Prairie Works, Inc.

For the past year Platteville, WI photographer Mark Hirsch has been working on a very engaging project. His That Tree project has been successful enough to be covered by media outlets nation wide. It has been a multi-faceted success blending photography, nature and technology so well, it has gathered the attention of purists from all three fields.

That Tree - Day 75

Starting on March 24th, 2012 Mark has photographed a seemingly humble Oak tree everyday using an iPhone. Through the use of social media his project began to attract a loyal following and over the course of a year many have become reliant on his daily photo offering. Never identical, the year long photo journal shows pictures from many different perspectives and is a true testament to the photographers creativity.

That Tree, which stands alone in the middle of a corn field south of Platteville Wisconsin, is a 163 year old Bur Oak (Quercus macrocarpa) that is representative of the growth form of most classic Bur Oaks, wide and sprawling. Due to the density and weight of Oak wood, branches hang so low they hit the ground without any obstructions. This way the Bur Oak can stretch out and behave as it prefers. That Tree almost met its death in 1990 but was sparred and has continued to provide insects for birds, acorns for turkeys, a perch for eagles, shade for mammals and now inspiration for man.

The daily pursuits to catch the perfect picture has found the photographer battling some tough obstacles. Waking up early, running over to take advantage of odd cloud formations, ice storms, wind have all been part of the daily rigor. The cell phone he uses is an iPhone 4S which sports just 8 mega pixels through an iPro lens. Not utilizing filters, Mark has added the Camera X app to add to the aperture and shutter speed limits. He used an app called SlowShutter to capture streaking lightning bugs in contrast to the dark shadow of the tree behind them during a particular June photo. The limitations of using a phone camera has taught Mark to not rely on equipment to do the job. It is a representation of present day technology and what could be the future of photography.

Mark has found himself struggling for hours for the right shot. Trying different angles, climbing the tree, using umbrellas to block in-climate weather, contemplating and adding fun holiday themes to his daily task has all been standard. Impressing even the usually critical photography world, Mark has re-ignited the passion that decided his career path long ago. “The hammer doesn’t build the house” he says. Knowing that not just anyone can embark on a similar project.

That Tree - Day 365

I was fortunate enough to have been a part of the projects final shot on day 365. You can see me and my family front and center of the group photo. The future of That Tree is flexible at this point according to Mark. Rather, than a book to be released in August he is unsure how it will continue. With so many people fans of the project he will not completely abandon it.

That Tree Collage

Although the widespread appeal of this project is positive. My hope is that it can accomplish a greater respect and knowledge of the importance of the Oak tree genus. Trees of the Quercus family, and Quercus macrocarpa specifically, have been under intense pressure here in the Midwest. Mesophication, lack of fire in our woodlands, changing agricultural practices and an overall lack of appreciation is slowly tipping Oak trees towards extinction. The classic shape of That Tree has been standard for hundreds of years but is becoming increasingly hard to find Bur Oaks with that stoic stance today.

Like the future of That Tree, the project, so is the future of the family that it belongs to.

That Trees’ Website – Book ordering information

That Tree on Facebook

Article from the Chicago Tribune

The words “winter” and “fish” are not used synonymously often. However, winter is a great time of year to help our fish populations. For the third consecutive winter Prairie Works has utilized the ice to create fish habitat on Lake Galena.

Traditionally, former Christmas trees have been used. Coniferous trees such as pines and cedars are suitable for creating areas of refuge for smaller fish species to in order to keep away from the larger predator fish. The closely spaced branches and spiny textures help keep pan fish and juveniles from being just another meal for a bigger fish. These fish can then grow large themselves. Red Cedar trees are frequently removed from sites undergoing ecological restoration as it is considered an invasive species in Oak Woodland and Savanna situations. When these projects are within close proximity to a body of water we can take advantage of the situation by placing these trees on the water instead of a more labor intensive options such as creating brush piles, firewood or burning them. Often times we have too much byproduct to create habitat piles for our liking. Fish habitat is a fantastic alternative that results in saving time with the added benefit of creating habitat of the aquatic variety as well as the terrestrial types.

Fish “structure” is easily created by moving the cedars onto the ice by means of dragging or winching. We then utilize lake depth maps to determine the best location and the trees are placed in those spots. Ideally, spots that are fairly deep but not in a current are best. Then cinder blocks are lashed to the trees via steel wire. The tree then sits and waits for warmer temperatures to arrive and falls to the bottom of the lake once the ice disappears.

One very time consuming step when performing woody invasive brush removal is the application of herbicide to the cut stump. It is absolutely neccesary to apply herbicide to the cut stumps of trees and brush, otherwise the plant will resprout. Traditionally, hand held or backpack sprayers have been used to carry out this task. This leads to a lot of bending over, over application, drift to non target plants and an overall lack of effeciency. This year Prairie Works Stewardship Foreman, Jake Moore, developed a tool to ease the difficulties. We have found that utilizing the new applicator tool can cut one acre of stump applying time by one-half while also reducing the amount of herbicide used by 75%.

Several clients have asked to purchase these applicators in which we obliged. We have sold 21 units so far.  Now, we would to expand the offering and allow these to be sold to everyone. The cost for this tool is $60.00.

