Leopold Heritage Group — Burlington, Iowa

New blog site

2010-01-09T21:47:00.002-06:00

The Leopold Heritage Group blog is now being maintained at www.leopoldheritage.org. Older posts will remain here.

Leopold Bench Winner

2009-05-26T20:19:00.003-05:00

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

2009-04-27T15:02:00.006-05:00

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

2009-04-25T19:00:00.004-05:00

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

2009-04-20T09:32:00.006-05:00

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

2009-04-15T10:20:00.003-05:00

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

2009-03-02T09:11:00.002-06:00

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"

2009-02-24T09:15:00.009-06:00

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

2009-02-01T08:01:00.000-06:00

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

2009-02-01T08:00:00.002-06:00

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

2009-01-26T14:57:00.001-06:00

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

2009-01-25T13:23:00.006-06:00

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.

November "If I Were the Wind"

2008-11-24T10:40:00.003-06:00

This is an excerpt from "A Sand County Almanac" by Aldo Leopold, from the 1977 Tamarack Press edition. Leopold's poetic description of Fall weather, and life's lessons taught by having a woodlot and cutting firewood are chronicled in the November essays.
"The wind that makes music in November corn is in a hurry. The stalks hum, the loose husks whisk skyward in half-playful swirls, and the wind hurries on. In the marsh, long windy waves surge across the grassy sloughs, beat against the far willows. A tree tries to argue, bare limbs waving. but there is no detaining the wind" ...
"Out of the clouds I hear a faint bark, as of a far-away dog. It is strange how the world cocks its ears at that sound, wondering. Soon it is louder: the honk of geese, invisible, but coming on. The flock emerges from the low clouds, a tattered banner of birds, dipping and rising, blown up and blown down, blown together and blown apart, but advancing, the wind wrestling lovingly with each winnowing wing. When the flock is a blur in the far sky I hear the last honk, sounding taps for summer"

October - "Smoky Gold"

2008-11-24T10:18:00.004-06:00

Excerpts from "A Sand County Almanac" by Aldo Leopold, edition published by Tamarack Press, l977. In the essay "Smoky Gold" Leopold, accompanied by his dog, reveals his hunts for grouse, ducks and deer, are also opportunities to appreciate nature's bounty.
"There are two kinds of hunting: ordinary hunting, and ruffed-grouse hunting. There are two places to hunt grouse: ordinary places and Adams County. There are two times to hunt in Adams: ordinary times, and when the tamaracks are smoky gold. This is written for those luckless ones who have never stood, gun empty and mouth agape, to watch the golden needles come sifting down, while the feathery-rocket that knocked them off, sails unscathed into the jackpines."
"The tamaracks change from green to yellow when the first frosts have brought woodcock, fox sparrows, and juncos out of the north. Troops of robins are stripping the last white berries from the dogwood thickets, leaving the empty stems as a pink haze against the hill. The creekside alders have shed their leaves, exposing here and there an eyeful of holly. Brambles are aglow, lighting your footsteps grouseward. The dog knows what is grouseward better than you do. You will do well to follow him closely, reading from the cock of his ears the story the breeze is telling." Essays "Too Early" and "Red Lanterns" continue Leopold's reflections on the hunting theme.

July "Great Possessions"

2008-11-24T09:49:00.004-06:00

Excerpts from "A Sand County Almanac" edition published by Tamarack Press, 1977.

Leopold's July essays entitled "Great Possessions" recount his joy in land along the Wisconsin River as he rises early to listen to its "tenants". His poetic expressions of dawn bird song combine with his scientist's proclivity for documenting each note.

..."This daily ceremony...begins with the utmost decorum...At 3:30 a.m. with such dignity as I can muster of a July morning, I step from my cabin door, bearing in my hand my emblems of sovereignty, a coffee pot and notebook. I seat myself on a bench, facing the white wake of the morning star. I set the pot beside me. I extract a cup from my shirt front, hoping none will notice its informal mode of transport. I get out my watch, pour coffee, and lay notebook on knee. This is the cue for the proclamations to begin.

