The Heart Of The Scuppernong

Posted on October 18, 2014 by paulmozina

The Ho Chunk called it the Scuppernong, or “sweet-scented land”. The Scuppernong River watershed, contains the largest mesic prairie east of the Mississippi. Its primary sources are The Springs, which you can tour via the Scuppernong Springs Nature Trail.

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.

♦♦♦

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.

On Wednesday I worked near the boardwalk that Ben Johnson and I recently raised on the east end of the Buckthorn Alley. Here are views taken beforehand looking south, then west, then east.

And afterwards, the same perspectives.

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.

Imagining The Scuppernong River

Posted on October 7, 2014 by paulmozina

Generation after generation of people lived and loved along the banks of the Scuppernong River. They never imagined saw mills, cheese factories, trout farms or marl pits; instead, they imagined that the spring waters, diverse prairies and oak savannahs would continue to support them, their children, and their children’s children for generations to come.

When Chester W. Smith arrived in 1847 he imagined the power he could create harnessing the force of the river and he dammed it to make the Buttermilk Mill. His cultural background emphasized man’s mastery over the natural world; it was his oyster!

Talbot Dousman imagined a more sophisticated application of the water in 1874, and he bisected the Scuppernong River with embankments and flumes transforming the headwaters into a trout farm.

The marl works left scabs and a deep scar on the land, wounding and abusing the river during the years it was operated along its banks.

These “care”-takers of the land took more than they cared, leaving the headwaters of the river submerged; its natural course lost under ponds of water for 120 years.

In the early 1990’s DNR Naturalist, Ron Kurowski, and others, imagined the Scuppernong River the way it was before European settlement, and they began reversing the anthropogenic impact via the Scuppernong River Habitat Area restoration project. What does it mean to imagine the river minus the reckless impacts of those who preceded us? I think Dr. Megan A. Styles, Ben Johnson‘s professor at the University of Illinois Springfield, expressed it quite eloquently in a recent email to him:

You’ve hit on a really important central theoretical tenet in restoration ecology — very rarely is the landscape “restored” to a precolonial state; it is actually constructed (notice there’s no “re-” here) anew in a manner that reflects (1) contemporary environmental values and (2) the ways that we “imagine” a truly wild and functional ecosystem should look like. I use the word “imagine” here not to suggest that it is not based in science (it certainly is!), but to remind us that there is a creative process afoot here as well. What we consider a desirable habitat will change over time in concert with changing values and new scientific discoveries.

Ben Heussner and the Wisconsin DNR Fisheries team imagine what a natural and healthy trout habitat should look like and they — one spring at a time, one bend at a time, one tributary at a time — have been reversing the anthropogenic effects on the Scuppernong River watershed for the last 20 years. Recently they performed an elevation study of the Scuppernong Springs to get the data they needed to objectively support what was visually apparent.

On a recent visit to The Springs, Ben interpreted the results of the elevation survey and explained their plans for the headwaters:

From the Hotel Spring bridge (site 3 below) we walked upstream along the river bank discussing how the river bed would change as a result of the projected head-cut. Heussner concluded that the scope of the plan, in addition to the work at the “perch” at the Hotel Spring bridge shown above at data point 1078, should include reducing the humps left after the removal of the embankments where the two bridges lead to the Hillside and Hidden Springs (sites 1 and 2 below), and the hump at the embankment where the mill pond was formed (site 4 below). He is working now on the permitting process and targeting Spring, 2015, to implement the plan.

Then we walked downstream from the Hotel Spring bridge and inspected the results of the back filling we did last spring to compliment the bio-logs the DNR installed late last year (with help from Trout Unlimited), and imagined what it will look like when these areas fill in with vegetation. The river is really ripping through this stretch now, creating a sandy, stony bottom and carving deep pools and cut banks; great trout habitat! Ben is hoping that, with one more workday this December, they can finish the stream bank remediation effort all the way to the gaging station bridge.

