The Blue Mounds Area Project Promoting Ecological Restoration and Stewardship of Native Habitats

Volume 9 Number 2

Bush Reveals Truth About Global Warming

Pine Relics and Pioneer Families

Financial Statement December 31, 2005

Low-Cost Cooperative Restoration on Private Lands

This Tender Place: The Story of a Wetland Year

The Blue Mounds Area Project —

Part of a Community Conservation Movement

Calendar of Events

www.bluemounds.org

Dr. Ed Luschei, member of the UW-Madison Department of Agronomy and board member of the Wisconsin Phenological Society, visited BMAP February 22 for a discussion of the value of phenology to our everyday natural history lives. Phenology and its ancient, almost cultic, traditions can be summed up with two words: Observation and Curiosity. In a little more detail: Phenology is the study of the timing of yearly developmental events in the lives of plants and animals, many of which are triggered by climate and seasonal factors. An interested crowd was on hand to hear Ed’s talk, and some members of the audience even brought items to share on the topic, including a long-lost bird occurrence journal from the late 1800s recently found in a local attic!

Ed led off with a personal history of how he originally became interested in the subject of phenology as a graduate student looking into what triggers giant foxtail seed germination. Turns out, he claimed, nature seems to abhor simplicity as much as a vacuum and he joined a long history of nature observers in learning to listen when the “bigger hammer” fails to work. The first known phenology records are observations of the timing of cherry blooming in Japan from 974 BC. The longest known series of records was started in 1736 by Robert Marsham, in England, and continued by his descendents until 1958. The United States has its own history of phenological observations, the most famous of which were made by Henry David Thoreau and Wisconsin’s own Aldo Leopold. Leopold’s work formed the backbone of the remainder of Ed’s presentation.

Ed first posed the question: “Why bother?” What benefit is there to making these kinds of observations? There are good practical reasons, of course. For instance, since plants are responding to many different factors in their environment — integrating variables such as soil temperature, air temperature, soil moisture, and day length — they provide a better indication than the calendar date of how far along a growing season has progressed, vital information

for planting and caring for crops. Phenological records can also be used to address questions well beyond growing corn or providing gardening tips. They have been used to predict extremes of expected climate variation and long-term trends of climate change.

Ed went on to suggest, tongue-in-cheek, that perhaps our communal motivations are not so altruistic and that some people, the English in particular, might just like to “write stuff down”. This served as a nice transition back

to the “pleasure” and “curiosity” themes of his talk. Ed read a quote from Leopold’s

1947 Ecological Monographs paper on the topic:

“Yet it must be confessed that with all its weighty subject

matter, phenology is a very personal sort of science.

Once he learns the sequence of events, the phenologist falls

easily into the not-very-objective role of successful seer and

prophet. He may even fall in love with the plants and animals which so regularly fulfill his predictions, and he may harbor the pleasant illusion that he is “calling shots” rather than vice versa.”

Ed suggested that this statement by Leopold went beyond just scientific observation, recording, and analysis. Leopold was telling us that here was a method anyone could use for strengthening one’s connection to the natural world, with observation as its own reward. Noticing the first blossoms or signs of animals on your own spring walks can initially appear to add to our everyday information overload, but — if done more than once — can quickly become much more. Having the goal of finding a particular “something” going on out there turns your afternoon walk into a treasure hunt with its simple excitement of discovery. It also helps to focus attention on the goal at hand, something achievable, clearing the squabbling thoughts, sharpening (cont. on page 5)

Bush Reveals Truth About Global Warming Paul Kaarakka, BMAP Membership Director

V9 N2 — 2 — BMAP Newsletter

The following article — first of two parts — originally appeared in our Summer 2002 newsletter. Wayne Iverson, the gentleman who contributed the information, passed away last year. He was a native of Daleyville. As a young University of Wisconsin botany student in the 1950s, he surveyed several pine relics in Southwest Wisconsin. Some of the plant specimens he collected can be found at the UW-Madison Botany Department Herbarium. He was also very aware of the history of Native Americans and European settlers around Daleyville.

