributed to the preservation of other organic farms via the creation of the Organic Appendix to the Agricultural Impact Mitigation Plan that all pipeline and transmission line companies must comply with if they succeed in routing their lines across organic farmland.
Atina explains that it’s all about relationships: people to the land, plants to the soil and people meeting each others needs in community. I’m inspired to only employ non-toxic ways to nurture The Springs back to health a la organic farming techniques; I want the Scuppernong Springs Nature Trail to be “Certified Organic”. Atina and Martin helped me realize the importance of building and protecting the soil and, after reviewing the research on the residual effects of Milestone and Transline and their potential to leech into groundwater, I concluded that I could no longer use them in any context at The Springs. Jason Dare began turning me in this direction and now I’m fully committed. The only exception to the ban on poison that I will make is to use Tahoe/Triclopyr on cut buckthorn stumps (painting, not spraying), and hopefully, we’ll find a natural alternative to that as well.
I claimed to want to garden the sand prairie. What was I thinking? Would you use poison in your garden? In the past two years I had acquired no less than 7 different poisons: Aquaneat/glyphosate, Habitat/imazapyr, Bullzeye/glyphosate, Milestone/aminopryalid, Transline/clopyralid, Tordon/picloram and Tahoe/triclopyr, all of which I have returned to the DNR except the Tahoe stump killer. Martin Diffley summed it up pretty well: “If we don’t change direction, we’re going to end up where we’ve been going.”, and my approach was slowly poisoning The Springs. One story from Turn Here Sweet Corn that really impressed me was how they handled a 9 acre field of quack grass. Despite being pressed by demand for their produce to get this land into production, Martin recommended they wait for just the right combination of dry and hot weather. When it finally arrived, they used a 930 Case tractor fitted with a Vibra Shank field digger to “rake” the weeds, exposing the roots to the blazing sun, repeating the process over 6 weeks until the quack quit. That got me thinking about the phragmites and cattails in the valley along the Scuppernong River headwaters; maybe we could do the same thing there! Like Einstein said, “We can’t solve problems by using the same kind of thinking we used when we created them.”, and now that my organic consciousness has been awakened, I’m seeing new, non-toxic, solutions.
Yesterday, Pati and I met with DNR Trail Boss Don Dane to walk the trails and review our approach to restoring the Scuppernong Springs Nature Preserve, and we we joined by John and Sue Hrobar. I’m prone to excited bursts of non-stop chatter and, true to form, I began by telling Don that I wanted to go organic. He was totally on board with this and promised to help us achieve that goal. The first area we reviewed was the valley along the headwaters of the Scuppernong River that is dominated by phragmites and cattails. I told him Martin’s story and we talked about mowing and raking and Don suggested that, in the short term, I get a hedge cutter and simply cut the seed heads off the phragmites and cattails at a height that will leave the myriad of other plants that have emerged in the “understory” since the burn undisturbed. This will drain the energy from the phragmites and cattails while allowing the native plants to compete and, combined with fire, we hope this will be an effective strategy.
One of my big concerns is all of the buckthorn seedlings and resprouts that have emerged since we cleared the mature buckthorn. I explained this to Jason Dare and he suggested I rely on fire to control them. I talked to Don about this and he is committed to burning the scuppernong every 2-3 years. That was the assurance I needed! In the meantime, Don suggested brush cutting areas where the resprouts are thick to better enable fire to move through. We talked about the north end of the trail, buckthorn alley, and agreed that I should focus on clearing the buckthorn there to help facilitate getting a hot fire through this part of the Nature Preserve; the DNR has never been able to burn this area.
Here is a native swamp thistle Don pointed out by the hatching house springs.
John, Sue and Don at the gaging station bridge. I’m hoping that more volunteers will step forward if they know we going organic.
Pati and I spent the afternoon pulling spotted knapweed on the sand prairie, which Don said they also refer to as a cliff messenger prairie. The purple lovegrass is thriving!
Here is a view of the sand prairie.
I felt totally calm and at peace with my hands in the sandy soil pulling spotted knapweed all afternoon. The rough blazing star and golden rod are set to flower and I’m really glad I took the time to clear the prairie with the brush cutter rather than simply mowing it. Here are a few parting shots from the marl pit and gaging station bridges.
