Leopold Bench Winner

At the May 21st Leopold Heritage Group program, all sign in slips from April & May programs were gathered together and a name was drawn for the winner of the Leopold Bench. It was made and donated by Jim Hilkin, utilizing the basic design created by Aldo Leopold. Kaye Hanna of Burlington won the bench - she attended the very first program in the Leopold Loft at Starr's Cave Nature Center when winners of the "Wild Words and Art Contest" were announced. Thanks to all who supported the 2009 series of lectures, outdoor hikes, film previews & readings. We will continue to bring information about local Leopold connections - such as the opening of the new Aldo Leopold Middle School, the Leopold Energy Fair, and more. Feedback to the blog or LHG committee members is welcome.

Photos from the Wildflower Walk

Leopold Heritage Group sponsored a Wildflower Walk on Sunday at Dankwardt Park. Here are some photos from the day.



Yellow violet



Wake robin (Sessile trillium)



Violets



Spring beauties



Spring beauties



Ellen Fuller, right, was our guide.



Blue violets

Bird watching at Starr's Cave

A group of 12 folks gathered in the parking lot at Starr's Cave Nature Center this morning to take a hike down the road with leadership of Chuck Fuller to spot resident & migrant birds in the area. Jerry wrote down 37 species - many which you can see daily in the area, others are passing through on their annual migration. Some were first identified by their
"songs", others by their habits of flicking their tails or "flitting" from branch to branch. We consulted the Sibley's bird guide regularly and challenged ourselves to trace a tree trunk or branch with binoculars so we could spot the tiny, colorful, treetop residents. Those who stayed beyond the gray rainy start were rewarded by a view of the great horned owl fledglings, yellow throated warbler, indigo bunting, water thrush, parula warbler and more, viewed from the bridge across Flint Creek in sunshine, as we concluded this Leopold Heritage Event. We also identified spring beauties, prairie trillium, rue anemone, dutchman's breeches spring blooms along the path - and a few of the dreaded invasive garlic mustard- which we pulled & deposited in the trash! Hope to see you tomorrow at Crapo park as there will be beautiful unique trillium, celandine, and other wildflowers to see with the guidance of Ellen Fuller at 2 p.m. The outdoors is a place to rejuvenate & appreciate - see you there! Lois Rigdon
April 25, 2009 Bird Walk at Starr’s Cave
1. Canada Goose
2. Wood Duck
3. Mallard
4. Double Crested Cormorant
5. Great Blue Heron
6. Broad-winged Hawk
7. Turkey Vulture
8. Mourning Dove
9. Great Horned Owl
10. Red-bellied Woodpecker
11. Downy
12. Northern Flicker
13. Eastern Hpoebe
14. Blue Jay
15. Northern Rough Winged Swallow
16. Black Capped Chickadee
17. Tufted Titmouse
18. White Breasted Nuthatch
19. Carolina Wren
20. Ruby-crowned Kinglet
21. Blue-gray Gnatcatcher
22. Eastern Bluebird
23. American Robin
24. Brown thrasher
25. European Starling
26. Orange-crowned Warbler
27. Northern Parula Warbler
28. Yellow-rump Warbler
29. Yellow-throat Warbler
30. Common Yellow Throat
31. White-throat Sparrow
32. Northern Cardinal
33. Indigo Bunting
34. Red-winged Blackbird
35. Brown headed Cowbird
36. Common Crackle
37. House Finch
38. American Goldfinch
39. House Sparrow

Wild Words & Art - Winners are online

With apologies for the delay, a link to the page containing the first-, second- and third-place poems, essays and drawings from the Leopold Heritage Group's third annual Wild Words & Art contest. Click here to go directly to the page.

Winners to be announced Sunday

You can read winning entries in the Leopold Heritage Group's third annual Wild Words & Art contest at www.leopoldheritage.org beginning this Sunday. Winners will be recognized at a 2 p.m. Sunday event at Leopold's Loft at Starr's Cave Nature Center north of Burlington.

Trading a bluff for a hollow

By RANDY MILLER

rmiller@thehawkeye.com

As spring approaches, the clock is ticking on my move away from my beloved piece of the bluff high above the Case New Holland grounds.

