Author Archives: SBrown

THE MAGIC POTION

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My mother didn’t believe in modern pharmacology. She believed in herbal medicine:  instead of Alka Selzer she dispensed peppermint tea, marshmallow root instead of cough syrup and chamomile tea for sleeplessness and to soak infected wounds.  She even had an illustrated folio of medicinal plants that she had brought with her when my family left Germany.  Under each drawing were listed the specifics of each plant: Volksnamen (common names) Blütezeit (when it blooms), Verkommen (where found), Verwendung (which part of the plant to use and what for), Sammelzeit (when to collect the plant material)

Page from German herbal

When Bill and I married I was happy to substitute real medicine for Mother’s herbal cures.  It was Bill who brought me back full circle.  As a dentist he taught his patients the importance of preventive care and personal responsibility for their dental health.  The primary dental disease is not tooth decay, but periodontitis.  And periodontal disease can only be controlled by healthy habits and good oral hygiene.  Preventive care and a person’s responsibility for his own health extended into our home.  We looked for ways to prevent getting sick.

After we moved to the farm I naturalized purple coneflower (Echinacea purpurea) in the vegetable garden. In 1997 I read a New York Times “Cuttings” article by Anne Raver which detailed how to extract the antibiotic qualities from Echinacea as a tonic for feeling run down or a cold coming on.  I thought, “Why not?” The recipe is very simple:  dig up a three year old plant, cut off the roots, scrub them well, and cut them into small pieces.  Then soak them in vodka (cheap is fine) for 1-2 weeks to extract the antibiotic properties, and strain into a clean, stoppered bottle. It doesn’t taste very good so we keep it in the freezer.  It’s more palatable when really cold.

Purple coneflower (Echinacea purpurea)

My family calls this concoction the magic potion because it really does work. Our son, Alex, recently gave some to a friend. She took a spoonful after waking up with a sore throat. The next day, when she was still feeling under the weather, she took another spoonful.  The third day she was perfectly healthy.  Then she called Alex.  “Is your mother a witch?” she asked him. “You’ve told me it’s just Echinacea but I think it’s magic. ”

 

OPEN RANGE

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In 1985 when we bought our Decatur County land we had city dwellers’ concept of land ownership.  You pay for a property, get the deed and it’s yours.  That’s not true in southern Iowa.  Our 200 acres was located in the heart of 1200 acres of prairie and woodland that had always been open range. From the pony farm to the north, across Brush Creek through our property and south, west and east this was prime deer and turkey hunting land.  Just because we had paid for the land didn’t mean we could own it.  We had no right to keep people who’d always hunted here off.

Timberhill in 1985

We learned this lesson early on.  Before building the house in 1993, we spent weekends away from Des Moines in a nearby rental.  It was our habit to take a long walk on our property each morning. One morning as we came up the trail from the Brush Creek bottom we heard the unmistakable click of a shotgun round being chambered and were confronted by two hunters pointing their guns in our direction.

“What are you doing here they asked?  Don’t you know any better than to walk through here during deer season?

Although we had clear title to the property, hunters were a constant presence especially during white tail deer and wild turkey seasons. They, too, had invested in our property by building shooting stands in the walnut and oak trees along Brush Creek.  We accepted  the poachers as a fact of life in the country, and  it wasn’t until we built our house that we tried to control access to our property. We built a heavy galvanized tube gate across the south entrance to our property.  Affixed to the gate was large sign, “Private Property” and a chain and padlock that secured it to the fencepost. That only made things worse.  Two nights in a row after the gate was in place I was awakened by a pickup driving north past the house.  Our neighbor had broken down the gate to let us know that even though we thought we owned this property  it was still open range.   We’ve learned our lesson.  We keep a low profile and leave the gate open.

Trail across Timberhill from the south gate

A CHANGE OF SCENE

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(The current (Fall 2011) issue of Woodlands and Prairies Magazine focuses on oak savanna restoration with several articles about ongoing efforts in Decatur County.  It includes an article about the Timberhill restoration.)