The Scuppernong Springs Nature Trail passes through prairies, woodlands and wetlands making it a great place to see a wide variety of flora and fauna. I’ve often referred to the Native American Campsite (#6 on the map) as, the “sand prairie”, without knowing what a sand prairie really is. Which begs the question, what exactly am I trying to restore? What does restoration mean? Here is a summary from John J. Ewel’s “Restoration is the ultimate test of ecological theory” in: Restoration Ecology, A Synthetic Approach to Ecological Research,1987:
Sustainability
Is the reconstructed community capable of perpetuating itself, or, like agricultural ecosystems and golf courses, can it be sustained only if managed by people? Invasibility
Does the reconstruction yield a community that resists invasions by new species? Intact, natural communities are, in general, less easily invaded than ones that have been damaged or ones that lack one or more of their key species. Productivity
A restored community should be as productive as the original. Nutrient retention
A reconstructed community that loses greater amounts of nutrients than the original is a defective imitation. Biotic interactions
Reassembly of formerly associated plant populations often – but
not always – leads to reconstitution of the entire community. Animals and
microbes usually colonize spontaneously because of their mobility and ubiquity,
respectively.
These are concrete, comprehensive, challenging goals that I’m taking to heart and mind.
Per Finley’s Vegetation of Wisconsin in the Mid-1800s map, this area was comprised of oak openings and prairies, of which we have one of the rare, “imperiled” varieties, i.e. a sand prairie, right here at The Springs. Last year we spent a lot of time there clearing scruffy red oak and cherry trees that had survived earlier mowing and burning, and doing a lot of piling and burning of our own. This year we are attacking the weeds and I asked Ron Kurowski (retired DNR Naturalist) to come out and help me identify plants and strategize. Last Thursday, July 18, despite the heat and humidity, Ron was his ebullient self and we spent hours under the hot sun identifying plants; it was a blast!
The big blue stem by the marl pit canal responded very well to the burn.
Liatris, aka Blazing Star, on the sand prairie.
Swamp milkweed by the Indian Spring channel
Cord grass
Bergamot
Before Ron arrived, I did a little brush cutting and spring cleaning in the area of the Hotel Springs.
5 springs emerge from the hillside near the stone half circle that frames the main Hotel Spring and they had gotten overgrown with brush and water cress. I also cleaned out the springs by the old barn site and the new spring, that just started flowing again this year, by the huge willow stumps. Take a look!
One of my main ecological considerations, and axiomatic to reaching the goals set by Mr. Ewel above, is to limit, and ultimately completely stop, using poison on the land. The main valley along the headwaters, where all the springs are, is dominated by invasive cattails and phragmites. I recently tried spraying a patch of nearly 100% phragmites by the observation deck at the Emerald Spring with Habitat, and I thought it did not work. Now I think the jury is still out.
Is there an alternative to poisoning these plants that will enable other species to compete more effectively? There are a variety of shorter plants trying to make a living under the phragmites and cattails and they will loose out if their taller competitors are not burned frequently. I’m already talking to the DNR about burning next year and maybe we’ll try Lindsay’s idea and do smaller, targeted burns, like in the valley just mentioned.
I ran the brush cutter for a while after Ron left and sprayed buckthorn resprouts on the steep hillside by Hwy 67 before calling it a day.
After a bath and a little yoga at the marl pit bridge, I put my bug net on and enjoyed the sunset.
“Rain drops keep fallin’ on my head…” I’ve been feeling a bit like “the guy whose feet are too big for his bed”. Per B.J. Thomas’ example, “… I just did me some talkin’ to the sun” yesterday, pulling weeds all day on the sand prairie, site of the Potawatomi, Ho-Chunk and Sauk Native American campgrounds, and that snapped me out of it. I got that “peaceful, easy feeling” that comes when you know you’re in the right place, at the right time, doing the right thing.
I’m investigating whether or not I might have gotten infected with borrelia burgdorferi (lymes) and taking doxycycline, as a precaution, while I figure out what to do next. I feel pretty good now and I’ve been working at the Hartland Marsh the last two weeks, mowing, brush cutting and meeting with the village administrator, Dave Cox, to help initiate a prescribed burn program. It’s been a few years now since I was focused on the marsh and, with all the rain we’ve been having, the buckthorn and other invasive plants are quickly turning it back into a jungle. Fire inspires hope that my efforts at the marsh will not go to waste. If you haven’t visited the Hartland Marsh yet, put it on your list; it’s uniquely beautiful.