Meanwhile, this year, after a long hiatus, the DNR has begun stocking trout again in the Scuppernong River watershed:

McKeawn Springs, 37 Brook Trout yearlings
Ottawa Lake, 1,485 Rainbow Trout yearlings
Paradise Spring Creek, 300 Brook Trout yearlings
Paradise Spring Pond, 200 Brook Trout yearlings
Scuppernong River at Hwy N, 148 Brook Trout yearlings
South Branch Scuppernong River, 74 Brook Trout yearlings.

We are constructing a new reality at the headwaters of the Scuppernong River that reflects: “contemporary environmental values”, and what “a truly wild and functional ecosystem should look like.”

♥ ♥ ♥

Last Thursday I resumed my efforts to prep the Scuppernong Springs Nature Preserve for the next prescribed burn by cutting buckthorn sprouts and seedlings with my brush cutter in the area around the old hotel site. The new bench that Ben and Karen Johnson built is getting a lot of use!

I noticed that the black locust removal effort has resumed in earnest. This is dramatically changing the look of the northeast corner of the property.

I also addressed an issue that DNR trail boss, Don Dane, pointed out a while back, and which Dan Carter reiterated on his recent visit, and that is the steep little short-cut trail that was getting “burned in” from the Hotel Spring bridge up to the Sand Prairie. Here are before…

… and after images.

Ben Johnson joined me after work and we harvested some red oak logs that we planned to use to raise a boardwalk at the east end of the Buckthorn Alley.

We cut up the downed tree on the left shown above and moved the logs over to the boardwalk with a hand dolly.

On Friday I strapped on the brush cutter and did some “mowing” along the cut-off trail. Although it looks like a carpet of buckthorn, there was a lot of wild strawberry and geranium actively growing at ground level and I was glad I wasn’t spraying herbicide.

Later, I checked out the results of the latest hand-to-hand combat with the black locust. I’ll go out on a limb and say this is the handiwork of Steve Tabat and his crew, although I have not seen them personally in action.

On Sunday, Ben Johnson and I began an ambitious boardwalk raising effort.

In a couple hours we had the deck torn apart. You can see how it was embedded in the dirt.

It took a while to get going and determine the best, complimentary, way to use our skills, but soon the new boardwalk was taking shape.

It was fabulously busy and we were constantly interrupted by hikers; good thing Ben posted a couple of orange, “trail work ahead”, cones to warn them.

Did I mention that Ben is indefatigable?

Thanks again Ben for leading this effort!

It was an epic week at The Springs and I hope to see you there soon!

Decking Out The Springs

Posted on September 30, 2014 by paulmozina

Ben Johnson and I have been on a real nature binge at The Springs: intoxicated with fragrant breezes, bubbling spring water, clear blue skies, colorful wild flowers, singing birds, liberating temperatures, and, most of all, satisfying work. We positively indulged in a nature bender!

Ben’s three day bacchanalia began last Friday, when he raised two boardwalks near the trailhead to ecstatic new levels. The 8′, 4×6″ runners, that supported the deck boards disappeared into the ground long ago and were blocking the water, microbes and invertebrates that move through the soil.

Deck #1

Deck #2

The affair lasted all day, and when it was over, he was drunk with success.

Deck #1

Deck #2

I joined Ben on Saturday, modestly intending to cut buckthorn sprouts and seedlings near signpost #1 and completely unaware that he was riding the Bull. I reminded him that our recent deck repair efforts were motivated by Big Jim Davee, and he just gazed a bit glassy eyed down the trail and said: “I’ve been wanting to do this for a long time.” We briefly discussed the next boardwalk on our priority list, and, assuming he was simply going to lift up the 8′ sections and reset them on level logs, I left Ben to his mission and proceeded to cut brush near signpost #1.

