Well Kept Secrets

Campers, don’t overlook county parks.  Though not shown on road maps, many of these lesser-known public parks feature facilities every bit as good as state parks, with lower fees.   I happened upon Otter Creek Park while on a recent swing through Iowa gathering stories for Woodlands & Prairies.  The Tama County Conservation Board operates this 529-acre park Near Toledo in east-central Iowa. It features 65 electric hookups, hiking trails, a 70-acre lake, a nature center, and even a 2-acre native prairie.   County parks in Iowa collaborated on a website that provides a very helpful state directory. www.mycountyparks.com   Excellent county and other local parks exist in all states, though it might take a bit of searching on the Web to find one near your destination.  Some are huge and well-known, but most are well-kept secrets to all but the locals.  They’re worth a look whether you’re a tent camper or an RV’er.

So much for the real thing

We got the wrong message from this ad featuring a woman captivated by the wonders of wireless while nature’s wonders played out unnoticed in the background.  Used wisely, technology can help us understand and appreciate the natural world, and I imagine that many of us have taken laptops and wireless devices with us when exploring the outdoors.  You might be reading this over a wireless connection.  But how many times has the digital revolution drawn people away from experiencing the real thing?  The ad’s unfortunate juxtaposition only seems to affirm the cluelessness of its creators.       

WOODLANDS & PRAIRIES Editor’s Notebook

WOODLANDS & PRAIRIES Editor’s Notebook

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Filling in for wildfires and bison

Ecologists will tell you that natural areas need disturbance to stay healthy.  Wildfires and free-roaming graziers such as bison and elk once did the trick, but now the job falls to people like Jim and Rose Sime.  I caught up with them on a warm day last summer while they were cutting burdock, i.e. “disturbing” land they own in the rugged hills of southwestern Wisconsin north of Monfort.  The Simes, who are retired school teachers, do find time to relax and smell the (wild) roses on the properties they own, which include five parcels totaling several hundred acres.  But they also work their heads off to protect the native ecosystems in their care, including a pine relic, sedge meadows, fens, and prairie remnants. The plant communities contain some of the state’s rarest native species. That’s why you’ll often find the Simes, now in their 70s, conducting controlled burns and attacking re-growth of invaders such as honeysuckle and autumn olive.   The Simes often exchange work with other members of The Prairie Enthusiasts. 

Bottom line: It’s unnatural to leave natural areas undisturbed, and there’s no better way to make the point than by examples set by landowners such as the Simes.

Photo: © Woodlands & Prairies Magazine

The Simes at work "disturbing" a degraded sand prairie.

Jan Gibson and the Shack

Everyone who cares for a piece of land has a story to tell.  Jan Gibson told me about the shack she came across back in 1971.  It sat under an oak tree on 2 acres west of Toledo, Ohio.   At the time she was a single mother with six kids, one step from a homeless shelter.  She noticed it had a for-sale sign. Temporary shelter, she thought.  But the sign was for the entire lot, not just the shack.   The price was $6,000.  That gave Jan an idea. She offered all she had to her name; made the deal, and lived with the kids in the 10x20-foot shack, with no heat or running water, while the first stage of a modular house was being built on the lot.  Jan and I sat at the kitchen table of that house as she told me how she how she got on her feet after that first summer living in the shack with her kids.

This spunky woman not only saved her family, her maternal instincts led her to save a native plant community growing in the back of the lot. It was a black oak lupine barren, one of the rare ecosystems of the fabled Oak Openings region west of Toledo.    

 As a survivor herself, Gibson went on to become a leading advocate for saving the savannas, wet prairies, and other threatened ecosystems on private property in the region. 

Jan hadn’t read The Sand County Almanac by Aldo Leopold, but I couldn’t help think about the connection between the shack where she once lived with her kids, and the shack where Leopold parked his family.  Natural resources benefitted in both cases.

Photo: © Woodlands & Prairies Magazine
Single mom Jan Gibson saved her family and the oak savanna in her back yard.



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