If this tool interests you please contact us at: info@prairieworksinc.com

Cory Ritterbusch and Chris Kirkpatrick

Prairie Works is proud to announce that Chris Kirkpatrick has been named the executive director of The Prairie Enthusiasts. For the past five years Chris has worked reliably for Prairie Works on a part time basis. Aside from his position at the Jo Daviess Conservation Foundation he has been doing prairie stewardship and timber stand improvements projects for Prairie Works, and was the face behind Forest Works. Chris has proven to be a valuable force to the restoration of natural areas in Northwest Illinois for the past ten years. Chris was named the executive director of The Prairie Enthusiasts in May.

Chris will be available on a part time basis until the end of the calendar year here at Prairie Works. Thanks for all of your hard work Chris and best of luck in Madison.

After experiencing the warmest March on record in the area we had many handicaps to deal with this past burn season. Left in the heats’ wake was the inability to do many woodland burns and small windows of opportunity for prairies, especially those in the early restoration phases.  Overall, burns were less intense and more smokey than usual. However, it was a great year if your plans were to stress cool season grasses such as Brome. Above is a picture from our burn on March 29th as published in the Freeport Journal-Standard.

The famous Bird’s Eye Primrose (Primula mistassinica) plant at Apple River Canyon State Park perhaps blooming at it’s earliest date ever on March 27th 2012.

Prairie Works owner, Cory Ritterbusch, has published a new book:  H.S. Pepoon: Pioneer Conservationist of Northwest Illinois, is now available at many retail outlets in the Tri-State area and can be ordered here. Fans of Prairie Works should find this book very interesting. Below is it’s first review.

H.S. Pepoon: Prophet and Polymath

“To a Friend Whose Work Has Come to Nothing” – William Butler Yeats

Yeats could not have had Herman Silas Pepoon (1860-1941) in mind when he wrote his famous poem, but he may as well have. Pepoon, arguably one of the most gifted botanists of his era, has been all but ignored by historians and scientists alike. A prophet without an audience, he remained in isolation, a curio piece of Midwestern gentility.

But Pepoon’s luck is about to change and his work to be acknowledged. Cory Ritterbusch, of Shullsburg, Wisconsin, has rescued Pepoon from anonymity in his new book H.S. Pepoon: Pioneer Conservationist of Northwest Illinois. In doing so he establishes Pepoon as a touchstone of the natural history of Illinois and iconic of the Driftless Area.

Born in Jo Daviess County, Illinois in 1860, Pepoon set out as early as the mid 1870’s to record and document the cornucopia of Illinois plants, prairies and forests in Jo Daviess County. His works anticipate and make way for the likes of Aldo Leopold, Rachel Carson, Wendell Berry and others. His prose is richly evocative of the beauty he captures, a beauty he warns is endangered by the militant indifference of the putative stewards of the land. (See Destruction of a Farm Flora 1904 and Ecological Survey of the Driftless Area 1906)

In these early essays Pepoon limns the passion and conviction of Ralph Waldo Emerson in conveying the sense of mourning at the passing of the Illinois prairie, a victim of “soulless corporations,” of industry, of aggressive agriculture and public apathy. He writes of the prairie in elegy and in a way that is unimprovable by anybody’s art:

“The days are gone, the men are largely passed on, the flowers have disappeared, and into our hearts a feeling of sadness comes to realize that never again can these things be.”

The loss is all the greater because of the iconic status the Driftless Area would take on as a near geological singularity in North America. For Pepoon there was a clear message here, a counterpoint to a ceaseless and slave-like dependence on the utilitarian and quotidian. According to Pepoon, the “man who drinks in the hand of nature is not a wrecker of the commonwealth or a despoiler of his best interests.” He cares rather about the “higher qualities of the mind and soul,” and understands that the leisure induced by nature is the source of all civilization. In this regard Pepoon prepares a message that the twentieth century German philosopher, Josef Pieper will fully develop.

In his most fecund period, 1895-1935, Pepoon devotes a great deal of time to the study of the Birds Eye Primrose plant along the bluffs of the Apple River in Jo Daviess County. He provoked a minor controversy among botanists at the time who were unwilling to accept that the Primrose flourished in Jo Daviess County. Pepoon carried the argument in showing that the Primrose survived and thrived in northern Illinois latitudes precisely because the area had been spared by the glaciers millennia ago.

It was to the Apple River Canyon that Pepoon turned to argue the cause for the establishment there of a state park. He referenced the imposing, Primrose-laden bluffs reaching nearly one hundred feet and the many peculiarities and features of the Apple River environs typical of the Driftless Area. A park would serve as nature’s refuge and offer the working man and woman a release from the press and sometime banality of every day life. He was persuasive before the Illinois Academy of Sciences and ultimately before the court of public opinion, with the result that the state of Illinois set aside three hundred acres surrounding the Apple River. Today’s park bears no evidence whatsoever of Pepoon’s role in its creation.