Deck #3, comprised of 6, 8′ sections, is close to the east edge of the Buckthorn Alley and it rocked and rolled as you passed over. There are wetlands on either side and, like decks 1 and 2 above, the runners were totally submerged in the soil.

A closer view of the gap shown above.

The far end of the boardwalk.

Just before noon, I noticed that my iPhone had gone totally mad and I was not able to use it. I was desperate (yah, a slave to my fondle slab) to keep in touch with Pati, who had just arrived in Uruguay to work with children for three weeks, and I had to let her know that I was incommunicado. I raced over to deck #3 to borrow Ben’s phone and found him hard at work.

He had surveyed the situation and boldly, or perhaps, bulldly, decided to raise the deck in dramatic fashion. Back in my days at “The Quiet Company” we called this ‘setting a stretch goal’ and Ben delivered. By the end of the day he was halfway done.

I wondered why I had spent the day cutting brush; I should have been helping Ben. I promised to help him finish the next day.

We met early Sunday morning and I talked Ben into bringing his new Stihl 261 C-M chainsaw to the site. Thanks to the Kettle Moraine Natural History Association for purchasing this versatile tool for Ben!

We decided to harvest logs to raise the last 24′ of the deck from a huge red oak tree that had fallen across the trail, and Ben made quick work of it with his new chainsaw. Another day reveling with mother nature; we couldn’t get enough!

The deck turned out great and I was really impressed with Ben’s effort!

That was an intense, extended, weekend for Mr. Johnson!

Below is an example of the brush clearing I have been doing. Ever since DNR Trail Boss, Don Dane, said they were planning to burn The Springs in the spring of 2015, I’ve been thinking about laying more fuel down on the ground. I could be wrong, but I’m hoping that the cut buckthorn will dry out by next spring and contribute to a hotter ground fire, which in turn will scorch the cut tips of the buckthorn stems and kill them.

The same views after brush cutting.

I cut brush all day Monday and it was very relaxing.

This view is from above the Hidden Spring.

Sunset on the deck above the Indian Springs.

See you at The Springs!

KMSF — Southern Unit Wins 2014 Gold Seal Award

Posted on September 26, 2014 by paulmozina

The Kettle Moraine State Forest — Southern Unit won the 2014 Gold Seal Award for the best self-guided nature trail! There are 5 self-guided nature trails in the Southern Unit: Bald Bluff, Lone Tree Bluff, Paradise Springs, Scuppernong Springs and Stute Springs. The Friends of Wisconsin State Parks announced the contest back in August. Congratulations to all the hard working folks at the Southern Unit including: Superintendent Paul Sandgren, Assistant Superintendent Anne Korman, and especially, Don Dane — the Trail Boss!

Ben Johnson, and his wife Karen, were hard at work while Pati and I vacationed up North. They added 12 more steps to complete the erosion control on the path down to the Indian Spring from signpost #6 and they installed a very stylish bench near the Hotel Spring.

I whacked some buckthorn sprouts and seedlings with my brush cutter on Tuesday and ran into Dr. Dan Carter from the Southeastern Wisconsin Regional Planning Commission. He was documenting rare plants and waiting for the rest of his team to arrive to complete the demarcation of the wetlands for the Wisconsin DOT. I know, “Say it ain’t so Joe!”, but WisDOT is in the initial planning stage of some changes deemed necessary to make Hwy 67 safer. Please plan on attending the public meeting, which WisDOT will be scheduling for later this Fall, and help us make sure they don’t mess with The Springs.

Dan has a keen eye and he spotted the sixth known occurrence of Pipsissewa (Chimaphila Umbellata) in the area: “It is more rare in the region than any other plant I am aware of at The Springs…” (photo courtesy of Dan Carter)

I want to give a belated thank you to Scuppernong Springs Super Friend, Anne Moretti for informing me that there is a difference between Buckthorn and Chokecherry!