Yesterday, I spent a rejuvenating day at The Springs and I’m going to jump ahead to the highlight of day when I walked down to the old barn site and saw that the DNR Trout Stream Therapists, like elves from middle-earth, had worked some magic to continue healing the river. Well, maybe it was just a lot of planning, deep river knowledge and hard work that produced the excellent results you can see below. This area corresponds to site #3 on the map in the post linked above and it looks like they are queued up to complete site #2 in the near future. Thanks to Ben, “Gos” and their crew for their continued efforts to nurse the river back to health!
I started the day at the Scuppernong Spring getting some water.
The sand prairie is lush with spiderwort and other native flowers, as well as lots of weeds.
Common Milkweed
Spiderwort
Butter-and-eggs
The Scuppernong Prairie
John Hrobar alerted me that hoary alyssum was spreading like crazy and I decided to spend most of the day pulling this weed, since it was in peak flower, rather than continue piling brush in the woods, as I had planned. So, after spraying Transline on the short, black locust trees that have sprouted on the hillside just west of the scuppernong spring in the morning, I spent the rest of the day pulling hoary alyssum and spotted knapweed. All the rain we’ve been having made the weeds easy to pull and they came up roots-and-all, which was quite edifying. White Campion is another weed that is establishing itself on the sand prairie and I’m trying to figure out what to do with it; maybe nothing this year.
Hoary Alyssum
I returned to the Scuppernong Springs in the late afternoon to reminisce about the wonderful visit I just had there with my Mom, Dad and brother Joe.
Then I wandered down the left bank of the river visiting the hillside and hidden springs.
I’m not sure what this flower is… looks a bit like Indian Hemp.
The Springs are luxuriantly green in harmonious sympathy with the summer solstice.
I’m a little worse for wear — might be all the tick bites. Pati gave me this great site for info about lymes disease and we’re investigating and getting advice from people who have had it, like our good friend Karen Ande.
Yesterday it was absolutely gorgeous all day long at The Springs and I was eager to try out my new camera. The picture auto-focus and high definition video are great. Now, if I could just learn to hold the camera steady when taking videos, especially the first few seconds.
The view from the Scuppernong Spring, where I drew some water for the day.
I sprayed 8 gallons of very dilute (.2oz/gal) Milestone/aminopyralid on first year garlic mustard and huge patches of burdock on the south end of the trail and I must confess that I’m sorely conflicted about my continued use of herbicide on the land. Per this Mother Earth News story, there are issues with Milestone. The DNR reassured me that there is no problem given the low concentration they recommend, but I’m having doubts.
I mentioned in a previous post that I was not going to use Habitat/imazapyr anywhere in the river valley and I recently returned my supply to the DNR. This article in Natural News, persuaded me to return my Glyphosate as well. I’m still using Tahoe/triclopyr for buckthorn stumps, Transline/clopyralid for Black Locust and Milestone/aminopyralid for broad-leaf weeds.
In an ideal world, the DNR would have the resources to Burn The Scuppernong on a more regular basis; interspersing fall and spring fires per, the available fuel, and the status of the weeds. If that were the case, it would be conceivable to eliminate the use of all poisonous chemicals on the land. I feel a rant coming on… but, instead, I’ll do what I can to work toward that goal.
I brought my brush cutter out to tidy up the place. Here are before and after shots of the DNR 2-track we use to access a parking area at the south end of the loop trail.
Then I made my way to the hillside springs at the first embankment/bridge below the Scuppernong Spring.
The second bridge down, before and after.
Then, on to the boardwalk that leads to the Emerald Spring. I sprayed this area with Habitat a few weeks ago and there was no effect. I miss the wise console of my good friend Lindsay Knudsvig, who would have undoubtebly warned me that it was “too early dude!”
I’m a little concerned about the algae that is blooming in the river and speculating that it might be caused by the removal of the layer of water cress that covered the river last year, and the burn this spring, which, together, significantly increased the amount of sunlight hitting the river bed. Warm temperatures spawn algae growth and so does stirring up muck in old river beds, which we did a lot of last year. This year’s DNR fish count, coming in July, will be very interesting. In any case, my further interventions with the river going forward will be minimal.
I cut cattails and willow resprouts at the Hatching House Springs and reed canary grass and buckthorn resprouts by the old hotel and barn sites. Jon Bradley mentioned in the last post that his expedition did not venture onto the cut-off trail because he “couldn’t see a definitive trail”. Indeed, a lot of aspen, buckthorn, honeysuckle and prickly ash has quickly sprouted so I went through the entire trail with the brush cutter to make it more evident. You can pick up the cut-off trail (aka, The Lost Trail) on your left as you walk along the main trail just past the long, tall, marl pit factory wall, on your right. Look for 4 logs laying parallel crossing a little drainage ditch and take this trail!