From Arizona, where he and his wife Barbara were living, he emailed stories about the various pine relics and associated bluffs where early settlers gathered, picnicked, and carved their names in the sandstone. We turned this valuable information into a pair of articles which appeared in our newsletter and The Mount Horeb Mail. Some of this information is from a paper he shared with us called “The Bluffs Around Daleyville”.

Four prominent bluffs in the Daleyville area are the Anderson Bluffs (about three miles northwest of Daleyville on Upper Spring Creek), the Grimstad Bluffs (about two miles west of Daleyville on Spring Creek), the Thompson Bluffs about three miles southwest of Daleyville), and the Retrum Bluffs (northwest of Daleyville).

The bluffs are micro-ecosystems, small islands of 5 to 10 acres of northern plant species in the midst of the prairie ridge tops and deciduous forest hillsides of Southwest Wisconsin. They are technically referred to as White Pine Relicts. They are remnants of the glacial period that have managed to survive for thousands of years. The reasons may be that the bluffs were cooler because of the northerly exposure and the bluff heights were such as to keep a few acres in shade most or all day long and allow for white pines and ferns to thrive well outside of their normal range. In addition, they were protected from fires started by lightning or by Native Americans.

The Native Americans burned the prairies in order to concentrate and kill game

animals which fled in front of the fires and which also allowed for removal of overly dense vegetation and the renewal of fresh vegeta-tive cover. Since the base of the bluffs were adjacent to creeks and marshy flats, fires would not often start at their vulnerable lower slopes and fire seldom spreads down such steep slopes. In the first century after white settlement, the bluffs were mostly free of cattle grazing due to their steepness and danger of cattle falling over the rock ledges.

Other sandstone bluffs in the area lacked pines. The reasons may be that they had south exposures, were not located adjacent to creeks, the pines had been cut,

or they may have been overgrazed.

One study involved the Anderson Bluffs as part of a UW plant ecology course taught by Dr. John W. Thomson, who had moved to a

small farm southeast of Mount Horeb in order to raise his children outside the city. The prize find of mine was a small group of trailing arbutus, Epigea repens, on top of the bluff. Trailing arbutus is a low trailing plant not over two inches tall with leathery, dark green, netveined oval leaves and tiny, but fragrant white and pink fringed flowers. Prior to this discovery, trailing arbutus had not been found this far south in Wisconsin by many miles. For my final exam Dr. Thomson met me at the bluff and had me identify dozens of plant species. He confirmed my finding of trailing arbutus.

Some of the special places around Daleyville were sandstone bluffs on the east side of Spring Creek (Grimstad Creek/Gordon Creek) Valley a couple of miles to the southwest, west, and northwest of town. Since they were the only places where thick stands of white pine, paper birch, and a dense groundcover of bracken ferns

grew naturally they may have reminded the Norwegian settlers of their old homeland. They also offered relief from the surrounding open and sunny landscape that surrounded the bluff and from the summer heat. Many old photographs of Daleyville area people were taken during outings at these and other bluffs.

The bluffs also provided a site for carving initials and dates, thereby giving us a unique historical record. The sandstone was soft, so carving was relatively simple. Unfortunately, the soft stone was subject to gradual erosion and to lichen overgrowth. Many of these initials and dates have disappeared or have become difficult to decipher.

When reading Carl Grimstad’s story of his travels and homesteading in the Red River Valley of North Dakota, I found that he had carved his initials and date (cont. on page 5)

Pine Relics and Pioneer FamiliesCarroll Schaal, President

BMAP ended the year with a solid surplus in its bank account. Though we had some contract expenses associated with the U.S. Fish & Wildlife grant, our reimbursement wasn’t claimed until 2006. Our cash balance will be used to help manage that $30,000 grant throughout 2006 and then we hope to apply it toward a revived ecologist position in 2007.

Income

Membership & Donations $4,190.00

Services/Sales $230.00

Interest .78

Total Income $4,420.78

Expenses

Office $434.70

Printing/Postage $403.78

Misc. $50.00

Contracts $2,960.00

Total Expenses $3,848.48

Net Income $572.30

Equity Opening Balance $7,771.31

Total Liabilities & Equity $8,343.61

Financial Statement December 31, 2005

The bluffs are micro-ecosystems, small islands of 5 to 10 acres of northern plant species in the midst of the prairie ridge tops and deciduous forest hillsides of Southwest Wisconsin.