Last year when I was cutting in The Buckthorn Tunnel, Anne noticed that I was oblivious to the distinction and she gently pointed it out. Well, I’m a little slow when it comes to confronting my own ignor-ance and I finally “did the grammar” and now I know the difference. I’m going to let 100 Chokecherries blossom!

I had a crazy busy week and didn’t get much work done at The Springs, but Pati and I did enjoy a wonderful late afternoon at Ottawa Lake yesterday, and we caught the sunset from the Indian Campground.

Andy Buchta has started piling the buckthorn I recently cut on the east shore of Ottawa Lake. Thanks Andy!

This Tamarack was the only decent tree I found amongst the brush I cut.

The Ottawa Lake Fen State Natural Area.

Ottawa Lake seen from the fishing pier.

Sunset on the Indian Campground.

See you at The Springs!

Ben Johnson — Expanding the Green Dream

Posted on September 13, 2014 by paulmozina

It’s been almost a year since Anne Korman, Assistant Superintendent of the Kettle Moraine State Forest — Southern Unit, introduced me to Ben Johnson and his contributions at The Springs have been gaining momentum ever since. From his first, fearless, dead of Winter, forays in the Buckthorn Alley wielding a decidedly underwhelming chainsaw — to his latest step building project using recycled buckthorn logs on the sand prairie — Ben has demonstrated natural creativity and indefatigable enthusiasm. Let’s take a look at some of his recent accomplishments and find out what makes Mr. Johnson tick (his words are indented in italics below.)

Is it an obsession, a religion, a deep metaphysical connection to our primal ancestral past? I’m not quite sure why some of us have the ability to see and feel the natural world, while others have no association whatsoever to the land. That’s a pretty judgmental assumption to make, but quite simply, some people get it and others don’t. The Aboriginal People of Australia believe in “dreamtime,” a spirit world where they can transcend space and time. Maybe there are a few of us that are fortunate enough to journey into a green dream: a mindset or inquisitive state of consciousness where we can actually speak the language of ecology. And it’s absolutely a journey. Nobody just walks into the woods and is given this gift. We have to work at it, study, inspect. We must experience the rain on our faces, see the first buds open, and the last leaves fall to the ground, the progression, the phenology of the landscape.

On September 4th, Ben bugged out of work early and headed straight for the gaging station bridge to do a little stream bank remediation. The view downstream before he got started on that steamy afternoon.

And after…

Seen from the left bank.

A few years back, after investing a good many years in college, and a solid decade trying to capture an income under a fluorescent enclosed sky, I asked myself, “does any of this make me happy? Ok, then what would?” I felt there was only one route to take, and that was in a natural setting, far away from the corporate path I had chosen. It’s not quite so easy to dump ones routine and dive into a new career. I have plenty of experience in the “green industry”, but the world of commercial landscaping is a far cry from ecological stewardship. To get to where I wanted to be, I felt that education was the key component. So I again enrolled in the university. I chose to pursue an MA in Environmental Studies at the University of Illinois at Springfield.

One of the first things Ben noticed when he began volunteering at The Springs, a fact I lamented as well, was that there were no benches anywhere along the trail to rest one’s weary bones. We talked about it many times and I know the satisfaction Ben must have felt when he finally got a chance to do something about it. On Saturday, September 6th, he did some erosion control at the edge of the stone wall at the Scuppernong Spring and installed one of his custom benches using red oak pedestals foraged from a pile up the trail where the source tree had fallen across the path.

On Sunday I joined Ben and we picked out 4 more pedestals, loaded our wheel barrows with two more benches, and headed for the Indian Spring.

The bench design couldn’t be simpler and they are surprisingly stable when screwed into thick oak stumps.

The views from the bench, looking right and left, of the some of the springs that comprise the Indian Springs.

You get a great view of the prairie to the west as well.