Pepoon was an eccentric, an Emersonian, and possessed an intellect that matched his passion for nature and love of his fellow man.  To his calling as botanist he soon added that of a physician and teacher. For thirty-eight years he combined teaching at Chicago’s Lake View High School with a practice of medicine and his writing on Midwest botany. He was both pioneer and polymath and one whose kind we are not likely to encounter again soon. Perhaps the publication of this book by Ritterbusch will stir some to see Pepoon gets his due, if perhaps by the placing of a plaque in his honor at the Apple River Canyon State Park. History and justice would be well served by the gesture.

H.S. Pepoon: Pioneer Conservationist of Northwest Illinois, designed and published as a period piece, is remarkable in its own right as a special publication that reflects and comprehends the substance of the writings of Pepoon. There is an informative, luminous Foreword by William Handel of the Illinois Natural History Survey that presents Pepoon in full character and joie de vivre, to which publisher Ritterbusch lends his own music to the dance.

Robert J. Klaus

- Robert Klaus is past President of the Illinois State Historical Society and the Illinois Humanities Council.

More info here: www.prairieworksinc.com/pepoon-book/

To have your book mailed to you, email Cory and request your copy:  info@prairieworksinc.com or it’s available on Amazon.

Prairie Works is excited to announce that two new services will be added to an already diverse service list. In response to recent trends we will now be offering forest management plans and professional bird surveys.

Forest Management Plans

Prairie Works will provide forest management plans under a new division called Forest Works. All management plans will be handled by a dedicated plan writer experienced in the woodlands of Northwest Illinois.

We started Forest Works because we saw a need for a holistic perspective in the traditional practices of forestry industry. Forest Works seeks to meet the needs of our forested areas and help guide landowners through economic decisions that affect the health of their forests. Forest ecology is a very important part of landscape in the upper Midwest, and like many habitats, our forests have been through great change over the past century. As we change these forests, we bring upon ourselves great responsibilities of stewardship.

There are many consulting foresters who do excellent work to ensure timbers are managed and harvested sustainably. There are also many ecological restoration companies that eradicate invasive species and restore oak savannas and remnant prairies. But no one is combining training from both schools. This approach is the Forest Works difference. We seek to sustainably manage forests for ecological health, diversity and economic interests.

In Illinois, the Forestry Development Act program does not require a sampling of trees less than two inches in diameter. It is like the program assumes trees naturally spring forth from the ground large enough to manage. Our timber management plans sample all woody vegetation less than two inches in diameter to get a true perspective on what is replacing the existing timber stand and recommend what should be done to sustain the long-run health and diversity of the forest.

We see the entire forest’s biodiversity, looking beyond just the health and diversity of the timber. We see all the plants growing in a forest, from the first spring wildflowers to the fall woodland goldenrods. Not all foresters recognize what they are seeing under their feet, but we think these species are important indicators of forest health and diversity.

With a background in ecology as well as forestry, we see not only the good but also the bad. Invasive and non-native plants can threaten a forest’s diversity, and we know what can be done to increase that diversity. From garlic mustard and multiflora rose to autumn olive, Japanese barberry, buckthorn and honeysuckle, we see it and know what needs to be done to eradicate it.

Forest Works can handle all your stewardship issues. Beyond writing your management plan, we can also work with you to implement your plan. Whether providing the advice to carry out a management plan or conducting the work for you, Forest Works will be your stewardship partner. With Prairie Works, we can also help steward oak savanna, remnant prairie or native landscaping. By partnering together, we can offer a holistic approach to all your stewardship endeavors.

Bird Surveys

Prairie Works has teamed up with Dan Wenny, former ornithologist with the Illinois Natural History Survey, to provide birding services. Dan offers a wealth of birding knowledge and experience with professional surveys and education. Dan’s expertise is now available to the public in the form of bird inventories, habitat studies, outreach and education for the private landowner.

A Prairie Works bird inventory can offer valuable information about your land and can assist in deciding what management activities are neccesary for greater bird diversity.

A bird survey can be customized to suit any needs. Typically, a comprehensive list is provided of all breeding bird species that occur on your land stemming from three separate visits. Typically, these visits occur in May, June, and July. More detailed studies are also possible.

Dan Wenny’s Experience

Dan Wenny, an ornithologist, previously worked for ten years with the Illinois Natural History Survey, based at the former Savanna Army Depot. During that time he developed research projects and biological monitoring programs involving birds and their habitats.

Ph.D. in Zoology from University of Florida
M.A. in Biology from University of Missouri-Columbia
B.A. in Biology from Earlham College, Richmond, Indiana.

15 years of experience with bird surveys, ecological research, and outreach

Federal bird-banding Master permit with extensive experience capturing, measuring, and marking birds for research projects.

Over 20 scientific articles plus numerous technical reports and popular articles.

Contact Prairie Works for more information about these and all of our services: info@prairieworksinc.com

The Galena Territory has been honored by the National Wildlife Federation as a certified Community Wildlife Habitat. The Territory becomes the 46th designated community in the country and the first in Iowa, Wisconsin and Illinois.