BMAP Newsletter — 3 — V9 N2

I recently learned about interesting restora-tions by a group of 15 private landowners in McHenry County, Illinois, directed by George Johnson, a retired engineer. The properties are of various sizes, mostly small, and quite varied in quality. Some have small wetlands, a few have agriculture fields in the Conser-vation Reserve Program (CRP), there are some abandoned pastures, and at the start most of them were rampant with invasive plants. According to Mr. Johnson: “We like to think of [this] as an example of what can be accomplished without public push or financing, basically using only the limited time and resources of committed landowners.”

The work usually begins with periodic burns, alien brush removal using herbicides, and limited seed collection and planting. Careful surveys revealed that some of these degraded properties had small populations of interesting or threatened species. In a few cases there was a significant list of native plants, but in most cases the diversity was very low.

Several of the landowners had only a few acres of bluegrass and invasive shrubs in the yards of their homes. Mowing, burning, and overseeding were the methods of choice, in some cases using glyphosate herbicide, in other cases with no chemical treatment. Because the landowners were living on their properties, they were able to monitor progress carefully.

One 11-acre property started out as a reed canary grass-choked wet prairie, with an area of thin bluegrass and a small bur oak savanna surrounding the house. Ten years into a pro-gram of burn, sow, and herbicide treatment, these landowners now have a “gem” of a dropseed prairie with four species of gentian. This property provides a nice example of what can happen with annual early spring seeding into short grass (bluegrass).

Another property is six acres of mostly oak woods which has been worked for 11 years. Although there was no garlic mustard, there was a substantial buckthorn population. With careful work, this property now has 230 prairie, savanna, and wetland species, mostly the result of interseeding. Spot burning of the woodland is used to counter aggressive raspberry resprouting.

A 25-acre property was a former pasture with a substantial variety of native plants that had managed to survive. Brush clearing,

burning, and interseeding have substantially increased diversity.

Most of the seed used for interseeding has been collected by the participants from within a few square miles of the properties, with other species coming from known remnant populations on roadsides.

Group cooperation in seed collecting and burning makes these small restorations possible. Seed mixes suitable to the area are prepared with the goal of increasing diversity and creating handsome showy natural areas. Herbicides are used when necessary, but in many cases only mow-ing, burning, and interseeding have been used. In most cases, new species are intro-duced each year, and the group searches for rare, interesting species that can be added. In many cases, instead of seed mixtures individual species are sown in spots where they should best grow and compete. Very rarely

are transplants (plugs) used, unless to rescue plants from a site about to be destroyed.

Controlled burns are carried out by six-person crews during the spring burn season. In most years, they are able to burn about half of the total acreage under management.

The group gets advice from county conservation districts and the Illinois Department of Natural Resources, but except for the CRP lands, the work has been self-financed. The group now has 350 acres under restoration management, about ten percent of the acreage in a five square mile area. The key to success has been patience and careful attention to detail.

Tom and Kathie Brock are the founders and principal officers of the Savanna Oak Foundation, Inc., a nonprofit organization dedicated to the preservation and restoration of prairie and oak savanna habitats. Please visit www.savannaoak.org for more information.

Low-Cost Cooperative Restoration on Private LandsTom Brock, BMAP Member

This Tender Place: The Story of a Wetland YearReviewed by Mary Michal, BMAP Member

“The author’s ability to intertwine nature lore, landscape change, and cultural history teaches us about more than wetlands, but also about our own need to know what can be discovered by looking further, more quietly, and more carefully around the next bend of a creek or lakeshore.” –Joy Zedler, Aldo Leopold Professor of Restoration Ecology, University of Wisconsin-Madison

This Tender Place, by Laurie Lawlor, pub-lished by University of Wisconsin Press, 2005, is a true gem for all of us who feel a deep connection with the land. In a recent visit to Madison to give a reading from her book, Laurie spoke about it as part mem-oir, part research, her own observations of more than a decade living beside a fen in Walworth County, with development en-croaching. Emphasizing that she is neither biologist nor plant expert, Laurie describes the book as “the story of a wetland year and what I discovered about plants and animals, fire and water, humans and insects, refuge and renewal.”