This year Bill and I will celebrate our fiftieth wedding anniversary.  Not only is it hard to believe that our marriage has lasted this long, but that it gets better each year.  Before we moved to Timberhill our relationship had followed the course of many marriages.  We led separate lives.  Bill focused on his dental practice with leisure time spent on the golf course.  My job was taking care of our children and the household.  I pursued individual interests in my spare time.  Once the children were grown we spent less and less time together as a family.  Although we had an active social life and plenty of interests our existence lacked substance.  We needed a change of scene.

We traveled extensively looking for the perfect place. We immersed ourselves in  Italian country life, food, and wine at a Tuscan estate.  For several weeks we basked in the sunshine of  the Provence countryside.  We fell in love with the Florida Keys but couldn’t imagine living there full time. The stark beauty of the southwestern U.S. was appealing but no matter where we travelled we realized that the terroir of Iowa suited us best.

Our decision to move to Decatur County, Iowa was a complete departure from life in town.  Our friends couldn’t believe that we would exchange a comfortable life in Des Moines for one of the poorest, least populated counties in Iowa. “You’re moving where?” they asked in disbelief.

Despite some misgivings we made the move in 1993.  We were compelled by the beauty of the land – the stately oak trees and wildflowers,  remnants of a once flourishing oak savanna. We traded our house in the city for 200 acres of overstocked woodland and prairie openings.  We traded Saturday night dinner parties for quiet evenings at home.  Bill traded weekend golf for clearing trails and chopping wood.  I traded community work for learning the plants and fungi.  Together we shared a common goal:  to restore our overstocked woodlands and overgrown prairie openings.  The work has transformed our relationship into a true partnership.  It was work that neither could do without the other.

At Timberhill today

Each year that Bill and I spend at Timberhill the land becomes more a part of us.  Just as the plants and trees are endemic to this place so are we.  Timberhill has become so much a part of our being that we do very little travelling. We leave too much of ourselves behind.

 

Taking Stock

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As year end approaches Bill and I will compile an annual report of our  progress toward restoring Timberhill.  The report will list new species collected in 2011, changes we have observed, and  advancement toward our restoration goals.  In order to make the best use of our time in the coming year we have to prioritize. In 2012 restoring the wetland and fen on the east and west sides of West Creek will continue to be the highest priority.  It is also our greatest challenge.   This site includes spring fed bottom wetlands and a hillside fen. We have enough experience restoring overstocked savanna to know how to proceed and what to expect.  But restoring wetland is beyond our expertise.  We have no idea what to expect. So we’re learning through trial and error and using instinct to guide us.

When we purchased the West Creek unit in 2004 the creek bottom, wetland, and fen were overgrown with honey locust and invaded by multiflora rose. The hillside above the pioneer spring was a dense stand of Eastern red cedar.  Furthermore, erosion from uphill cornfields had cut a deep ravine that bisected the West Creek unit. At the bottom of the erosional run was a small stand of prairie cord grass and sedge.  In 2011  the erosional run continued to decrease as the cover of  prairie cord grass and sedge increased.

Timberhill aerial with blue line indicating creek

In 2004 we introduced annual prescribed burns to control invasive plants and tall shrubs,  stimulate return of native plants, and restore the natural hydrology.    Other than girdling and removal of honey locusts we did no further clearing for three years, giving our  annual dormant season burns time to control some of the invasives.  In winter, 2007, we thinned the remaining trees except the elms which we left for morel habitat.  (They will die of their own accord and produce morel mushrooms as they die.) In August, 2007,  we burned the downed Eastern red cedars on the hillside above the pioneer spring.  Burning them while the surrounding plants were still green made the fire easy to control.  Not only have remnant populations of  native forbs, sedges and  warm season  grasses increased  on that hillside, but the contours have softened.  What had been a sharp drop to the creek has become a gentle slope.  Most interesting have been the changes around the pioneer spring.  The land between the spring and the creek is now dotted with seeps.

 

Seep that has developed below the pioneer spring. Note water dripping on right side.

On the east side of the creek we have made some progress, but it’s very slow.  The biggest problem is running fire through this area.  Only small sections at north and south end have burned.  In the north burned section Long-scaled tussock sedge, Carex haydenii, is out competing the other plants and slowly moving through the brush to the north fence line.  Fire has also stimulated clumps of Wood reed, Cinna arundinacea,  under the shingle oaks at the south end.  But the center portion is still a tangle of dead elms, invasive vines and multiflora rose.

