Wounded woods
“One of the penalties of an ecological education is that one lives alone in a world of wounds. Much of the damage inflicted on land is quite invisible to laymen. An ecologist must either harden his shell and make believe that the consequences of science are none of his business, or he must be the doctor who sees the marks of death in a community that believes itself well and does not want to be told otherwise.” – Aldo Leopold, father of the “Land Ethic”
I was surprised to learn that Fillmore County used to be primarily a forest.
The natural vegetation of Fillmore County at the time of the first public land survey in the late 1800s included only a small amount of open prairie. Most of the land was “woodland with brushland and grassy openings,” which today we call oak savannas. These areas were formed by periodic fires which favored deep-rooted prairie grasses and tough-barked oaks. The next largest type of land cover was the vast maple-basswood forest. A relatively small area was floodplain forest along the rivers, with water-tolerant silver maple, elm, cottonwood and willows.
The Big Woods survived for millennia here in the Driftless Area, a large island once surrounded by seas of ice, as the glaciers slid around this region, leaving our bluffs and valleys alone. Native Americans harvested the bounty of the land and farmed along the floodplains.
When white settlers first arrived in 1851, most intended to make their living in farming. The Homestead Act was predicated on the intention to work the land and build a home. What most pioneers encountered were grassy prairies well dotted with oaks, and away they went, plowing up the land to plant wheat. Wheat was king in the 1800s, and was planted year after year on the same ground.
Settlers tended to remove all the trees, whether on on the savanna or the level floodplains along streams. Gradually, they started clearing more and more land up the hillsides, removing mature forests that had shaded and held the soil in place. Horse teams pulled moldboard plows up and down the steep lands.
Of course, the rains came and formed rivulets, which turned to torrents of water carrying the dirt quickly down to the nearest creek. As topsoil washed away, creeks and floodplains filled up repeatedly with silt, causing great and frequent floods. Newly rocky and unproductive farm fields were deserted. Entire towns, such as Beaver Creek in the Whitewater Valley, which experienced 28 floods in 1938, had to be abandoned.
Conservation practices used in the old country, such as planting trees, manuring the fields, maintaining pastures, rotating crops, or even carrying soil back uphill, were forgotten.
Despite poor farming practices and the ecological destruction that was occurring here only eight decades ago, something happened to bring back much of the beautiful forest that we enjoy so much today.
Richard J. Dorer is the one we largely have to thank. He was a crusading conservationist who worked for the state and was instrumental in passage of the 1961 legislation creating the Minnesota Memorial Hardwood Forest. A million acres of land in the Driftless region was designated for multiple uses of timber production, erosion control, water conservation, wildlife habitat and public recreation.
The Richard J. Dorer Memorial Hardwood State Forest, renamed in his honor, is unique in that the state never intended for it to be locked up as a wilderness. In fact, the state does not own most of the million acres—only 45,000 acres is managed by the Department of Natural Resources. The rest remains in private ownership.
Despite its successes in stemming the environmental damage to our hardwood forests, the full vision of the Dorer Hardwood Forest is far from accomplished. Local opposition and lack of state funding through the 1960s and 1970s stalled land acquisition. Today, much of it remains no longer forested or still awaiting better timber management. Professional foresters are overworked, and full sustainable management of privately owned forests to benefit the land and the economy remains out of reach. Meanwhile, new threats of invasive species and climate change loom over our woodlands.
Orange Dream Smoothie
Did you know that orange peels are not only edible, but provide tremendous nutrients? The rind is loaded with victims C and A, fiber, enzymes, pectin and flavonoids. Try using the whole orange in this smoothie, or start with part of the peel. Scrub the orange first with dish soap and hot water, in case it was waxed or sprayed.
Place in a blender:
1 cup milk or plain yogurt
1 large unpeeled orange, cut into pieces
1/2 teaspoon vanilla
1-2 tablespoons real maple syrup or honey, to taste
1 cup of ice
Blend on high at least one minute or longer, until smooth and creamy.