At 3:35 the nearest field sparrow avows, in a clear tenor chant, that he holds the jackpine copse north to the riverbank, and south to the old wagon track...Before the field sparrows have quite gone the rounds, the robin in the big elm warbles loudly his claim to the crotch where the icestorm tore off a limb, and all appurtenances pertaining thereto (meaning, in his case, all the angleworms in the not-very-spacious subjacent lawn). The robin's insistent caroling awakens the oriole, who now tells the world of orioles that the pendant branch of the elm belongs to him, together with all fiber-bearing milkweed stalks near by, all loose strings in the garden, and the exclusive right to flash like a burst of fire from one of these to another.

My watch says 3:50. The indigo bunting on the hill asserts title to the dead oak limb left in the 1936 drought, and to divers near-by bugs and bushes. He does not claim, but I think he implies, the right to out-blue all bluebirds, and all spiderworts that have turned their faces to the dawn. ...

I encourage you to continue reading "Prairie Birthday" as well as "The Green Pasture and "The Choral Copse" which are August and September essays. LR

Hard at work

2008-11-19T14:10:00.002-06:00

The Leopold Heritage Group is hard at work planning activities Aldo Leopold Month and Earth Day in 2009. Your suggestions for new activities or revisions to old ones are welcome. Please post comments here, or write to leopoldheritage@gmail.com.

Thank you.

Thomas Dean & Steve Semken "Nature Writing & Publishing"

2008-05-19T21:54:00.002-05:00

When the Leopold Heritage Group invited Thomas Dean of Iowa City to discuss the book "Grace of Grass & Water" on May 4, it was with the idea of introducing another Midwest nature writer, Paul Gruchow. Although I knew that Tom had one of the essays in the book, which contains tributes by several well-known authors to Gruchow, their colleague, I didn't realize that he had been a very valued and personal friend. The essays in "Grace..." are moving and thoughtful reflections on the varied encounters and relationships the writers had with Gruchow, whose death by suicide was tragically anticipated. He was an eloquent writer with a sense of the importance of community and an affinity for the boundary waters of Canada/Minnesota, the prairies of Dakotas and Montana, as expressed in several books including" "Grass Roots: The Universe of Home", "Journal of a Prairie Year", and The Necessity of Empty Spaces". (NOTE: The Burlington Public Library now has a copy of "Grace of Grass & Water"). After Thomas Dean shared his comments, Steve Semken publisher of Ice Cube Press, North Liberty, Ia, addressed the audience at the Arts For Living Center, Burlington. Steve first developed a newsletter entitled "Sycamore Roots" which he shared with such noted writers as Wendell Berry, Wes Jackson, Barry Lopez and when they responded favorably he was encouraged to continue in the publishing venue. He is particularly interested in "place-based" writings and his list of successful books continues to grow.

Although this was the last program formally scheduled by the Leopold Heritage Group for 2008, members will continue to support community efforts to raise awareness of Aldo Leopold and his writings. The ecological balance which he investigated and spoke about, is still relevant today.

We are grateful to HUMANITIES IOWA, THE RAND LECTURE TRUST, BURLINGTON FINE ARTS LEAGUE for funding support for speakers and the "Wild Words & Art" contest awards.
Thanks very much to the Burlington Hawk Eye for promotion of the series of programs, the informative articles, the contest, for the "blog"and, also, to other area media. Thanks to Des Moines Co. Conservation Foundation for acting as fiscal agent. The film series at the Burlington Public Library and accessible meeting rooms there were real assets to our programs. Special thanks to all the committee members: Jerry & Lois Rigdon, Randy Miller, Kim Perlstein, Dave Riley, Judy Johnson, Rhonda Frevert, Steve Brower, LaVon Worley, Dan Ring, Ed Whitmore, Elaine Baxter, Robert Sayre.

Excerpts from May & June Essays by Aldo Leopold

2008-05-19T21:24:00.005-05:00

Here are parts of two more of Aldo Leopold's essays from "A Sand County Almanac", taken from the Illustrated Edition produced by Michael & Denise Sewell and Kenneth Brower, 2001, in conjunction with the Oxford University Press 1949 edition.

