sna poems, series anthropocenum #25: merry christmas mine

March 22, 2025 / jriyeff / Leave a comment

on my spring break we headed west. not too far west, but over past the johnstown moraine that marks where the last glacier stopped, into what we call round these parts the drifltess area.

lit out to mineral point and merry christmas mine, where early wisconsin settlers mined galena (a lead mineral) and dug the holes in the side of the hill to live in. this led to our nickname as “the badger state,” b/c they lived like badgers in holes in the ground, for a while at least. the depression in the picture above is an example of what’s left of them.

nice stop, lots of fun. hadn’t sat under the sun surrounded by plants (dead or alive) for a few months, so no complaints here. sandhill cranes coming back over head.

merry christmas mine

at high noon

walking on spring’s cusp

my daughter sketching

a new life

on the fallen grass

oak buds releasing

their fluid

in light march breezes

sna poems, series supplementum #44: newell and ann meyer nature preserve

April 3, 2024April 3, 2024 / jriyeff / Leave a comment

this preserve is 652 acres donated by the meyers a ways back. there’s oak savanna, a wood, wetland, and small agricultural land that the nature conservancy is sprucing up back into prairie. they had just done a burn on some of the restored prairie before we arrived.

the morning was turning from sprinkly to downright rainy by the time we got there, and the rain only got heavier. but an enjoyable walk anyhow, and in ways even more so for all the wet. willows and hazels putting out catkins, lots of fungus, serious lichen colonies on the shagbark hickory, sandhills calling once again, and, most surprisingly, two swans flew into the wetland as we watched them from the wood.

first id of what i think is bark mycena (the tiniest mushroom you ever did see).

downwind from the burn

bird partners

two white rafts enmarshed

log fungal splendors

all ruddy—

the shins growing wet

sna poems series anthropocenum #24: paradise springs

March 16, 2024 / jriyeff / Leave a comment

oh man, there’s been so much family health stuff going on! been a bit of a challenge to get out for a walk around the neighborhood let alone hiking hither and yon. took the chance on thursday to set out off west with my dad to get some walking in.

started with a light rain as we set out on i-94 but was a steady fall by the late morning when we left our second site. worth it, and a cold ride home.

paradise springs is a spring site that goes back well over a hundred years with a spring house, dam, and mill that are all now in ruins. quite a place though—so much water coming out of the main spring; wild. a nice morning jaunt, none too strenuous but a nice little wood and pond. dad happened on a small community of chipmunks behind the spring house that were having quite a time running up and down the hill in back. lots of chatter.

on our way to the car, we noticed a birch that had immensely thick bark going 20-30 ft off the ground. by far the oldest birch i’ve seen. in awe.

first id (methinks) of dust lichen.

grass and moss along

the cobbles

gray missing of work

so much springwater—

the silly

things we’re surprised by

century’s portal

wet stone scent

chipmunks’ secret life

birch bark, friends. birch bark.

sna poems #149: hook lake bog

January 3, 2024July 3, 2024 / jriyeff / Leave a comment

hook lake bog is a soft bog in a glacial pocket in dane cty. as the wdnr website explains, the lake is almost completely filled in at this point, with bog, meadow, and tamarack wood along with floating sedge mats slowly making the spot land again. other habitats surrounding.

my brother and i parked alongside the road and walked into the site b/t two houses. a little encouragement from a 6yo playing in his backyard and a turn into a small wood and we came upon hook lake. the description was right; there was open water around but lots of sedge mats, some big enough to look like the mainland, some small floating islands. we choose a couple islands close to shore and hopped along some tussocks. when we got on—after a misstep that landed my brother’s leg into the bogmud above the knee (no waders here…)—we found to our delight that it was a serious quaking bog. the ground rippled beneath our feet, and when the other person jumped the whole mat undulated with land-waves. i’d been on quaking mats before, but not such dramatically obvious ones. a real treat. a whole little world of moss, sedge, and cranberry, getting on toward dusk.

first id of wild cranberry!

making on the mat

a quaking

sea of moss towers

lovely burgundy

spiralled leaves

quiet on the lake

sna poems #142: observatory hill

June 27, 2023July 3, 2024 / jriyeff / Leave a comment

observatory hill in marquette cty is a large outcropping of rhyolite almost two billion years old. tallest point in the cty, oak and hickory forest on the slope, a spectacular glade community toward the top open to the sun.

we spent a good amount of time soaking it up in the glade, laying on the rhyolite. first id of motherwort and tall wood sorrel!

the hickories proud

in the sun

spiderwort in bloom

the glade lives exposed

rhyolite

and blue dragonflies

sna poems #134: high cliff escarpment

January 6, 2023 / jriyeff / Leave a comment

high cliff escarpment state natural area is inside high cliff state park in calumet cty, wisconsin on the eastern shore of lake winnebago. here is a fantastic length of exposure of the niagra escarpment, the dolostone rock formation that arcs from southeastern wisconsin to niagra falls.