National Wildlife Federation Homeowner Sign

The Territory earned this certification through the help of over 100 property owners who certified their personal property as habitat areas, as well as their efforts to enhance several tracts of commonly owned ‘Greenspace’ areas. The Greenspace Committee worked for a year and a half to make this goal a reality. Roxanne Paul from the National Wildlife Federation said, ” The National Wildlife Federation commends the dedicated residents of The Galena Territory and Community Wildlife Habitat Team for their wildlife conservation efforts and for coming together for a common purpose – to create a community where people and wildlife can flourish.”

To celebrate this designation the Greenspace Committee is hosting a reception on Feburary 25th at 7:00 at The Galena Territory Owners’ Club. The speaker will be Roxanne Paul from the National Wildlife Federation.

Thank you to Emily Lubcke, Dick Peterson and the Greenspace Committee for your hard work.

-

About the NWF certified habitat program: http://www.nwf.org/gardenforwildlife/certify.cfm

For information about certifying your Territory property contact Emily Lubcke, Greenspace Coordinator, 815-777-2000.

The following article was recently published in the Freeport Journal Standard.

By Cory Ritterbusch – Today, it seems that each decision that you face as a consumer is met with an option to be “green” or even greener. From our cars to our laundry detergent, no product is without providing levels towards decreasing our carbon footprint. Some choose to ignore these options, some choose one and some go all out. This time of year a common debate, mostly for seasonal fun, is to determine what the “greenest” Christmas tree is. Traditionally this has been straightforward; Real trees versus artificial trees. This challenge always ends with a lopsided victory by the real tree. However, as we look at ‘real’ Christmas trees it’s easy to see many handicaps revolving the industry’s consumptive process. Regular inputs include herbicides, fuel, dyes and even plastic packaging. Several years ago I challenged the notion of buying a manicured, sometimes dyed green, non-native tree species, sometimes genetically modified that are trucked in from hundreds of miles away. My concern was due to an historical look at our area’s residents on a radio program.

A few years ago I was listening to Gordie Kilgore’s popular series From the Riverbank broadcasted on KDTH out of Dubuque, IA. In this particular segment Gordie described Christmas as it was at the turn of the last century. He mentioned the residents of the Tri-States used the Red Cedar tree as decorated Christmas trees. This interested me and it necessitated more research. I found that The National Christmas Tree Association, to my surprise, lists Red Cedar as the 6th most popular Christmas tree used in America. However, they are not used in homes here in the Midwest. The tradition continues today in the South but other varieties of trees started being favored here in the Upper Midwest two generations ago. This is unfortunate.

Red Cedars along the road side

The Eastern Red Cedar (Juniperus virginiana) is one of the most widespread trees in North America. It is found in every single state east of the Rockies. Being the only common native “pine” tree, Red Cedars were decorated for Christmas in area homes beginning with pioneer settlers and continuing well into the 1900s. It made a nice Christmas tree but went out of style probably due to new styles being introduced.

The Red Cedar is an invasive plant in many situations here in the Upper Midwest, invading fields, pastures, rocky slopes, fence lines and road sides. Considered by farmers as nuisance trees and by ecologists, such as myself, an invasive weed that can overtake a natural area.. With such a locally plentiful supply and the need to remove Cedars from natural areas, it sounds like a win-win situation to me. Here we have an opportunity to create a demand for unwanted trees. Utilizing invasive plants in this manner is a great way to achieve widespread sustainability. Today, 21 million Christmas trees are sold each year and are trucked into sales lots from far away.

Our Future Christmas Tree

Dragging the Cedar to the Road

Since I made the realization that the Red Cedar can be a suitable Christmas tree, my family has invited the Red Cedar into our home each year to spend the holidays with us. A little scraggly? Sure. But with a little trimming it can be turned into an attractive tree. After the lights and ornaments are on and the tree is fully decorated, the Red Cedar looks like a regular tree, smells like a regular tree and can stand amongst the family’s gifts, just like the Blue Spruces and Douglas Firs. The cost to us is the cost of fuel to get it, which is always low since the tree is so widespread. Usually, this comes with a thank you from the landowner who was happy to see it go.

Our Cedar Tree at Home

In fact it is rather fun to go out and hunt for the suitable tree like our great grandparents would have 100 years ago. There are no shopping lanes full of identical trees with this approach. Each cedar tree you see is unique and finding the right one remains as a source of pride for the rest of the holiday season, after you drag it back to the road. Next year a bird will drop a berry to seed a new one and start the process over again, not a tractor. It is also fun to keep your eyes open over the course of the year for the winner that will end up in your house.

So, if you are going to be green by choosing a tree, make it a real one. If you are going to be really green, make it a Red Cedar.  As far as Christmas trees go, Red is the greenest of them all.

Merry Christmas Everyone!

http://www.christmastree.org/trees/ered_cdr.cfm National Christmas Tree Association description of Red Cedar

http://dnr.wi.gov/invasives/fact/redcedar.htm Wisconsin DNR Invasive Plant Listing

This is the third in a series of blog posts called “What’s in a Name,” by my colleague Richard Pearce. After thorough research, he explains to us how plants received their common and latin names.

Botanical lore and nomenclature have always been replete with inexactitudes (see for example Monkey Flower and Gooseberry in this series). But these days conjecture can be propagated instantly across the internet, taking up more or less permanent residence as “fact” in the digital cloud.