We purchased the property on Highland Avenue nearly 13 years ago and recently realized we’ve lived there the longest either I or my wife, Jene, have lived anywhere in our lifetimes. It is home.

Over the years while working to restore the property built in 1895 by C.H. Mohland, a lawyer and businessman, we’ve been visited by many critters, including deer, which sometimes bed down in a cozy corner of the bluff on cold winter nights, and groundhogs that roll along in a bundle of fur and then magically stretch out to three feet tall when they stand erect to sniff the air.

Of course, raccoons have been a constant attraction and occasional nuisance over the years, including just Friday when they got into the trash for the umpteenth time. One spring we watched as a litter of kits grew up in the hollow of the tulip tree on the south side. They would sit in the crook of a high bough and stare at us in the evenings as we watched them from the second-story porch.

We’ve also had black snakes and moles and even a skunk that wandered around the corner of the porch one spring evening when Jene was sitting on the porch swing. She at first thought it was a cat and was going to reach out to pet it, then quickly exited the area when she realized it was not.

We will be trading the bluff, which I named Redbud Ridge because I have nurtured a dozen redbuds along the backside of the house over the years, for a piece of Bonn’s Hollow on South Main Street.

We need to downsize, to simplify, and the 1915 Craftsman-style brick house in the 1600 block is just right. The steep and heavily wooded piece of the hollow behind the house won’t be as large or as easy to traverse as the switchbacks of the bluff that I came to know so well, but it still will be a place to occasionally commune with nature, which is essential to my well being.

•••

The clock also is ticking on the third annual Aldo Leopold Wild Words & Art contest. The deadline for submission of poems, essays and drawings is 5 p.m. Friday, March 20.

Entries in the three age categories aren’t exactly pouring in yet, but like most writers and artists, procrastination seems to be in the DNA.

The theme this year is “The Outdoors and You,” chosen to focus on people’s personal interaction with the natural environment. Winners, to be chosen by a panel of teachers, artists and writers, will receive $50 for first place, $30 for second place and $20 for third place, as well as a copy of Leopold’s “A Sand County Almanac.”

 The contest’s three age categories are: middle school, grades six through eight; high school, grades nine through 12; and college and adult. Entries will be accepted from Iowa, Illinois and Missouri residents living within a 50-mile radius of Burlington.

The contest is sponsored by the Leopold Heritage Group, with support from the Humanities Iowa Board, The Hawk Eye, the Aldo Leopold chapter of Pheasants Forever, Burlington Education Association and Des Moines County Conservation Board.

 For more information, complete contest rules and how to submit entries, go to the Web site www.leopoldheritage.org.

Winning entries will be published in The Hawk Eye on Sunday, April 19, and presented at a special event that day at Starr's Cave Nature Center.

February - "Good Oak"

The February essay of A SAND COUNTY ALMANAC by Aldo Leopold is a favorite of mine. Leopold traces history through the rings of the oak log heating his Wisconsin shack retreat.
"GOOD OAK"

"There are two spiritual dangers in not owning a farm. One is the danger of supposing that breakfast comes from the grocery, and the other that heat comes from the furnace. To avoid the first danger, one should plant a garden, preferably where there is no grocer to confuse the issue. To avoid the second, he should lay a split of good oak on the andirons, preferably where there is no furnace, and let it warm his shins while a February blizzard tosses the trees outside. If one has cut, split, hauled, and piled his own good oak, and let his mind work the while, he will remember much about where the heat comes from, and with a wealth of detail denied to those who spend the week end in town astride a radiator."

"The particular oak now aglow on my adnirons grew on the bank of the old emigrant road where it climbs the sandhill. The stump, which I measured upon felling the tree, has a diameter of 30 inches. It shows 80 growth rings, hence the seedling from which it originated must have laid its first ring of wood in 1865, at the end of the Civil War..."