There is no such thing as a free lunch, so on top of the scholastic pursuit, I began volunteering at the Wildlife in Need Center as an animal rehabilitation technician and this soon evolved into showcasing wildlife at educational events. The next step, and it felt like the natural one to take, was to find a habitat or ecosystem to immerse myself in, and take the time to learn the land. The Southern Kettle Moraine DNR volunteer coordinator pointed me towards Paul Mozina and the Scuppernong Springs Nature Trail. I wouldn’t say that I found a blank slate to work, it was more like a Jackson Pollack painted over the top of a Thomas Cole.

We took the other bench up to the sand prairie and, amazingly, Ben picked one of my favorite spots, from which you get a classic view of the Scuppernong River winding westward, to plant the bench.

The view from the bench.

These conveniently located resting places cost almost nothing to build, and only a few minutes to install, yet they had gone wanting for years.

In due time, I came to understand that the work at the Springs was the practice of restoration ecology, be it in the river, the sand prairie, or knee deep in the snow removing buckthorn. Vegetation is a monster to ID, learn, and control in itself, but I felt the fauna of the area deserved attention as well. I used the skills gained through osmosis as the son of a carpenter (thanks Dad) to build fifty nesting boxes for various woodland and prairie species. I would like to think that the overall avian population at the property increased as a result of this project. That’s the restoration, let’s bring back what’s native to the Springs.

The morning passed quickly and in the afternoon I headed over to the buckthorn alley to cut the buckthorn resprouts and seedlings that flourished there with my brush cutter. Ben had other plans. There are two trails that descend from the sand prairie down to the Indian Springs and they converge along the edge of the outflow stream forming a little loop trail. Both trails are pure sand and suffering from erosion, so Ben decided to build some stairs.

Ben plans to finish the steps on this path and then tackle the more deeply eroded trail that leads directly down to the Indian Spring.

Johnson, another carpenter’s son, loves to work with his hands on wood. We saw some of his handiwork resurrecting the deck near the Scuppernong Spring. Thursday after work, he stopped out with his friend and coworker, Glen Rhinesmith, and replaced the missing toe boards on the boardwalk leading to the Emerald Spring.

While Ben worked, I got to show Glen around The Springs and I learned way more from him than he did from me. Glen has a great eye, two in fact, and deep, deep knowledge about plants, fish, birds and the natural world, not to mention photography and ham radios. I hope to post some of his pictures of The Springs here soon. Here are just a few of the interesting things he pointed out to me.

Blue Milk Mushrooms.

Indian Pipe.

Evening Primrose, which Glen explained attracts moths and smells like lemon!

Ben and Glen.

Though I thought the day would never come, I have reached the final course in the Master’s degree program at UIS, the capstone internship. With the help of Anne Korman, Assistant Superintendent of the KMSF – Southern Unit, I secured my graduate internship with the WDNR at the Springs. We have outlined projects and areas of need on the property. First priority is invasive vegetation, followed by trail improvements and accessibility. The fisheries team has also given me the opportunity to learn about stream restoration. It’s an honor to have such a beautiful classroom in which to work. This is the place where I enter the green dreamworld. I carry on a conversation with the land. It’s a very Leopoldian concept. Restoration ecology is an ethical practice, deciding what is right for the landscape.

Thanks Ben! It’s a pleasure to work with you.

I got a few licks in myself this past week cutting buckthorn resprouts and seedlings along the trail from the parking lot on Hwy ZZ all the way to the end of the Buckthorn Alley.

The spotted knapweed flower weevils we released in early August appear to be doing well and I have spotted them munching seedheads on the south end of the prairie and in the huge patch of knapweed to the east of the Indian Spring spur trail. I am leaving these remaining mature knapweed plants for the weevils despite the fact that they are loaded with seeds. There are lots of first year plants that do not have flowers, and that are far from where I released the root weevils (they migrate less than 100 yards a year), that I may dig out yet this season.

I love the view from the Scuppernong Spring as the late afternoon sunlight illuminates the valley.

Sunset out on the marl pit canal looking East towards the sand prairie.