This lovely book is certainly all of that. The author manages to weave into her most personal story a sense of place that encompasses the Wisconsin Glaciation that formed the wetland, the Ho-Chunk and Potowatomi and their uses of the plants

that grow in and around the fen, the expe-riences of early white settlers. Her powers of observation are crystalline. An example:

Without warning, warm weather arrives. The sky is bright blue and clear. Tender new grass and reeds prick upward. Mosquitoes hover. A sense of urgency fills the air. Every plant hur-ries to be first to burst and wriggle into welcome sunlight. Every animal and insect seems hungry and eager to find food and a mate…The ground shakes and quivers and gurgles as I walk. Wa-ter seeps over the tops of my boots. Around my ankles swim black, tiny creatures no bigger than a point of a pencil. Hundreds of tadpoles! Thousands of tadpoles! Their tails flail. They clash into one another in their blind rush to get out of my way.”

Finally, with clarity and wisdom, Laurie Lawlor’s voice speaks a deep truth about this tender place: “Someone has always lived here. The parade of residents throughout time is mind-boggling — countless mastodons, mammoths, Paleoindians, elk, bears, Menomonee, Potowatomi, Ho-Chunk, settlers, aphids, dragonflies, grasshoppers, herons —to name a few. The wetland does not belong to me or any other human being. It is a place shared by all living creatures. I am simply part of a community that resides here at the present moment.”

V9 N2 — 4 — BMAP Newsletter

The Blue Mounds Area Project (BMAP) is one part of a movement in southern Wisconsin where we as concerned citizens assume our role as stewards of our land. The term describing BMAP and similar projects is community-based conservation or community conservation.

The organization Community Conservation (CC) is a non-governmental organization (NGO) based in Gays Mills, Wisconsin, focused on catalyzing the establishment of community conservation projects like BMAP. CC began its work in 1985 in Belize, Central America, with the Community Baboon Sanctuary. Soon after, in 1988, CC expanded to catalyze establishment of Wisconsin community conservation projects by working with the Ferry Bluff Eagle Council in the Sauk-Prairie area. It then moved on to help BMAP and the Kickapoo Valley Reserve get started. Finally, CC helped the Valley Stewardship Network in the Kickapoo Valley and the Sauk Prairie Conservation Alliance.

What typifies these projects is the high degree of local participation—members of the community or local organizations are empowered to manage their own lands and conservation organizations, or co-manage government lands with government agencies. These smaller community organizations are important because government agencies alone cannot do all of the work. Further-more, they often need guidance when they move in directions contrary to the needs of the community.

What separates BMAP from other com-munity-based conservation efforts is that it focuses on private land. While the vast majority of wild lands are privately owned, there has not always been enough emphasis placed on their protection. This is because without legal easements or other legal devices, the work with private land owners may be temporary, existing only as long as the land ownership exists. Private land use has been addressed by state and county land conservation offices and, to a lesser degree, by NGOs; however, such resources are increasingly needed for protecting public lands threatened more and more by human pressure. BMAP is a local community

conservation group which has emerged as an alternative and supplementary program to address the idea of helping private landowners enhance the biodiversity of non-economic species on their private lands.

Catalyzing Community Conservation Projects

Small community conservation projects should strive for financial, cultural, and legal sustainability, and a holistic approach to conservation. Physical infrastructure will provide continuity and thus strengthen the sustainability of their efforts. Where do we start and how do we reach these goals? The assistance provided to encourage community conservation projects can occur at the community level, or can work through local or regional NGOs who in turn work at the community level. For larger projects one can organize regional groups.

CC employs ten phases to catalyze community-based conservation projects:

Phase 1. Identify a potential project and obtain seed funding. This includes identifying the focus of the conservation effort — a species or ecosystem — and identifying a local contact or other introduction into the community. It is important to establish a connection within the community. After the initial site visit, a proposal can be created to persuade members of the community, local government, or higher levels of government to participate in the project and to help pursue funding.