MAY - "Back from the Argentine"
When dandelions have set the mark of May on Wisconsin pastures, it is time to listen for the final proof of spring. Sit down on a tussock, cock your ears at the sky, dial out the bedlam of meadowlarks and redwings and soon you may hear it: the flight-song of the upland plover, just now back from the Argentine.
If your eyes are strong, you may search the sky and see him, wings aquiver, circling among the woolly clouds. If your eyes are weak, don't try it: just watch the fence posts. Soon a flash of silver will tell you on which post the plover has alighted and folded his long wings. Whoever invented the word "grace" must have seen the wing-folding of the plover...

Leopold reveals his love of fishing by sharing a trick of dangling his fly from the branch of an alder & allowing the breeze to drop it onto the pool of water above his quarry. A bit of philosophizing comes with the meditations on trout fishing.

JUNE "The Alder Fork --A Fishing Idyl"
...I sit in happy meditation on my rock, pondering, while my line dries again, upon the ways of trout and men. How like fish we are: ready, nay eager, to seize upon whatever new thing some wind of circumstance shakes down upon the river of time! And how we rue our haste, finding the gilded morsel to contain a hook. Even so, I think there is some virtue in eagerness, whether its object prove true or false. How utterly dull would be a wholly prudent man, or trout, or world! Did I say a while ago that I waited "for prudence' sake"? That was not so. The only prudence in fishermen is that designed to set the stage for taking yet another, and perhaps a longer, chance"...

Aldo Leopold Middle School

2008-05-13T10:46:00.004-05:00

The Burlington School Board on Monday voted 4-3 to name a new west side middle school for native son Aldo Leopold, taking a mulligan on the earlier decision to name the school Hawkeye Creek, a once pleasant but later fetid stream that flowed through the area where the school is being built and for which the city's Hawkeye Sewer is named today.

The 17-acre construction site includes land that had been timber, a tree-lined-but-rundown mobile home park and a couple of houses. One of the houses and two garages were sold and relocated, the trailers moved or scrapped, and trees cleared to make way for the school. The site is within the city and abuts a residential area on the east, railroad tracks on the south, church property on the west and Sunnyside Avenue on the north.

While the decision makes this school the first building or street in Leopold's hometown named for him, viewed through the lens of Leopold's writings, is the naming appropriate?

LHG & BPL "Film Series" during April

2008-04-22T11:45:00.002-05:00

Three films & discussions were offered at the Burlington Public Library as part of April 2008 events to help create awareness of the need for conservation of natural resources.

The films gave us opportunities to exchange ideas about some current environmental issues & we tried to frame discussions with Aldo Leopold in mind. Films (CDs) are available at the BPL & included: "Kilowatt Ours" about producing energy from coal & renewable energy options; "Respect Yo' Mama"- Recycling(special thanks to Hal Morton for landfill information), and "Who Killed the Electric Car?" -a history of electric cars to today's hybrids. Thanks to Dawn Hayslett and other library staff for organizing the series and to discussion leaders Dan Ring, Jerry Parks and Jerry Rigdon.

We would be interested in individual responses to the films and comments on whether we should continue to offer such activities?

And the winners are ...

2008-04-20T08:36:00.002-05:00

The Leopold Heritage Group would like to congratulate the winners in the Second Annual Wild Words & Art essay, poetry and drawing contest. The first-, second- and third-place entries can be read and viewed at www.leopoldheritage.org/2008winners.

Once you've viewed them, come back here to share your thoughts about them.

Notes on Susan Flader's Address about Aldo Leopold

2008-04-18T07:56:00.002-05:00

Susan Flader- emeritus Professor of Environmental History at the University of Missouri, Columbia - never met Aldo Leopold in person, yet she has dedicated much of the past 40 years in her study of him. When she speaks it is with a passion that conveys why she believes he is a pivotal figure in the American conservation movement. She has written several books about Leopold and is familiar with his roots in Burlington and the Midwest. She has poured over his letters in the archives at the University of Wisconsin and studied published and unpublished documents by Leopold as well as intensively reviewed the essays in A SAND COUNTY ALMANAC. Over the years, she has developed close associations with members of the Leopold family.