Looking south…

… then north

Last Monday evening at the marl pit bridge.

Sunset on the south end of the sand prairie.

See you at The Springs!

p.s. I’m taking a week off to relax with Pati at a cabin up north on Lake Owen.

Sticking To My Weeding

Posted on August 11, 2014 by paulmozina

It’s mid-summer at the Scuppernong Springs Nature Trail and I’m sticking to my weeding.

The challenge of being an activist, and what caused me to take a break from that line of work and seek refuge at The Springs, lies in the fact that people make it their business not to know things, that would cause them to understand things, that would conflict with their strongly held beliefs. Before I get to my weeding, let me give you one quick example: people don’t want to know how the Twin Towers were constructed and what the laws of gravity dictate.

To do so would cause them to understand that, the only way the towers could destruct at the rate they did — free-fall acceleration — would be for something to remove the resistance of the steel frame structures.

Hmmmm… what could have done that? Who could have done it? I don’t recall NIST mentioning anything about this in their report. Come to think of it, neither did the 9/11 Commission. Never mind, I’m going to stick to my weeding…

One weed success story at The Springs is that we have kept burnweed from spreading. I spotted this aggressive invader last year and pulled all that I could find before it went to seed. The only place I’m seeing it this year is right off the trailhead in an area where we cleared buckthorn last winter.

I’ll get these pulled in the next few days.

We made significant impacts on: sow thistle, garlic mustard, Canadian fleabane, nodding thistle, bouncing bet, white campion, ragweed and others, with spotted knapweed being our biggest challenge. This past Thursday and Saturday afternoons I pulled spotted knapweed on the sand prairie. I’m not taking the time to dig the roots out now. If the stems break off while I pull them, that’s ok, at least the flowers won’t go to seed.

Before…

… and after.

I’ll probably resort to mowing the remaining knapweed flowers soon: except for the area on the south end of the prairie where I released the flower weevils (root weevils should be arriving any day now.)

I replaced or repaired a few boardwalk planks near the hotel spring bridge where forked aster are blooming…

… and over by the the no-name spring.

I’ve been seeing a great blue heron hunting in the river lately.

Thursday night was a bit sticky, and very buggy, so I sought out the wide open and relatively bug free shores of Ottawa Lake to watch the sunset.

Saturday morning I patrolled the banks of the Scuppernong River between the Scuppernong Spring and the Hotel Spring pulling sow thistle. Then I mowed the DNR 2-track access road on the south end of the property and cut pokeweed and fleabane that I missed last time.

These yellow composites on the cut-off trail are 12-15′ tall.

It was a pretty busy day at The Springs and I got a chance to play host and talk to a lot of people.

There is a lot of repetition in the scenes I shoot but I’m just trying to capture the changing seasons.

Another marl pit bridge sunset.

The perigee moon.

I went over to the boat launch on Ottawa Lake to get a better look at that moon.

Wish I’d been here as the sunset!

See you at The Springs!

Simplifying Life at The Springs

Posted on August 6, 2014 by paulmozina

Thank you, dear reader, for following my exploits here at The Springs. Long-time readers know that I’m an activist at heart; frustrated in my attempts to change the world. Why is that? I’ll let the over-quoted icons, George Orwell and Winston Churchill, explain:

“He who controls the past controls the future. He who controls the present controls the past.”

“History is written by the victors.”

“The great game” is being played constantly by the titans of finance and their minions in government. It’s one thing to become conscious of it and quite another to do something about it. I know, I’ve tried. And now, I’m taking refuge at The Springs. I’ll give it 7 years; I started in May, 2011. Yup, then I’m going to move on and change the world, but for now, I’m living the simple life at The Springs.

Indeed, things have gotten much simpler at The Springs: I don’t fret about the possible side effects to me and the environment from foliar spraying toxic poisons anymore, I gave up on the phragmites and narrow-leaved cattails that dominate the river valley (last year, I cut the tops off with a hedge cutter, which was a waste of time), and I let the life cycles of the many invasive plants dictate what I work on e.g., my highest priority now is pulling spotted knapweed before it goes to seed.