To a large extent this is what has happened with the legend of Joe Pye. Visit almost any botanical web site and you will learn that “Joe Pye,” a colloquial name for the indigenous Eutrochium purpureum came from a native American medicine man from Salem, Massachusetts who earned fame and fortune curing colonial settlers of typhus with his eponymous herb.

Other sources may add that the name Joe Pye is a phonetic translation of jopi or jopai, supposedly an early native American word for typhus.  Still others assert that Joe Pye was a 19th century Caucasian “Indian theme promoter” (these words always appearing in quotes).

Amazingly, printed books on native North American flora—even credible ones—tend to repeat one or the other versions of this story, seldom bothering to provide a reference as to the source, possibly because the authors regard it as fable.  One is anxious to know just how much truth—if any—underlies the seductive tale of an early native American who used a native plant to cure foreigners of a foreign disease.

With the help of original sources from the 18th and 19th centuries, now digitized and available online with instantly searchable texts, and a bit of old-fashioned library work, we can begin to separate fact from fancy in the Joe Pye story.

The Beginnings of a Legend

The first use of the term “Joe Pye” as a common name for a plant was in 1818.  It appeared in the widely distributed  Manual of Botany, for the Northern and Middle States of America: 2nd edition, authored by the famous New England botanist and geologist Amos Eaton, here reproduced from the original:

(Amos Eaton, Manual of Botany, for the Northern and Middle States of America: 2nd edition,1818)

According to Eaton Eupatorium purpureum and Eupatorium virticillatum were known as Joe Pye and Joe Pye’s Weed, respectively. (Eupatorium purpureum is today termed Eutrochium purpureum and E. virticillatum is most likely Eutrochium dubium, Coastal Plain Joe Pye Weed).

Still more information can be found in the 3rd edition of Manual of Botany, published four years later wherein Eaton added this tantalizing footnote:

(Amos Eaton, Manual of Botany, for the Northern and Middle States of America: 3rd edition,1822)

Changes between the 2nd and 3rd edition of Eaton’s book were modest, mostly pertaining to inevitable shifts in scientific nomenclature, making a detailed footnote on the origin of the name Joe Pye conspicuous. For our purposes it contains three important clues.

First, Eaton directly states that Joe Pye is taken from the “name of an Indian,” not a White man posing as one.  Second, he places the use of the plant as a diaphoretic (sweat inducer) in western Massachusetts—not in Salem on the eastern seaboard as the Joe Pye legend of today usually asserts.  Third, we learn that president Moore of Williams College used a tea made from one or both of the Eupatorium species listed by Eaton to treat his own “alarming” fever.

Zephaniah Swift Moore was President of Williams College from 1815 to 1821.  In 1817, Amos Eaton delivered a series of lectures there on botany and geology. Likely, it was during this time that Eaton learned of Moore’s success in treating his fever with “the liberal and continued use” of Joe Pye’s weed.

The nature of Moore’s fever is unknown and we cannot, of course, attribute any efficacy to his herbal brew on the basis of a single report no matter how enlightened the source.  However, it is entirely fair to accept the words of two gentlemen who supposed that Moore’s illness had been cured by a plant known to them as “Joe Pye”.

Before Eaton’s Manual of Botany, and for a time afterward, the popular names for E. purpureum were Trumpet Weed, Gravel Root, Gravelweed, Purple Boneset, Purple Thoroughwort, and Queen (or King) of the Meadow, among several others. Today these names are rarely in use and Joe Pye has become the preferred common term for E. purpureum.  (“Gravel” alludes to the plant’s other supposed medical use, eliminating kidney stones, or “gravel.”)

Joe Pye as a botanical name reappears in 1828 when the famous botanist Constantine Samuel Rafinesque included it in his Medical Flora: Or Manual of the Medical Botany of the United States of North America. In Rafinesque’s book, Eutrochium purpureum and Eupatorium perfoliatum are both identified as Joe Pye Weeds.  The latter species was then as now more commonly known as Boneset.

(Rafinesque, Medical Flora: Or Manual of the Medical Botany of the United States of North America, 1828)

The wording is close to Eaton’s, suggesting that his Manual of Botany may have been Rafinesque’s source.  There are no other books in and around this time that use the term Joe Pye for any Eupatorium or Eutrochium species.  Not until the 1840s does “Joe Pye” fully and permanently enter the plant lexicon.  Botanical catalogues of native plants from that time on, such as the notable works by Mrs. Wm. Starr Dana, Neltje Blanchan, Ferdinand Schuyler Mathews, Britton and Brown, and the eminent Harvard botanist, Asa Gray, all give Joe Pye Weed as the preferred popular name for E.  purpureum.

Mathews, Familiar flowers of field and garden, 1895

So, it can be safely asserted that the term Joe Pye—at least in print—originated with Amos Eaton in 1818, was reiterated by Rafinesque in 1828, and finally came into wide use in the latter half of the 19th century.

But if Eaton was the first to use “Joe Pye,” where did he get the name?  For the likely answer we must return again to Williams College.

