Potawatomi Campground | Scuppernong Springs Nature Trail

The valley along the Scuppernong River headwaters is starting to look more like a meadow and less like a marsh since we began working there in May, 2011. The marsh was screened by a curtain of buckthorn, willow, dogwood and black cherry, and dominated by cattails and phragmities in its interior. Thickly overgrown watercress damned the river causing it to overflow and saturate the valley. Aspen clones established themselves over the old hotel site and all the way up both sides of the river. Left unattended, this is what had evolved “naturally” since the hotel burned down in 1972 and the ponds were drained in 1992; a far cry from the state in which the Sauk, Ho Chunk and Potawatomi peoples maintained it, I’m sure.

Consider the mix of random and deterministic effects at play; the acts of man and the laws of nature. We homo sapiens (wise man) are in charge, capable of altering the course of nature, but deferring to nature’s laws for the outcome manifest. I’ve chosen, with a little help from my friends, to intervene in the course that nature had been set on by the random acts of man. We cut the brush around the perimeter, unplugged the river, cut the cattail and phragmites, girdled the aspen and burned the place.

Yesterday I finished cutting the cattail and phragmites seed heads in the river valley south of the old hotel site and the fruits of our labors can be seen in the Scuppernong Springs Meadows. I got a chance to literally walk across every square foot of the valley and see the amazing diversity of plants that have emerged and note the many, many small, unnamed springs and seeps that will keep this meadow on the wet side. I hope you get a chance to visit The Springs soon and see the wonderful displays of color in the wet meadow and sand prairie.

Here is the view of the last patch of phragmites.

And after I cut it (watch full screen if you want to see the butterflies).

Then I got after the cattail jungle north of the footbridge in the former lower pond.

After.

Marlin Johnson, retired UW Waukesha biology teacher and currently resident manager at the UW Waukesha Field Station, warned that the cut ends of the cattail and phragmites can take root. I’ll be monitoring the results to verify.

Then I went to the sand prairie to continue pulling weeds, mostly spotted knapweed, this time armed with a little garden shovel to get the roots out. It’s going to take years to get rid of the weeds, but it’s starting to look pretty good.

I mentioned last time that I had named the Hatching House Springs, per their physical location which corresponded to #9 in the trail brochure map, and that I now know where the Old Hatching House actually was and the correct location of the Hatching House Springs. This video will help you place it.

I took a dip at the Marl pit bridge and practiced a bit of yoga and deep, conscious breathing, while enjoying the views.

Summer sunset at Ottawa Lake.

See you at The Springs!

“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