Last weekend I continued to clean up the area just downstream from the Scuppernong Spring, where we pulled up the flumes and support beams, and Ben Johnson and I kept it really simple pulling spotted knapweed on the sand prairie.

On Sunday, I got out the brush cutter and whacked many huge American Pokeweed plants that were flourishing on the south end of the trail. Although they are native, DNR trail boss, Don Dane, advised me to keep them out of The Springs. I cut a lot of Canadian Fleabane and tidied up the trail a bit on the south end. I pulled knapweed in the afternoon, which, I think, along with the frequent rains and the hand of the creator of course, is helping the sand prairie burst with blooms.

Yesterday, I called out the big guns i.e. the mighty arms of Rich Csavoy, to help me rebuild the sloping deck at the Indian Springs.

Rich picked the northwest corner of the deck to anchor and level the new foundation.

He moved like a cat.

We soon had a new foundation, set on pillars buried in the front and 6″x6″, 4′ beams recovered from the river, nestled in the hillside. Then we relaid the deck on top and replaced a few missing deck boards.

It makes a really nice place to sit and enjoy the Indian Springs. I wasn’t through with Rich yet, and I asked him to take a look at the cantilevers in the deck pedestals we recently build; there were some gaps between the supports and their loads.

After a few minutes of study, Rich selected a few choice shims from the nearby pile of flume scraps, and neatly toenailed the beams together. Thanks Rich, you taught me a lot! And, before I forget, thanks again to Big Jim Davee for kick-starting our boardwalk and deck rebuilding efforts.

We had a 4′ section of boardwalk left over from the deck rebuilding effort at the Scuppernong Spring and Ben suggested we place it on the riverbank near the decks we recently moved to the place I call, for now, the no-name springs.

It’s a nice pedestal for river viewing.

Celebrations are in order! After two failed seasons in a row, our resident Sandhill Cranes have successfully raised 2 chicks to robust young adults.

Ahhh, the simple life.

See you at The Springs!

Friendberry Jam

Posted on August 1, 2014 by paulmozina

I don’t remember the words, but I’ll never forget the way I felt when Todd sang his song “Friendberry Jam” to me. Just imagine how sweet and delicious it was. We’ve been friends — going on 35 years — since we roomed together in that basement closet on Humboldt Avenue, just a bit north of Brady Street, in Milwaukee’s hip “East Side”.

We lived for music, and it seemed so simple and obvious at the time that, if you did what you loved, you would be forever satisfied. It’s true. I know it, and feel it every time I come to The Springs.

My old friend Todd Nelson, who works as a finish carpenter in San Francisco, was passing through town and I jumped at the chance to enlist him to help me rebuild a deck near the Scuppernong Spring. He was willing and able and, after I picked him up from the airport and he got settled at our place, we headed out to The Springs. Ben Johnson promised to join us after work and I was feeling pretty confident that we could get the job done.

Over the years the end of this deck has slouched into the springs and it’s pretty slippery when wet.

I was an eager apprentice as Todd taught me the tricks of the trade and how to think about solutions to problems like this. After an hour of musing and discussing, we agreed on the plan and, while I cut the 18′ oak beams we recently harvested from the river into quarters, Todd performed the deconstruction.

Ben arrived as Todd made the finishing touches refitting the top section of the boardwalk, and he sparked us into high gear. A coworker just gave Ben a laser level, but watching him excavate and build the support platforms was enough to convince me that he can do pretty well without one. I was amazed that none of the 4 platforms he constructed needed any tweaking after it was laid.

We may have to put some railings on this deck!

Thanks Todd and Ben for your extraordinary efforts and thanks especially to Todd, for spreading us with Friendberry Jam.