Later he chronicles history as they cut down a tree. "It took only a dozen pulls of the saw to transect the few years of our ownership, during which we had learned to love and cherish this farm. Abruptly we began to cut the years of our predecessor the bootlegger, who hated this farm, skinned it of residual fertility, burned its farmhouse, threw it back into the lap of the County(with delinquent taxes to boot), and then disappeared among the landless anonymities of the Great Depression. Yet the oak had laid down good wood for him; his sawdust was as fragrant, as sound, and as pink as our own. An oak is no respecter of persons. The reign of the bootlegger ended sometime during the dust-bowl drouths of 1936, 1934,1933, and 1930. Oak smoke from his still and peat from burning marshlands must have clouded the sun in those years, and alphabetical conservation was abroad in the land, but the sawdust shows no change. Rest! cries the chief sawyer, and we pause for breath....."

Please read more. These excerpts taken from the Tamarack Press edition, distributed by Oxford University Press, 1977

Leopold contest seeks Wild Words & Art

By RANDY MILLER — From The Hawk Eye, Feb. 1, 2009

Calling all scribes and scribblers — or authors and artists, if you prefer.

It’s time to kick off the third annual Wild Words & Art writing and drawing contest, so pull your chair up to the window, gaze out at the snowy backyard and bright red cardinals for inspiration and get to writing and drawing.

The theme this year is very simple: “The Outdoors and You.” The deadline for submissions is March 20.

The theme was chosen to emphasize how people observe and interact with the natural environment, not about pickup basketball games.

The contest is designed to foster creative writing and drawing and expose area residents to the philosophy and teachings of Aldo Leopold, a Burlington native who is considered an early leader of the modern environmental movement and author of “A Sand County Almanac.”

Cash prizes will be awarded in three age categories for essays, poetry and art works, $50 for first place, $30 for second place and $20 for third place. Art contest entries must be pen-and-ink, graphite pencil or charcoal on 8 1/2-by-11-inch paper.

Each winner also will receive a copy of  “A Sand County Almanac.”

The age divisions are middle school, grades six to eight; high school, nine to 12; and adult and college student. (Hint to area high schoolers: There were no entries in this division last year.)

Written entries will be read at an awards presentation at 2 p.m. April 19, at Starr’s Cave Nature Center as one of several activities scheduled by the Leopold Heritage Group.

“Sand County” is a collection of essays Leopold wrote in the 1940s while observing nature at “the shack,” a small farm he bought and restored along with him family on the Wisconsin River near Baraboo, Wis. 

The “shack” was an old chicken coop converted into rough living quarters when the family visited the farm on weekends. It has been preserved and is now on the National Register of Historic Places.

Leopold’s core philosophy was that mankind needs to move toward a more harmonious relationship with nature and the natural world. He originated the term “land ethic,” in which people see themselves as a part of the natural world rather than owners of the land.

“The land ethic simply enlarges the boundaries of the community to include soils, waters, plants and animals, or collectively, the land,” he wrote.

One of the most-quoted passages from the book is: “We abuse land because we regard it as a commodity belonging to us. When we see land as a community to which we belong, we may begin to use it with love and respect.”

Leopold also was a strong advocate of maintaining wild places and was a co-founder of the Wilderness Society, arguing that humans cannot be truly free if they no longer have any wild places in which to roam.

Leopold was born in 1887 and grew up on Clay Street at the top of the bluff just south of downtown Burlington, where daily he could watch the hustle and bustle on the riverfront in the pioneer community.

From an early age, he was a keen observer of nature, keeping a journal of writings and drawings of animals and bird sightings encountered during wanderings around the still primitive town. He retained that innate attachment to nature throughout his life and enjoyed nothing more than taking a walk alone through a timber or along a riverbank.

The contest is sponsored by the Leopold Heritage Group, with support from The Hawk Eye, the Burlington Fine Arts League, the Aldo Leopold chapter of Pheasants Forever, the Burlington Education Association and Des Moines County Conservation Board.

Wild Words & Art rules, guidelines

Wild Words & Art is a writing and drawing contest inspired by "A Sand County Almanac," a collection of essays by Burlington native and naturalist Aldo Leopold. 

Entries will be accepted starting today. Deadline to submit essays, poems and drawings is 5 p.m. March 20.