In her talk at the Burlington Library this Thursday, Ms. Flader addressed Leopold's ideas of "citizenship" illustrated through passages from many of his writings. Building on his personal and historical background, she traced the evolution of Aldo Leopold's thoughts about how to utilize and care for the land and wildlife. She explained the ups & downs of public & private responses to his ideas about grass-roots community involvement in preservation and restoration of the land. Looking to the future - Susan Flader talked about the example of the new Leopold Legacy Center which is an award winning LEED (green) building near the Leopold Shack outside Baraboo, WI. The Leopold Foundation has offices in the Leopold Legacy Center and Susan Flader is chairperson of the Foundation Board.

"ALDO LEOPOLD'S IOWA"

2008-04-06T21:25:00.002-05:00

(I’m sharing some of my notes from Robert Sayre’s talk at BPL on Saturday, April 5, which initiates the month of diverse Burlington programs celebrating Aldo Leopold. … Lois Rigdon)
Bob began by citing three influences in Iowa history in the early 1900’s which had formative effects on Aldo Leopold. These were: (1) Prairie School Architecture; (2) the Conservation Movement; (3) the Depression.
Sayre shared photos of outstanding examples of the Prairie School Architecture movement from Mason City –designs by Frank Lloyd Wright and Walter Burley Griffin, et. al. These were characterized by use of native and regional materials, natural colors. They were considered new ideas of the time and made to reflect the prosperity of owners, and a desire for urban comforts.
As he referenced the book “Places of Quiet Beauty” by Rebecca Conard which is a history of Iowa Parks, the audience learned that Dr. MacBride of UI is to be given much credit for recognizing the importance of the natural environment in Iowa. His name and others like Bohumil Shimek and Ada Hayden, who were important in Iowa’s early conservation efforts, are commemorated by having their names on state preserves. The early state park movement (1920) was envisioned to preserve outstanding or unique landscape features and for scientific interest. Later the purpose changed somewhat & parks were advocated for recreational value.
The emphasis on parks was not adequate protection for the land and wildlife habitat to people like Ding Darling and Aldo Leopold. In 1928 Leopold was commissioned to do the 1st Midwest game survey. A result was his developing philosophy that wildlife management should be encouraged through food and habitat on private property as well as public lands. This was stated eloquently in Leopold’s essay “Farmer as Conservationist”.
The effects of erosion during the depression years of the 30’s had its impact on wildlife habitat in Iowa. 49.6% of Iowa farms were occupied by tenants who often had to focus on production not conservation in their farming practices. Photos of Pete Wettach document that era and are the subject of Leslie Loveless’ book “A Bountiful Harvest”. Artworks such as “Mother Earth Laid Bare” by Alex Hogue (1938) and Grant Wood’s “Fall Plowing” also reflect the midwest landscape of that time.
Leopold’s observations of the importance of ecological balance in a landscape and his interest in preserving important elements such as native plants continued throughout his life. Robert Sayre’s talk provided a historic background of the early 1900 time in Iowa and wove those influences into Leopold’s life, giving us a better understanding of his views.

2008-04-01T19:20:00.003-05:00

Leopold's essays from A SAND COUNTY ALMANAC for April prove his keen ability for observing nature and his rare gift of writing about it. "Come High Water", "Sky Dance", "Bur Oak" and "Draba" resonate with events of the Spring season. In the essay "Sky Dance" Leopold reveals the display of the American Woodcock. Here is part of the selection, taken from the Illustrated Edition produced by Michael & Denise Sewell and Kenneth Brower, 2001, in conjunction with the Oxford University Press 1949 edition.

"SKY DANCE"

"I owned my farm for two years before learning that the sky dance is to be seen over my woods every evening in April and May. Since we discovered it, my family and I have been reluctant to miss even a single performance."

..."The stage props,like the opening hour, reflect the temperamental demands of the performer. The stage must be an open amphitheater in woods or brush, and in its center there must be a mossy spot, a streak of sterile sand, a bare outcrop of rock, or a bare roadway. Why the male woodcock should be such a stickler for a bare dance floor puzzled me at first, but I now think it is a matter of legs. The woodcock's legs are short, and his struttings cannot be executed to advantage in dense grass or weeds, nor could his lady see them there. I have more woodcocks than most farmers because I have more mossy sand, too poor to support grass."