We relocated our vehicles at the main parking lot on Hwy ZZ, preparatory to bathing at the marl pit bridge, and I saw our good friend, Andy Buchta, piling the last of the buckthorn I recently cut.

Thanks Andy!

We had a refreshing, and relatively bug-free, time watching the sun go down.

I’ve been busy this past week, and on Monday I spent the morning cleaning up the debris from our recent excavation of the oak beams from the riverbed. Below you can make out the edge of the one beam we left in the river, creating a nice bend where the dead straight flume had run.

The edge of the flume was built over a substantial stone base and I dug out an opening to allow the water to carve its thalweg around the bend.

I pulled spotted knapweed all afternoon and that darn stuff is causing me to break out in nasty red blotches or bumps that make me scratch like a hound dog. The bugs were driving me crazy as well, so I escaped to the shores of Ottawa Lake to watch the sun go down.

On Wednesday my spotted knapweed weevils arrived! Because of the super fast response I got from the DNR, my permit was ready in time for Kandace, at Weedbusters, to send me the flower weevils (the root weevils will be available in a few weeks). Look at those hungry critters!

Dinner is served!

Yes, yes, be fruitful and multiply!

Long-time followers of this blog know that I’m a big fan of audiobooks and I can’t recommend this superbly rendered version of Uncle Tom’s Cabin highly enough. Here, take a listen as George and Eliza contemplate the meaning of freedom and liberty as the Canadian shore looms ahead.

Peace.

See you at The Springs!

Spring Meditations

Posted on September 4, 2013 by paulmozina

I spent another blissful day at The Springs yesterday contemplating the age old question: “Why am I here?” It’s the labor of love, and I know who to thank. Imitating Marcus Aurelius’ Meditations:

From my grandfather Verus I learned good morals and the government of my temper.
From the reputation and remembrance of my father, modesty and a manly character.
From my mother, piety and beneficence, and abstinence, not only from evil deeds, but even from evil thoughts; and further, simplicity in my way of living, far removed from the habits of the rich.
From my great-grandfather, not to have frequented public schools, and to have had good teachers at home, and to know that on such things a man should spend liberally.

From Mike and Yvonne Fort (Friends of Lapham Peak), I learned what a labor of love is, and that has made all the difference.

I’ll never forget the time, almost 20 years ago, I was wandering the trails behind the Ice Age Trail Alliance storage barn at Lapham Peak, modestly intoxicated, playing The Battle of Evermore on Pati’s mandolin, when I saw Mike and Yvonne pulling sweet clover from a prairie they were restoring. As Lau Tzu said, “The longest journey begins with a single step”, and their vision, manifest in the prairies and oak woodlands of Lapham Peak State Park, inspired me to take the first step in discovering my own labor of love.

One last thought from Marcus Aurelius — who was probably one of the most powerful men to have ever walked the face of the earth — I heard from John Taylor Gatto in The Ultimate History Lesson: “Nothing you can buy with your money is worth having, and no one you can boss around with your power is worth associating with.”

It was a misty morning and I lingered at the Hotel Spring before heading up the trail, past the old barn site, to meet a fallen red oak or two. Keeping a trail clear can be challenging and is always gratifying.

This one wasn’t blocking the trail yet, and, since I was all geared up for it, I took it out too.

On my way back to the truck I passed by the bend in the river across from the old barn site and decided to cut the cattails in this area too, given the excellent results we see in the “upper meadows“.

Before and after video perspectives below.

Then I headed over to the Indian Springs to tangle with Japanese Knotweed, which, per Don Dane, is growing like crazy all over the Kettle Moraine State Forest Southern Unit.

I see the wisdom in Jason Dare‘s advice to focus on herbaceous weeds for as long in the growing season as makes sense. I’ll be pulling Japanese Knotweed for another week at least and this is one that I definitely need to learn how to identify in the early spring when it first appears.

It was a cool evening and I was glad to leave the bug net in my pocket.

Sand Prairie Sunset