 

We've made little progress in this center portion of the east side.

The most interesting new species we found this year was an Albatrellus, a polypore mushroom.  Polypores are usually found growing on wood, but this species was terrestrial, fruiting from the ground in the West 40 woodland,   It is also mycorrhizal, having a symbiotic association with trees.  A search of   the Iowa State University herbarium fungi database lists only two Albatrellus records:  1927 collection in a Webster County woodland and a 1936 Johnson County collection.   The specimens I collected were too immature to key.  Hopefully, this interesting mushroom will fruit again next year when I will know enough to let it mature before collecting.

Albatrellus mushroom

Don’t Fix What Isn’t Broken

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It’s that time of year. From mid-November when the oak leaves have fallen until snow covers the ground it’s prescribed burn season at Timberhill.  We have found that annual dormant season burns have the least impact  and best meet our goal to control woody undergrowth and stimulate fresh new growth of forbs and graminoids.  But getting it done each year is easier said than done.  First of all the volunteers who help us burn work full time during the week and can only help on weekends.  So the weather has to cooperate.   Then we have to find four people to help.  Our regular crew consists of three people so we’re always looking for a fourth.  Given the criticism we have had of our burn regimen it would be easy to find excuses not to burn every year.

Although one may vary the timing with occasional late summer or fall burns, prevailing opinion supports a regimen of  spring burns where one third of a site is burned each year on a three year rotation.   The primary criticism of our burn regimen, therefore, is one of timing. Instead of spring we always burn during the dormant season (November 15-April 1) when fire does the least damage.   We ignite each burn unit along the firebreaks and do not reignite what doesn’t  burn inside the unit. This results in a patchy burn. Because of the low fuel load annual fire scuds over the surface and does not heat the soil preserving the underground fungi and microbes.   A study by Dr. Sandra Rideout-Hanzak (Texas A &M University-Kingsville) recorded ground temperature on thermocouples placed in the ground prior to and after a dormant season burn .  The thermocouples did not record any temperature change one inch below ground.

After burn photo showing unburned wildflower stalks and leaf litter

Plants and animals are least vulnerable to fire during this time of year.  They are not reproducing, and the reptiles and small mammals are hibernating.   Insects are in diapause and fire adapted species have burrowed into the ground.  Late fall and winter burns leave many partially burned and unburned patches that retain habitat  for leaf litter dwelling insects often the most affected by prescribed burns. Their populations will decline after a burn, but recolonize quickly  on the abundance of lush plants stimulated  by fire.

The studies that suggest  insects are being extirpated from fire managed sites and that fire exclusion will result in greater species richness and populations has been disproved by Ron Panzer and Mark Schwartz. Their paper “Effects of management burning on prairie insect species richness within a system of small, highly fragmented reserves” compared the population density and species richness of remnant dependent insects in Chicago area burned and unburned prairie remnants.  In sites burned as frequently as every two years they found that,  ”Prevailing rotational, cool season burning practices have generally been compatible with the conservation of insect biodiversity within the highly fragmented prairie reserve system in the Chicago region.”

Of the 27 butterfly species studied, four were found exclusively on fire managed sites. This was also true of the 67 leafhoppers studied:  19 occurred exclusively on fire-managed sites.  Even fire-sensitive species “occurred in significantly greater numbers within fire-managed sites.” This paper concludes that “In contradiction to the predictions of these observers [fire attrition advocates], the data presented here suggest that rotational burning has contributed to the protection of several species that would otherwise have been lost.”  In other words fire managed sites create habitat for conservative species not found in unburned sites.

Regal fritillary at Timberhill

This is certainly true at Timberhill.  In only two days here last summer. Biologist Laura Rericha was able to collect  29 species of native bees.   Two were very conservative species. A study she made of Timberhill ants identified 57 species, two of which were Iowa records. The Timberhill butterfly list includes 14 skipper species and  continues to grow each year.   Even regal fritillaries are observed nectaring on butterfly milkweed each summer.     So whenever I am tempted to give in to prevailing opinion and change our burn regimen I  recall the adage, “Don’t fix what isn’t broken.”