a hardwood forest atop the escarpment contains a number of effigy mounds, mostly water panthers and a set of twin buffaloes. the combination of the gloaming, shagbark hickories, mounds, and limestone was exquisite. three lunes here to celebrate.

three generations of riyeffs up and down the cliffs. last sna in calumet cty!

lake winnebago

quietly

all the frozen waves

spreading tobacco

on the mounds

no bird call, no stars

the ledge tumbling

so slowly

thousands of sunsets

sna poems #132: point beach ridges

November 30, 2022 / jriyeff / Leave a comment

point beach ridges is, according to the wdnr website, a series of 11 swales and ridges parallel to the current lake michigan shoreline in manitowoc cty. the ridges and swales are former beaches of the last eight millennia that used to border glacial lake nipissing. open blowing sand near the lake to juniper/bearberry dunes to swampy swales to fully forested ridges give this site a tremendously varying quality. super fun to hike, and we had a gorgeous late-autumn day for it.

last visit to walk all of manitowoc cty’s snas.

first id’s of bearberry, bunchberry, birch polypore, and dune goldenrod! first non-bog id of sphagnum moss. (thanks to twitter folks for help with recent ids)

beech leaves under ice

sunlight in

thru cedar swamp boughs

newest beach’s dunes

juniper

comes to view from sand

waves under midday sun

galloping

to the chilled shingle

these tiny dune-lasts

circling

the sea’s own leavings

clouds in western sky

stranded strips

of yellow birch bark

o kinnickkinnick

bearberry

bless and grace this beach!

sna poems #131: nipissing swamp

November 28, 2022 / jriyeff / Leave a comment

nipissing swamp is, according to the wdnr website, the largest remnant hardwood swamp in northeastern wisconsin. fascinatingly, the swamp is in a wetland basin that was formerly a lagoon of glacial lake nipissing (which name refers to an indigenous nation in canada). the beach can still be seen in remnant dunes and barrens.

it was gun deer hunting season last weekend, and our blaze orange was in the other vehicle, so we didn’t go in deep. but even getting off the road a bit was a delight. across the first swampy swale and onto the first ridge, balancing on downed logs across the mud. the club moss was out in droves and soaking up the late-autumn sun. gorgeous swamp weather with birch and cedar swaying above.

in the place of elms

club mosses

have taken the hill

branches sway for sky

only pen

no gun in my hand

needles scruff my neck

watering

horsegrass in cool breeze

sna poems, #129: south bluff/devil’s nose

October 21, 2022 / jriyeff / Leave a comment

just under 3,500 acres in the baraboo hills abutting the southern shore of devil’s lake, south bluff/devil’s nose is (by southern wi standards) a huge swath of oak and maple forest. according to the dnr’s website, it’s home to a number of rare birds and plants, and pine glen and messinger creek are found here, though we didn’t encounter these this trip. devil’s nose is the eastern end of south bluff, along where the railroad curves out and away from devil’s lake.

our trip was up the first, northwestern-most bluffside in the site, as the kids were along. but they had already hiked the east bluff and gone to ski-hi (apple orchard) by this time, so i was immensely impressed by their stamina and eagerness on this gorgeous, off-trail, up-bluff, windy, sometimes a little rainy hike. it was a fabulous time, and my first time on the south bluff after nearly forty years of visiting devil’s lake. will be coming back.

p.s. my camera was struggling w/ our starting to lose the light on an overcast midwestern day, so photos a little rough. i’ve taken a few sharper images from my wife’s too.

the maples blowing

are the bluffs’

evening offering

the yellowing oaks

keep secrets

above the south shore

under fall shower

the plantain

seeds stand just waiting

a quartzite fern-stand

lovely at none

over dead bear cone

sna poems, #116: pine hollow

April 28, 2022 / jriyeff / Leave a comment

a winding rural road up one of the baraboo hills out past baxter’s hollow took us to the top of pine hollow. pine hollow sna is a sandstone and baraboo quartzite gorge roughly 300 ft deep w/ flanking cliffs as high as 80 ft (according to the dnr’s page). a wide variety of life here, as the deep gorge affords a variety of habitats. hemlocks and white pines tower over the cliffs.

moss and ferns lie thick on the ground along the stream bed. there’s also a sedge meadow at the bottom of the hollow, but we spent our time up in the stony heights.

a late spring snow was falling and swirling up and down the gorge while icicles hung off the outcrops along with the moss and liverworts. trackless and gorgeous (pun very much intended). also, a first id of rattlesnake plantain.

spring snow in the pines

bare sand stone

and conglomerate