Come along as Jon Bradley takes us on his recent amazing adventure at the Scuppernong Springs!
If you are receiving this post via email by subscribing to this site, you can click, or double click, the pictures to display them full screen; well worth it for Jon’s beautiful photographs. If you hover your mouse over a picture and a youtube link appears, follow it.
The last time out, I was taking sunset photos from the marl pit canal and noticed someone hanging out on the bridge; it was Jon…
I had a blast at The Springs this past Thursday night, Friday, and Saturday morning. I hit the trail 5 times but only went through the whole thing once, I mostly stuck around the Marl Pits. Admittedly, I wanted to check out the new cut-off trail but couldn’t see a definitive trail.
As you saw, I installed the Tree Swallow house on Thursday afternoon. I saw a ton of Tree Swallows around that area, so it was definitely a fantastic place to put it. (Just an FYI there is a loose nail on the left side of the front, which can be pulled out to swing open the front if it ever needs to be cleaned out. It’s something I never really knew about before but read it online and figured I’d install it on that one since it’ll be at the trail, hopefully for many years to come.)
During sunset I saw this Snapping Turtle and Blandings Turtle on each side of the Marl Pit Bridge.
These Spiderwort plants were everywhere. They sure do have a nice color to them, don’t they?
I’ve never actually been to The Springs during sunset before, it was definitely worth seeing, and thankfully the mosquitoes weren’t too bad around the Marl Pit area, compared to to the first stretch of trail where they were swarming.
Friday morning at the Springs was fantastic. I hit the whole trail and enjoyed watching the springs from quite a few locations along the trail. It was a quiet day with no one on the trail and not too much traffic going by so it was a pretty relaxing stroll.
This muskrat was working all day long on its den in the largest Marl Pit.
I always have a good time hanging around the main spring, though the mosquitoes were so thick around it, I chose to continue on after a minute or two.
A few other photos I took at the trail include Sandhill Cranes at the entrance, another large Snapping Turtle in a Marl Pit (it’s markings seem to match up with the one I saw on the previous day), and a tiny Painted Turtle in the large Marl Pit.
I also got a few interesting photos at Ottawa Lake. I just missed out on this Snapping Turtle laying her eggs by the pier.
During one last bike ride around the park, I found this small Snapper by the beach parking lot and saved it from getting run over. Hopefully it headed straight back to the lake.
I’m already looking forward to my next trip out there!
(ed. note,
Just in, here is a great video tour of The Springs that Jon put together.
It was around this time last year that we met Don Dane and Tim Peters at The Springs and expanded the scope of our restoration effort to include opening up all of the springs that feed the Scuppernong River, and clearing the river itself. Like Neo in The Matrix, who followed the white rabbit to discover the truth, we are also on a journey of exploration and learning to discover “the truth” of what the Scuppernong Springs area was like before the invasion of the white settlers. Terence McKenna coined the term Archaic Revival and it strikes a chord with me.
I had the pleasure of spending Friday, May 24, at The Springs. The northeast winds that arrived the day before continued to blow and the sky was impeccably blue. DNR naturalist/guide Melanie Kapinos and long-time Ice Age Trail Alliance member Barbra Converse, who gives tour of The Springs, stopped out to chat.
Barb asked ‘why do you do it?’ and I really appreciated the opportunity to explain myself. It will take a long time to “revive” this area after many, many years of neglect. As I walk the land and observe the recovery from the burn, I see tons of weeds amongst the good native flowers and grasses. Much of the green you see in the post-burn pictures I have been posting is from buckthorn seedlings, thistle and burdock patches, phragmites, cattails, garlic mustard, spotted knapweed and other invasive plants. The journey back to health for the Scuppernong Springs Nature Preserve and the Scuppernong River Habitat Area will be long and I take every step with joyful anticipation.
I continued girdling Aspen on the slope behind the Hidden Spring. The fresh air made every breath a pleasure!
I spent the afternoon pulling watercress, phragmites and cattails from the Hatching House Springs and the Hillside Springs. These springs have nice, stony bottoms and look like great trout spawning habitats. I harvested a healthy dose of watercress at the Scuppernong Spring, which has the sweetest cress of them all.
Pati joined me for the rest of the day and we reveled in the beauty.
If you love clouds, check out this site! I tried to capture the wisps floating by.
Scuppernong Springs Nature Trail 