Phase 2. Initiate the development of an organization to take over the project and its conservation goals. During this phase, some priorities are set and a volunteer or paid coordinator becomes staff for the project.

Phase 3. Locate resources to train and help staff and volunteers of this new group.

Phase 4. Gather information on community

needs and the sociology or anthropology of the community and area, as well as the biology of the area to be conserved. Develop working maps of the area.

Phase 5. Develop a plan for educating the group’s governing committee and extended

organization, the local community, and the general public. Education to

promote conservation awareness should be broad-based and includes newsletters, posters, websites, videos, presentations, public meetings, pamphlets, and personal word of mouth.

Phases 6-9. Help the community group or community develop short-term and long-term management and operation plans. Help develop infrastructure. Implement the plans. And formalize the developing program.

Phase 10. The catalyzing organization terminates its major role, which is then assumed by the local community group. The catalyzing group should follow the project’s progress and be ready to give support when needed and asked for.

The history of Blue Mounds Area Project has included all of these phases. BMAP began in 1995 with an emphasis on oak savanna and prairie habitats found on the private lands of rural landowners in the Blue Mounds area. Its unique program included an extension ecologist who performed planned land assessments of the special biological resources on each land parcel. BMAP expanded its educational program with a variety of field and lecture series and activated landowner groups to work together managing their lands. In 2001 BMAP created a long-term plan, and by 2002 they incorporated as a non-profit 501c3 organization. By that time BMAP’s Board had become strong and CC’s participation became less and less.

As an organization matures, it takes on new roles and changes directions. As members of a community conservation project like BMAP, you have the power to participate and add to or help the project change to meet your needs. It’s up to you. I’m looking forward to seeing the new directions the Blue Mounds Area Project takes in the future.

The Blue Mounds Area Project Part of a Community Conservation Movement

Rob Horwich, Community Conservation

BMAP Newsletter — 5 — V9 N2

(cont. from page 1) the senses, and allowing appreciation of the low-tech mystical nature of the activity.

It seems that even in our modern digital world people still respond strongly to the lure of this humble connection to natural events. As an example, Ed related that the most popular Iowa State Extension publication ever turns out to be a small chart of weed emergence arranged in a grid on a corn-production management timeline. He described how he had expanded on that concept using a large historical set of weed growth data collected by his colleague Dr. Jerry Doll, constructing web-based interactive tools for examining past observa-tion of weed first emergence and flowering (weedecology.wisc.edu/weedometer). He also introduced another weed prediction software product called WeedCast (weedcast.net) that predicts weed phenology from climate data.

But it was the potential for connecting ordinary people to seasonal rhythms that Ed kept returning to. There is something in the activity of gathering phenology data that reflects the most pure of motivations, echoing Francis Bacon’s spirited rebuke of “those that hast dogmatized nature”. The modern, however, was not to be completely discarded. Ed mentioned phenology networks in other countries, including the Canadian PlantWatch (www.naturewatch.ca/english/

plantwatch/), the British NatureWatch (www.phenology.org.uk) and the Dutch “Nature’s Calendar”. These programs all actively seek to engage the public in “citizen science” as a connection and edu-cational tool that improves environmental awareness and builds a greater connection to the world around them. Oh yeah, and they are also fun.

Although the United States has no national program like the three listed above, there are some ongoing programs with a public component. The Leopold Foundation publishes some of the phenology data in their collection in a USDA Natural Resources Conservation Service calendar with a very limited distribution right now. Perhaps this is a print or web-based project that BMAP members would be interested in undertaking for the Driftless Area or even all of Wisconsin. Minnesota has a wonderful phenology/weather/astronomy calendar which has been published for many years and which is sponsored, in part, by the Freshwater Society (www.freshwater.org/2004_home.html).