Continue reading ‘Joe Pye – The Name Behind the Legend’

For those of you who are actively practicing or are planning on taking on the endeavour of planting a prairie or restoring a remnant prairie. There is a new book out to help you. Covering just about every facet of prairie re-construction and maintenance, The Tallgrass Prairie Center Guide to Prairie Restoration in the Upper Midwest is a great tool and in my opinion, the best single publication written on the subject. As prairie restoration can often be a group effort, so is this book. The books four authors consist of the full time staff at the Tallgrass Prairie Center in Cedar Falls, Iowa. Combining almost 100 years of prairie restoration experience, Daryl Smith, Dave Williams, Greg Houseal and Kirk Henderson provide detailed tips that could only be previously found during note sharing with other restoration ecologists or tucked away in the back of the mind of a well seasoned prairie restorer.

I particularly liked the clear difference that they make between a prairie reconstruction and a prairie remnant restoration. Two disciplines that have often overlapped in the past even though they require two distinctly different approaches. In part 4 they write about special cases. This is also well needed. It is quite common for a prairie contractor to be put in situations that are not large tracts of rural open space. Here they describe: Prairie in Public Spaces, Roadsides and Other Erodible Sites and Small Prairie Plantings.  A very nice epilogue by Daryl Watson, finishes the book; The Future of  Tallgrass Restoration. It would appear that prairie restoration has become a science of it’s own and is as respectable as any in the scientific field.

If this book has a comparable it would be The Tallgrass Restoration Handbook (Island Press 1997). A good book also, it covers management techniques for savanna and woodlands as well but reads as a fragmented collection of essays rather than a flowing concise how-to. In many ways it’s represents prairie restoration and where we stood at the timing of these two publications. So much has changed in the past 15 years, the stark difference would also be found in leading books in other industries such as the The Internet or Solar Energy.

Overall, this book is very good and it is nice to see factual data (or similar findings) with some of my personal observation and tricks that I have kept to myself. I was quite surprised to see my name referenced in the introduction. This book is not for the novice, but if someone has made the commitment to reconstruct and/or repair a prairie, volunteer for a prairie restoration group, or would like to be amazed by the thought processes that prairie ecologists have attained lately. This book is a must own. Also, this book is paired with the Guide to Seed and Seedling Identification, which is equally as thorough and could be considered as a separate chapter on its own.

Buy it here from University of Iowa Press

Buy it here from Amazon.com

The Tallgrass Prairie Center’s Website

When researching the flora of Northwest Illinois there is one man’s name that repeatedly shows up: H.S. Pepoon. More well known in Chicagoland, Pepoon was a native of Northwest Illinois, was the first professional botanist to study the area’s flora and is responsible for the creation of Apple River Canyon State Park.

His father, George Pepoon, was a Lieutenant in the Civil War, a member of  the famed 96^th Infantry from Galena, IL. He was the Superintendent of Schools for Jo Daviess County as well as the Warren Township Assessor. Pepoon School on Twin Bridges Road is named after him. Herman Silas Pepoon was born to George and Mary Pepoon in Warren, Illinois on January 21, 1860.

Herman grew up south of Warren, IL and attended Warren High School (1877).  He left for Champaign to attend the The University of Illinois, graduating with a degree in Natural History (1881). After graduating from Hahnemann Medical College in 1883 he became a doctor and practiced medicine from 1883 until 1892 in Nebraska and Lewistown, IL. In 1892 he left Lewistown and the medical profession to become a botany instructor at Lake View High School in Chicago. He held that position for 38 years until he retired in 1930, when he reached the limit age of 70 years old.

Pepoon was highly influential among his peers and the community. He inspired thousands of students at Lake View High School in Ravenswood, taking them on field trips and hosting Saturday classes on a wide variety of subjects.  Joel Greenberg wrote in his book Of Prairie, Woods, & Water: Two Centuries of Chicago Nature Writings, “[Pepoon] always struck me as an unusual person if for no other reason rather than he abandoned medicine to teach science at a Chicago public school. No doubt this gave him greater freedom to botanize, but he apparently truly valued his role as a teacher to be a “molder of character.”

One student he “molded” was Alfred Caldwell, who became one of the country’s great landscape architects, blending natural materials and native plants into his work, which includes Eagle Point Park in Dubuque, IA. Another was Frank Caleb Gates, who became the Director of the Missouri Botanical Garden and had other accomplishments in botany.

Over the course of his tenure at Lake View he had over ten thousand students. Each of these, according to V.O. Graham (a peer at Lake View), was touched by his distinguished pedagogue: “His buoyant spirit changed work from drudgery to joyous effort.” Upon his retirement from teaching the Lake View Alumni Association said of him, “He has made botany a beautiful and popular subject.”  The gardens Pepoon kept at his Chicago home attracted thousands of visitors annually.

Doctor Pepoon died December 26, 1941. Today his work is often cited during deep research. However, there are no memorials to him, no parks in his name, no awards given in his honor.

Today, Pepoon is best known for his work out of the classroom. His books, Representative plants; a manual for the use of students of botany in secondary schools and colleges (1900) and Representative Plants (1912) are still being used as student references today. An Annotated Flora of the Chicago Region (1927) is widely referenced by ecologists in Chicagoland and served as the predecessor to the popular Plants of the Chicago Region (Swink & Wilhelm), first published in 1969. Beginning in his days as a medical doctor and continuing throughout his life, he published numerous papers in varying capacities.

