koshkonong corners is a 62-acre stretch of land contiguous with the lake koshkonong flood plain. a wonderful area, it has oak savanna, hard-wood swamp, sedge meadow, and wet-mesic prairie. restoration has been underway and continues to preserve a rare plant species and expand its population.
a very gracious ‘thank you’ to the private owner of koshkonong corners for allowing me to walk the land and take it all in on a gorgeous december morning.
lima bog is a four-acre hard water bog lake surrounded by forest. tamarack and muskrat lodges greeted us as we came out of the wood to the open wetland area. early morning in the bog with the lowing of cows in the distance: can’t beat it.
the johnstown terminal moraine is the edge where the green bay lobe of the last glaciation left the final heap of rock and sediment of glacial till. it’s out near johnstown in rock county (my home county), and continues up to northern wisconsin. yet another example of how my and my family’s lives have been shaped by glaciation, the road we took to go see it is the road my wife used to drive up as a young girl to get her dad’s paychecks! here’re views of the approach and the moraine itself (and work) from inside the van.
mckinley park is a lakefront park in milwaukee with a marina, beach, and other things going on. part of the shore has a long pile of rip-rap (tumbled rock and concrete) that my kids love to climb on. it’s a bit more treacherous these days, with lake michigan’s spray slicking the rocks in ways unexpected, beautiful, and (at times) dangerous. i was particularly taken by the ice display on driftwood last night.
Well: the original project of visiting all 28 State Natural Areas in Milwaukee, Ozaukee, Washington, Waukesha, and Racine Counties that I imagined when COVID-shutdown commenced is complete as of this morning with a visit to Fairy Chasm SNA. The original idea (visit each area, take one picture, write one three-line poem) blossomed out into many more pictures and poems, and two sub-series.
A HUGE thank you to my wife and kids (who’ve visited almost all of them with me), and to everyone who’s stopped here to read one, two, or all of them!
So: the original projection is done. But of course there are hundreds more SNAs, and I will press on visiting them and keep this project going as I’m able, since it has helped me to learn so much about the geology, natural history, and plant, animal, moss, lichen, and fungal communities of the world around me here in southeastern Wisconsin. But most of all, to forge connections with the earth itself (with all its various systems) and all these creatures who share our common home. So stay tuned if you like. 🙂
Here’s more:
a.
owls and kinglets at dawn
the chickadees keep us company—
rivulets into streams into seas
b.
we march along ridges
sky-jewel burning thru birches
logs thru translucent ice
c.
limestone my childhood’s rock
tumbled off unarticulated till—
death is worth this sedimentary brotherhood
d.
a downy woodpecker ensouls the sky
frost feathers leaf and moss
glaciers give bountiful gifts
e.
nature’s an abstraction. rock
and sand, water, bark and bird—
these touch the hand, creature the heart.
fairy chasm state natural area is a 22-acre plot of land surrounding—you guessed it—fairy chasm, a gorge thru which runs fish creek. the creek has worn thru unconsolidated glacial till and drains directly into lake michigan. the north side of the gorge has a micro-climate amenable to more northerly species, and a wood of white pine, white cedar, birches, and beech. the south side is gentler with juniper ground cover.
no wood-meres, water-elves, or other fairy-folk were spotted.
(i also took a detour into donges bay gorge natural area, since i parked there to get to fairy chasm…)
peat lake is a very shallow lake with a mucky bottom, with sedge meadow and cattail marsh stretches. lots of birds, not many fish. a delightful walk all around. and the lichen growing on the iron bar of the gate near the wildlife refuge area was stunning.
this site and the chiwaukee prairie were our first s.n.a.’s in kenosha county—two more to go! thanks to the wisconsin dnr for preserving this site.
chiwaukee prairie is one of the largest prairie complexes in wisconsin and one of the state’s most intact coastal wetlands. it spans thru-out a series of streets and houses, but has large segments of unbroken land too. it sits on swale and and ridge topography where lake michigan’s shoreline has receded in stages since the last ice age. over 400 species of plants find a home here.
tho’ mainly dormant now in late novemeber, the plant cover is still lovely in its dryness, especially in the winds off the lake. thanks to the wdnr for caring for this land, and to uw-parkside and the nature conservancy with helping acquire the land from developers.
Indian Mound Park in Sheboygan is a great sign of Wisconsin’s conflicted history. It is a treasure for how in 1966 the Sheboygan Garden Clubs saved the large group of effigy, conical, and linear mounds built here by Middle and Late Woodland indigenous inhabitants of Wisconsin (ca. 200 BCE-1000 CE). However, of course, the mounds would not have needed saving if the land hadn’t been ceded by local tribes thru dubious treaties long before. Nonetheless, I am supremely glad they remain here, along with the wetland downslope from the mounds (thru which runs Hartman Creek) and the very old beech trees thru-out the park. It is a tremendous place. Deer and water panther mounds—a real grace to visit on Thanksgiving. (If you’d like more on my perspective on the mounds, you can read that here.)
Delighted to have a short poem of mine from a couple years back featured in The Tide Rises, the Tide Falls!
Based on an afternoon spent on the shores of Lake Michigan up in Door County, the scene is shaped into a basic imitation of the Old English alliterative long line. (Four stresses, a caesura dividing the stresses in two, alliteration bridging the caesura.)
While you’re there, check out the other poems going on!
kohler park dunes is just a tremendous dune ecosystem along the shore of lake michigan. a home for several endangered plants, creeping juniper, white pines, broomrape and wormwood, et al. can’t wait to get back in the summer to see it at peak growth. our first state natural area in sheboygan county!
Jacob Riyeff 