The “bush” mentioned in the title refers not to George W. Bush, but rather to the common lilac, whose first leaf and blooming date records extend back for almost 50 years. This lilac study was started in Montana by Dr. Joseph Caprio, but observations have

since been collected from sites all across the United States, including Wisconsin. This work is now organized by the National Phenology Network under the direction of Dr. Mark Schwartz in Milwaukee, Wisconsin (www.uwm.edu/Dept/Geography/npn/index.html). Ed’s comment that he was amazed and delighted that “a silly bush provides some of the most convincing global warming evidence” stemmed from a graph he showed us based on the lilac data. It showed significantly earlier dates of first leaf and bloom over the 50-year period of data collection in a way that was much easier to understand than many of the complicated climatological models often used to describe global temperature changes.

So get out there and write stuff down! Maybe in a hundred years it will be your journal that a rapt group of people are ooing and ahing over, handing down the message that nature, at the end of the day, doesn’t care how much we think we know.

Reference: Aldo Leopold and Sara Elizabeth Jones. 1947. A Phenological Record for Sauk and Dane Counties, Wisconsin, 1935-1945. Ecological Monographs, 17(1):81.

Do you have any interesting phenology observa-tion to share with your fellow BMAP members? Please consider writing a brief — or not so brief — article for the newsletter.

(cont. from page 2) on the Grimstad Bluffs near Daleyville, which he called “Fure Hotten” (Wrinkled Hat?). I went there while back in Wisconsin visiting with my family in June 1983 and found his initials and took some photo slides of them. I returned again in April 1997 and recorded the following carvings, among others:

1855

7/7/79 CMG . . Carl M. Grimstad, the author mentioned above, who carved them just before he left for homesteading in North Dakota. He is the one who wrote to and helped grandfather Julius Iverson and other family members find homesteads in North Dakota close to his in 1880.

OPS 08 . . . . . . Possibly Oscar Syftestad.

AKG 1900 . . . . Aslak Grimstad, who was Carl Grimstad’s brother and who took over the farm.

WG 1907 . . . . Probably William Grimstad, son of Aslak Grimstad who owned the farm after father Knute died.

MAO

OG . . . . . . . . . Possibly Ole Grimstad, brother of Carl and Aslak, or “og”, which means “and” in Norwegian.

Another reference to carving initials on the Grimstad Bluff is contained in a paper authored by Jon Tarje Nes, a descendant of the Nes Family of Nissedal, Telemark, Norway, and a cousin of the Grimstads. He wrote: “I had a strange feeling when I, in 1973,

found the name of my father and uncle Hans in ‘Bloffen’ near the farm of Knut and Mari (Grimstad). In a letter to my father from Uncle Olav I had read, ‘Madison is a nice city. It is the capital of Wisconsin. It is situated by a big lake. It is just 28 miles to Blue Mounds. I came to Blue Mounds this morning. Then I visited Carl Grimstad. He lives just 1 1/2 miles west of Blue Mounds. I stayed the night over. So he took me down to A. Grimstad. He lives 8 miles south of Carl. There I stayed from Saturday until Monday. Then I was down in Bloffen and put my name on the mountain wall where you, Hans, and Ingvald had their names.’ ”

Thanks to Madrice Wolbert of Delaware, Ohio, a descendant of the Grimstad and Rindy pioneer families of the Daleyville area, for helping me match initials and names and for helping me develop the historic timeline.

Wayne Iverson’s story will be continued in the next newsletter.

V9 N2 — 6 — BMAP Newsletter

Calendar of Events

Tour of Mark and Brenda Gasch Mittelstadt Property Saturday, June 10, 2006, 10:00 AM - 2:00 PM

Make sure you bring boots for crossing a 15-inch-deep river (at an easy ford) when you visit this unique 320-acre mixed-use private property in the lovely hills and valleys of the driftless area. We’ll see several listed rare species with a highlight on the beautiful red-orange inflorescence of Fire Pink. There’s also Short’s Rock-Cress to enjoy, the tall yellowish-white flowers of American Gromwell, aromatic Heart-Leaved Skullcap, and Great White-Lettuce among diverse other forbs, trees, and grasses. The property is multi-use and therefore an excellent example of how humans can live in harmony with our surroundings. It combines agricultural fields, wetlands, a river, planted prairie, rocky outcrops with a pine relict, a small cabin overlooking the valley, drier upland prairies, and excellent holistic forestry. Ongoing activities include a Wisconsin DNR research project and a USFWS restoration grant. Bring a lunch if you’d like.