Several of these papers dealt with the flora and ecology of Northwest Illinois, including Cliff Flora of Jo Daviess County (1909), The Forest Associations of Northwest Illinois (1910), Peculiar Plant Distributions (1916), The Primrose Rocks of Illinois (1917), The Flora of the Driftless Area (1918), A Proposed State Park (1919), The Forest Lands of Jo Daviess County (1920) and The Flora of the Rights of Way of the Illinois Central Railway: Waddams to East Dubuque (1927).

Pepoon's Sketch of NW Illinois (1918)

Pepoon’s observations are very important to us because of the time period and his amazing attention to detail. During the height of his documented trips back home to Northwest Illinois (1900-1920) the un-farmed portions of the county were in relatively good condition and his observations showed intact ecosystems before they degraded and before non-native and invasive species became so dominant. He was able to recount images from his past and those from a previous generation to offer a timeline of land use change. For instance he writes, “The writer is informed by old settlers that in those days there was very little underbrush except in moist places, and that one could ride in any direction through the timber without difficulty.”

Pepoon used a camera for the first time to capture images of the landscape. His pictures of Apple River Canyon and the bluffs above Savanna, IL are important to have today as they offer a glimpse of what the landscape looked like a century ago.

In 1918 at Jacksonville, IL Pepoon made a pitch to the Illinois Academy of Sciences to have a state park formed in the Apple River Canyon down the road from his boyhood home, the first step in turning his vision into a reality. In 1932 the state purchased that land. Pepoon was intimately familiar with the area from his boyhood days and he discovered the Bird’s-Eyed Primrose (Primula mistassinica) there on April 5, 1905. This was a groundbreaking discovery that met much skepticism from the scientific community, although many botanists traveled to see this plant in person, a pilgrimage that continues today.

In his 1919 paper, A Proposed New State Park, Pepoon closes by describing the possibilities for Northwest Illinois: “It is earnestly urged that all who can visit this region, and learn firsthand what it has to offer of beauty and wildness, recreation and rehabilitation for all the care-worn, business fagged, mentally benumbed citizens of our great commonwealth, who here may come to renew themselves with might in the inner and outer man.”

Some fifty-plus years before the area began to serve as a get away for recreation, tourism and relaxation Pepoon was already envisioning that process. A true visionary and leader, indeed.

The 2010 Northwest Illinois Green Fair will be held on September 25th. This year it will be held at the Galena Convention Center in Galena, IL. This year marks the 3rd annual for this increasingly popular event.

Again, this years fair will offer opportunities for people of all age groups and interest levels to participate. Including: Presentations on renewable energy, green building and sustainable living, over 40 exhibitors representing a wide range of environmentally friendly products as well as children’s activities and an appliance, electronics and paint recycling collection.

Prairie Works is proud to be a Green Circle Sponsor of this event.

Cory Ritterbusch will be giving a presentation titled: Why Native Plants?

Information:

Where: Galena Convention Center (west side of Galena on Route 20)

When: Saturday September, 25 between 9:00 – 4:00

Admission: $5.00 (16 and under free)

See the website for more information: http://nwil-greenfair.com/

Recently Prairie Works became a Premier Business Partner with the Jo Daviess Conservation Foundation. Here is the press release.

The Jo Daviess Conservation Foundation (JDCF) welcomes Prairie Works, Inc. as the latest local business to join its Premier Partner Program. Owned by Cory Ritterbusch, Prairie Works is the source for ecological and landscape services in Northwest Illinois. Expert staff can assist on projects large and small ranging fromprairie, woodland and savanna restoration, invasive species control, controlled burning and bio-engineered erosion control. When asked why he chose to partner with JDCF, Ritterbusch responded, “JDCF is the only organization that most closely resembles my company’s mission, ethics, and long-term approach. Our partnership was an obvious match.” For more information about Prairie Works, visit www.prairieworksinc.com.

JDCF’s Premier Partner Program is a growing group of elite businesses that have elected to financially invest in the foundation’s mission and support its work to protect the many natural and cultural wonders found exclusively in Jo DaviessCounty. In return, JDCF offers a variety of benefits, including exposure to its entire membership of individuals who have shown by their own investment in the organization that they, too, value the work JDCF is doing as the leading environmental force in the Northwest Illinois area.

The Jo Daviess Conservation Foundation is a local non-profit dedicated to protecting the natural wonders of the Jo Daviess County area. For more information find them online at www.jdcf.org

April 19 Burn

The Spring 2010 burn season has come to an end. It was a nice diversion from the last two burn seasons that provided excessive rainfall making for tough scheduling and sub-par burn behavior.

It was a rather unusual spring. It was very dry, windy and warm. In fact, it was one of the warmest April’s in history making the landscape green up very quickly. Unfortunately, we had some sites green up too quickly thus postponing them to a later date. We also had very low fuel moisture levels and some days recorded very low humidity readings. This had some advantages and disadvantages. It was nice to stress some of the weeds that popped up early this year IE: Brome (Bromus spp.), Red Clover (Trifolium pratense), Reed Canary Grass (Phalarus arundinacea) just to name a few. I believe we were also able to stress some of our woody plants a bit more this spring due to the early green up as well. In total we completed 33 burns. A new season high for Prairie Works. Enjoy the pictures!