Writing entries may be e-mailed to contest@leopoldheritage.org, or dropped off at or mailed to The Hawk Eye, 800 S. Main St., Burlington, Iowa 52601. Entries in the art contest must be mailed or dropped off at the newspaper office during regular business hours, 8 a.m. to 5:30 p.m. weekdays.

Mark mailed entries to the attention of Wild Words & Art.

The theme of this year’s contest, which is coordinated by the Leopold Heritage Group, is "The Outdoors and You."

Rules are as follows:

• The contest has three age ranges for entrants: middle school (gr. 6-8); high school (gr. 9-12); college/adult.

• Entries will be accepted from Iowa, Illinois and Missouri residents living within a 50-mile radius of Burlington, Iowa.

• All entries must include the entrant's name, address, phone number or e-mail address and name of the division being entered: Middle school, high school or college/adult.

• Incomplete or inaccurate contact information will result in disqualification of the entry.

• Poetry — Minimum 10 lines, maximum 30 lines. Include a title. Typewritten only.

• Essays — Written in first- or third-person. Must be 250 to 600 words. Include a title. Typewritten only.

• Art — Black and white, pen and ink, pencil or charcoal only on 8 1/2-inch x 11 inch paper. Submit originals only. No copies. Non-winning artwork will be returned upon request.

• Judging will be by a panel of teachers, writers, artists and naturalists. Winners will be selected on the basis of connection to the contest theme, overall quality of work submitted and adherence to contest rules.

• Winning entries will become the property of Leopold Heritage Group.

Prizes will be awarded to the first three places in each category, with $50 for first; $30 for second; and, $20 for third. Winners also will receive a copy of “A Sand County Almanac,” and will be invited to participate in an award ceremony and reading at Starr’s Cave Nature Center on April 19.

First-place winners will be published April 19 in the Lifestyle section of The Hawk Eye. Second- and third-place entries will be published at leopoldheritage.org.

The contest is coming

Wild Words & Art, the third annual writing and drawing contest organized by the Leopold Heritage Group in Burlington, Iowa, will make its debut Feb. 1. Visit www.leopoldheritage.org for rules for entering.

December & January - Notes on A SAND COUNTY ALMANAC

Aldo Leopold's essays about December events on his sand hill property in Wisconsin are expansive. They include reflections on banding birds such as chickadees and tracking nature's residents in the snowy fields as well as ruminations on various observations of his beloved pines.
His essays constantly remind us of his propensity and pleasure in keeping track of nature's details.

"PINES ABOVE THE SNOW" "It is in midwinter that I sometimes glean from my pines something more important than woodlot politics, and the news of the wind and weather. This is especially likely to happen on some gloomy evening when the snow has buried all irrelevant detail and the hush of elemental sadness lies heavy upon every living thing. Nevertheless, my pines, each with his burden of snow, are standing ramrod-straight, rank upon rank, and in the dusk beyond I sense the presence of hundreds more. At such times I feel a curious transfusion of courage."

"JANUARY THAW" Leopold follows the track of a skunk which has awakened early from winter hibernation by a warm & sunshiney January day and the sounds of melting ice. "The months of the year, from January up to June, are a geometric progression in the abundance of distractions. In January one may follow a skunk track, or search for bands on the chickadees, or see what young pines the deer have browsed, or what muskrat houses the mink have dug, with only an occasional and mild digression into other doings. January observation can be almost as simple and peaceful as snow, and almost as continuous as cold. There is time not only to see who has done what, but to speculate why..." "The skunk track leads on, showing no interest in possible food, and no concern over the rompings or retributions of his neighbors. I wonder what he has on his mind: what got him out of bed? Can one impute romantic motives to this corpulent fellow, dragging his ample beltline through the slush? Finally the track enters a pile of driftwood, and does not emerge. I hear the tinkle of dripping water among the logs, and I fancy the skunk hears it too. I turn homeward, still wondering."
These excerpts are taken from "A Sand County Almanac: With Essays on Conservation" published by Oxford University Press, N.Y, a new illustrated edition with photographsby Michael Sewell and introduction by Kenneth Brower, 2001.