Directions: From 151 between Mineral Point and Platteville take Highway A west about 6 miles. Shortly after a small rise turn right onto Cook-McFall Road. The road curves left after 3/4 of a mile; take the dirt road labeled Cook-McFall on the right. At the end of the field to your right is the first gate, fire number 0825. Enter there and go down the hill taking the second left to the cabin.

Please RSVP: Brenda Gasch Mittelstadt, 608-212-7088 Trip Leader: Mark Mittelstadt, 608-935-3241

Upper Sugar River Watershed Association

First Annual Member Event

Monday, July 10, 2006 — 4:30 PM Activities begin at 5:00 PM

Haak Family Farms

Relax and enjoy the beautiful West Branch of the Sugar River which runs through this crop and cattle farm, just outside Belleville, 854 Fritz Road, Belleville, WI 53508, Corner of Fritz and Wittwer Roads.

Free Food, Beverages and Activities for USRWA Members and their families. Not a member, come “join” us! We’ve got Room!

Contact the USRWA Office for membership information, event details and directions.

usrwa@usrwa.org 608-437-7707

Everyone Lives in a Watershed… Come celebrate yours.

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Our Mission:The Blue Mounds Area Project is a community–based organization that seeks to inspire, inform and empower private landowners in the Southwestern Wisconsin region to enjoy, protect and restore native biodiversity and ecosystem health.

Our Objectives:1) Promote understanding, appreciation and conservation of native woodlands, prairies, wetlands and savannas and their special species in an economically viable manner, through community outreach programs and private contacts.

2) Act as a clearing house for information from people and organizations involved in preserving native biodiversity including information about plant, animal and habitat identification, management, restoration, seed sources, native plant nurseries and invasive, nonnative species.

3) Encourage cooperative, volunteer restoration and management activities.

4) Identify public and private land use changes that may affect ecosystem health and promote community–based stewardship of the unique natural heritage of the Blue Mounds and the Southwestern region of Wisconsin.

The Blue Mounds Area Project Newsletter is published quarterly. We welcome your comments, submissions, and advertisements.

Deadline for submissions: July 27, 2006

Send submissions to: Editor, Blue Mounds Area Project, PO Box 332, Mount Horeb, WI 53572 or jaraasch@tds.net

Editor: John A. Raasch, jaraasch@tds.net — Designer: Julie Raasch, jul@creative-zoo.com

Blue Mounds Area Project Membership Form

Name(s):

Address:

City: State: Zip:

E-mail address:

Membership Status:

❍ Renewal ❍ New Member ❍ Gift Membership for

Membership Level:

❍ Student $15 ❍ Basic $30 ❍ Contributor $50 ❍ Supporter $100 ❍ Sponsor $500 ❍ Patron $1000

❍ Other contribution to further the BMAP mission

TOTAL **All contributions are tax–deductible to the fullest extent of the law.**

❍ Yes, I would like to receive information about site visits.

Make check payable and return to: BLUE MOUNDS AREA PROJECT, PO BOX 332, MT. HOREB, WI 53572

BMAP Board of Directors

Carroll Schaal President and Treasurer

608-437-6247 schaal1@mhtc.net

Frank Fetter Vice President

Paul Kaarakka Secretary and Membership

608-437-7349 info@bluemounds.org

David Marshall

Deborah Joseph

If you would like to be a member of the BMAP Board please contact

Carroll Schaal (608) 437-6247

schaal1@mhtc.net

Volunteers Always Welcome!

BMAP Newsletter — 7 — V9 N2

The Blue Mounds Area Project P.O.Box 332 Mt. Horeb, WI 53572

HAVE YOU EXPIRED??

www.bluemounds.org

Please check the address label for your membership expiration date.If you’re receiving a complimentary or trial copy, please consider joining.

“To those who have not yet learned the secret

of true happiness, begin now to study the

little things in your own door yard.”

— George Washington Carver, American Botanist