"Knowing the place and the hour, you seat yourself under a bush to the east of the dance floor and wait, watching against the sunset for the woodcock's arrival. He flies in low from some neighboring thicket, alights on the bare moss, and at once begins the overture: a series of queer throaty peents spaced about two seconds apart, and sounding much like the summer call of the nighthawk."

"Suddenly the peenting ceases and the bird flutters skyward in a series of wide spirals, emitting a musical twitter. Up and up he goes, the spirals steeper and smaller, the twittering louder and louder, until the performer is only a speck in the sky. Then, without warning, he tumbles like a crippled plane, giving voice in a soft liquid warble that a March bluebird might envy. At a few feet from the ground he levels off and returns to his peenting ground, usually to the exact spot where the performance began, and there resumes his peenting."

Please read more of Aldo Leopold's April essays in A Sand County Almanac. Has anyone ever experienced the woodcock's performance in our SE Iowa area?

Grant supports April programs

2008-03-03T12:03:00.001-06:00

The Leopold Heritage Group was notified in late February of a grant award from Humanities Iowa of $2,780 in support of the April events honoring Aldo Leopold in Burlington.

In addition, the Rand Lecture Trust has donated $1,000 to cover the cost of an April speakers series and the Burlington Fine Arts League has contributed $450 toward the "Wild Words & Art" contest prizes.

Thanks to all.

Leopold on March

2008-02-29T14:35:00.005-06:00

MARCH Aldo Leopold's Essay from A SAND COUNTY ALMANAC, Oxford Press, 1949

"The Geese Return"

"One swallow does not make a summer, but one skein of geese, cleaving the murk of a March thaw, is the spring.

A cardinal, whistling spring to a thaw but later finding himself mistaken, can retrieve his error by resuming his winter silence. A chipmunk, emerging for a sunbath but finding a blizzard, has only to go back to bed. But a migrating goose, staking two hundred miles of black night on the chance of finding a hole in the lake, has no easy chance for retreat. His arrival carries the conviction of a prophet who has burned his bridges."

..."Once the first geese are in, they honk a clamorous invitation to each migrating flock, and in a few days the marsh is full of them. On our farm we measure the amplitude of our spring by two yardsticks: the number of pines planted, and the number of geese that stop. Our record is 642 geese counted in on 11 April 1946..."

* * *

Aldo Leopold on February

2008-02-08T15:10:00.000-06:00

One of my favorite essays from A SAND COUNTY ALMANAC by Aldo Leopold is " Good Oak" which is the February entry. First he presents his opinion about the understanding that comes from living on the land and living in town.
"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."*
*This is a quotation from an edition of A SAND COUNTY ALMANAC published by Tamarack Press, distributed through Oxford University Press, c1977, p. 12.

Later the essay chronicles history as he saws across the rings of an old oak tree which was felled by lightning and became their winter heat at the Wisconsin shack. Leopold recounts the most recent events of the last year backward to pioneer days as the saw cuts to the heart of the trunk.
You can trace Leopold's astute observations of the progress of the season in his writings in the classic A SAND COUNTY ALMANAC. I highly recommend it!

Aldo Leopold Visitors Center

2008-01-31T14:05:00.000-06:00

The Aldo Leopold Heritage Group has four of its members on a planning committee for a proposed Aldo Leopold visitors center here in Burlington. This idea originated in the Crapo Park Foundation with urging from the Great River Road Commission. This Commission works within the states laying adjacent to the Mississippi River to enhance and create sites of interest in the Mississppi River corridor.

The concept quickly moved from the Crapo Park Foundation into a broader perspective with the enlistment of various other interest groups of which the Aldo Leopold Heritgae group is one.

Information regarding this concept and the progress for it will be forth coming in local media.

Birthday reflections

2008-01-12T11:36:00.001-06:00

There is a post about Aldo Leopold's 12oth birthday, which would have been Friday, at PraireWorksInc.com.

Here's the link: http://www.prairieworksinc.com/2008/01/11/aldo-leopold/

Leopold Heritage Group

2008-01-09T11:41:00.000-06:00

Welcome to the blog site of the Leopold Heritage Group. We're just getting started with the Web as a tool to communicate the legacy of Burlington, Iowa native Aldo Leopold. For more information, visit our brand new Web site at www.leopoldheritage.org.