March 27 Burn

March 26 Burn

April 9 Burn

Smoke Signal

April 8 Burn

Found a Deer

April 22 Burn

Casper Bluff Pre-Burn Briefing

More info on controlled burning: http://www.prairieworksinc.com/services/controlled-burns/

Henry David Thoreau

The list of historical figures that have passed through Galena, Illinois is rather impressive. Former Presidents Ulysses S. Grant, Abraham Lincoln & Theodore Roosevelt, Mark Twain, Susan B. Anthony, Herman Melville, and Tom Thumb, just to name a few. One person that is not often mentioned, but is held in very high esteem worldwide, is Henry David Thoreau. He visited Galena in May of 1861.

Henry David Thoreau was an author, poet, naturalist, tax resister, surveyor, philosopher, and transcendentalist. He is best known for his book Walden, which has become an American classic, and his essay Civil Disobedience later influenced the efforts of Ghandi and Martin Luther King Jr. His westward trip during Spring of 1861 is important to the natural history of the Galena area and offers us an important snapshot of time from one of the world’s great thinkers.

In the spring of 1861 Thoreau was in bad health and his physician advised that he he leave Concord, Massachusetts for a different climate in hopes of recovering. A trip to Minnesota was decided as Thoreau had never been to the West and could document the quickly changing frontier. It was decided that 17-year-old Horace Mann, Jr. would accompany Thoreau and the pair left Massachusetts on May 11, 1861. They would travel through Niagra Falls, Detroit, and arrive in Chicago on May 21, where they stayed for two days. Thoreau noted in his journal that Chicago was “14 feet above the lake.”

They decided to meet a riverboat on the Mississippi River at Dunleith (now East Dubuque, IL) rather than Fulton, IL. They left Chicago on the Chicago & Northwestern train line on May 23, traveling through northern Illinois. Thoreau noted in his journal:

“Greatest rolling prairie without trees just beyond Winnebago. Last 40 miles in NW of Ill. quite hilly. Mississippi backwater in Galena River 8 miles back. Water high now flooded thin woods and more open water behind…Much pink flowered apple like tree (thorn like) thro Illinois which may be the Pyrus coronaria.”

The plant mentioned here, Pyrus coronaria, is known today as Malus coronaria, Sweet Crabapple. There are no recordings of this tree existing in Jo Daviess County today, but it might have then. Today, this species is scattered throughout the Eastern Midwest and New England. It is more likely the apple-like tree Thoreau saw was Malus ioensis, Prairie Crabapple. This species also has pink flowers that bloom in May and June, but is more widely distributed in Northern Illinois and does not exist in New England. It is also interesting to notice his description of rather treeless terrain and “thin woods” in the floodplains. This is widely assumed by restoration ecologists, however not generally accepted by the public majority. Thoreau continues:

“Distances on prairie deceptive – a stack of wheat straw looks like a hill on the horizon 1/4 or 1/2 mile off – it stands out so bold and high. Small houses – with out barns surrounded and overshadowed by great stacks of wheat straw. Some wood always visible – but not generally large. The inhabitants remind you of mice nesting in a wheat stack – midst their wealth. Women working in fields quite commonly. Fences of narrow boards. Towns are as it were stations on a RR.”

This is a very interesting take on the former landscape and opens up the reader’s imagination. Again, the observation of few trees is mentioned. His description of the wheat stacks come into perspective when he writes: mice nesting in a wheat stack – midst their wealth. Wheat was an expensive commodity at this time. These towns that he passed, as it were stations on a railroad, leads me to think of Scales Mound, Apple River, Council Hill Station and the others along the Chicago & Northwestern line. Were these small houses – without barns a description of miner’s cottages?

Only one boat up daily from Dunleith by this line – in no case allowed to stop on the way. Staphylea trifolia out at Dunleith.

This is Thoreau’s final journal inclusion before he sees the Mississippi River for the first time in his life and rides it North to Prairie DuChein, WI. The mention of Staphylea trifolia is American Bladdernut and is seemingly accurately identified. This shrub remains common in this area today.

Thoreau boarded a steamboat at East Dubuque (Dunleith), which brought him to St. Paul, MN on May 26. The Desoto House  Hotel in Galena has no record of him staying there at this time, so his lodging remains a question.

Thoreau and his traveling partner stayed a month in St. Paul, studying the natural areas of the west. The journey home brought  them to Milwaukee, Mackinac Island, Toronto, finally arriving home in Concord, MA. on July 10, 1961. Henry David Thoreau was never able to fully recover and died less than a year later on May 6, 1862. A book about this western journey was unfinished but the journal writings remain.

Please join me in campaigning for the awareness that Henry David Thoreau passed through Galena.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Henry_David_Thoreau  Biography

http://www.walden.org/ The Walden Woods Project

http://thoreau.eserver.org/ A collection of his writings