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Winter 2010-2011 Issue - Vol. 7, No. 4
Preview the Winter 2010-2011 issue.
Greetings from the land.

That’s the theme of our second annual Holiday Issue, in which we asked readers to share their experiences in restoring the health of the land.

They came through with memorable stories from the grassroots.

Fun & Philosophy from the pages of Woodlands & Prairies

While man isolates himself from the natural world in comfortable houses and eats prepackaged food, we are allowing the natural world to be devastated. The less diversity we have in the world, the more jeopardy there is in man’s position.---Larry Grill

Pay Back

Two of Quinn’s aunts used to come up to him at weddings, poking him in the ribs and cracking, “You’re next!” That is, until he started doing the same thing to them at funerals.

America will never be destroyed from the outside. If we falter and lose our freedoms, it will because we destroyed ourselves.---Abraham Lincoln

Brilliant deduction

Pastor Johnson answers the phone.

“Hello, is this Pastor Johnson?”

“Dat it iss.”

“This is the IRS. Do you know a Ole Swenson?”

“Ay sure do!”

“Is he a member of your congregation?”

“Yes he iss.”

“Did he donate $10,000 to the church?”

“Vell, he vill now!”


We have always had reluctance to see a tract of land which is empty of men as anything but a void. The Oxford Dictionary defines wilderness as wild or uncultivated land which is occupied “only” by wild animals. Places not used by us are “wastelands.” Areas not occupied by us are “desolate.” Could the desolation be in the soul of man?---John Livingston


Everyone is entitled to their own opinions, but not to their own facts.---Daniel Patrick Moynihan
Two yards, one rain garden under construction.
Betty Hall of Lexington, Ky., even provided the cover---a photo of winterberries decorated by a snow storm that had swept through her yard in Lexington, Ky. An avid native-plant gardener as well as an accomplished photographer, Betty also contributed a story about the web of life in her yard arising from native plantings. Betty's Backyard Blog is at http://www.bettyhallphotography.com/blog.
Finished rain garden.
Joint rain garden. Chant Eicke and Risa Dotson Eicke of Iowa City tell how they joined forces with their neighbor to create a rain garden that collects water from both of their roofs and backyards. City officials even chipped in on the construction costs, so impressed were they with the potential of reducing runoff. This example of neighbors thinking outside the box could represent a breakthrough in stormwater management.
Proud rain gardeners: Chant Eicke, Risa Dotson Eicke, Sue Campney, Nick Campney, and Diana Guzman.
Paying tribute to their Maker. Steve and Carol Stevenson have spent years giving a rundown Wisconsin farm a new lease on life, planting thousands of trees and battling invasive plants. They write, “So many times as we hiked the woods, we felt as if our Lord had put his hand on our valley. With this in our hearts we decided to honor him with a lighted cross.”
Going native in Arizona. It took awhile for Spokane native Laura Zaer to adjust to the “bizarro” landscape of her adopted home in Tucson, Ariz., where nothing she was familiar with could grow. But in an engaging letter, she shares her discovery that you can have a lush yard in the land of caliche by growing adapted desert plants. Soon the gila woodpeckers arrived, along with desert cardinals, broad-billed hummingbirds, and a family of javelinas. That’s when you know you’re not in Kansas anymore.
One woman’s battle against a killer vine. “It’s been a bittersweet year in our never-ending battle against oriental bittersweet,” writes Marilynn Keller. Persistent as the vine itself, this woodland owner near Cedar Rapids, Ia., tells how she and helpers Asa and Finn Mossm have cut, pulled, sprayed, and burned a plant that two years ago nearly destroyed her oak and walnut woodland. Her story is must reading for anyone with woodlands in the path of this tree-eating monster, and that could be almost anyone. Photos show how to tell the difference between oriental bittersweet and its well-behaved native cousin, American bittersweet.
Happy trails. Bob and Pacie Trimble needed trails through their woods anyway. Why not involve the grandchildren? they thought. And that’s why Bree Trimble and the rest of the Trimble grandchildren---10 in all---have their own trail. The kids picked their trail and helped come up with the name. It led to a sense of ownership and a deeper interest in the woods. “This is my trail,“ they’ll say. “We’re growing trees,” Bob Trimble writes, “but more importantly we’re growing future stewards of the land.” The trails run through some 80 acres of the Trimble tree farm, which is east of Monticello, Ill., near the Indiana line. This issue devotes two pages to photos of the 10 Trimble grandchildren and their trails.
Other stories in this issue: Ron and Marti Martin report that the solar system they installed two years ago supplies all of the electrical needs of their house and shop, and even produces a surplus that the Martins are selling back to the grid. Dianne Blankenship passes on to her grandson the love of the Loess Hills that she her husband, Bill, first experienced 30 years ago. Richard and Jo Ann Cole describe how they came to love their woodlot in southeastern Minnesota. Richard and Kim Ehrenberg tell how they created a woodland ecosystem in their front yard and a sun-loving prairie in the backyard on a 1/8th acre lot which was once only a mowed lawn. Anyone who has ever tackled buckthorn, honeysuckle or garlic mustard will identify with David Novak’s essay on the mental toughness needed to accept progress one 10-foot-square at a time. Nature photographers Linda and Robert Scarth put the finishing touch on this issue with a stunning photograph of a sandhill crane.
Midwest Woodlands & Prairies is published four times a year by Wood River Communications.

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