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Tom's Blog

 

Off to the Southlands

Since the continuing snows continue to keep us from working efficiently on brush control, it seems like a good time to take a vacation. We are heading south, with the target of northern Florida and southern Georgia. One goal is to visit Tall Timbers Research Station, an outstanding pioneer in the use of prescribed fire for ecological purposes. Over the years I have read the Tall Timbers Fire Ecology Conference Proceedings with great interest (there is a complete set in Steenbock Library on the U.W.-Madison campus), first published in 1962. Also, Stephen Pyne's book on Fire in America has an extensive treatment on the history of fire as a habitat management tool in the southeast U.S. pine forests. I'm looking forward to seeing this interesting area. A full report when I return.

Distinguishing Bur and Black Oaks in the Winter

Bur oak (Quercus macrocarpa) and black oak (Q. velutina) are quite different oaks, but in the winter they look superficially similar. As part of our savanna tree database work, we need to be able to identify them. The bark is the best distinguishing characteristic.

The bur oak (photo on left) has thick bark that fractures in vertical linear segments. The black oak (photo on right) has much shallower fractures, which tend to be in rectangular pieces.

Once you get used to these bark differences, you can usually distinguish the two species even from a distance (bur oak on left, black oak on right, in photo below).

 

There are some other differences, but harder to see in winter. The acorns are quite different, since the bur oak acorn has a mossy cap. Also, bur oaks lose all their leaves whereas black oaks often hold on to some of theirs. If there is no snow on the ground, you might be able to find some leaves, which are really quite distinct. Bur oak leaves have rounded lobes, whereas black oak leaves have pointed lobes.

In our savanna restoration work, we have been favoring bur oaks, especially open-grown ones. The black oak is the common oak of the savannas associated with sand barrens. They are a much faster growing tree. In our work, if an open-grown bur oak is being crowded by a black oak, we remove the black.

Black oaks are more sensitive to oak wilt than burs, and we have lost quite a few large blacks to this disease.

 

The Chains Made All the Difference!

Access by vehicle to our ridge-top prairies and savannas has been iffy this winter because of the snow. Our "woods" road starts out with a sharp curve and a very steep uphill. You can't get a run on it because of the sharp curve, and once you are on the uphill straightaway the chances of getting stuck are fairly good. Once stuck, you have to carefully back down, which is tricky because of the sharp curve. We have had days when work had to be cancelled, an unsatisfactory situation.

I finally remembered chains. In the 1930s I grew up in a snow belt on the east side of Cleveland. In those days, roads were never plowed and my dad always put chains on the car. So I got chains for our pickup truck. Kathie, who has spent a lot of time skiing in California, installed the chains on the rear tires.

They made all the difference. Today, after a fairly fresh 9 inches of snow, I was able to drive to the top of the ridge without slipping once. Why didn't I think of chains before?

 

New High Resolution Air Photo

The air photo technology gets better and better. If your property is in the right county, and you are willing to pay a fair bit of money, you can often obtain an excellent air photo. The TerraServer web site permits a search by address, and brings up a series of air photos for the property. Today I was able to obtain a very clear high resolution photo taken 1 September 2007 of the area that includes Pleasant Valley Conservancy. The previous good air photo I had was from spring 2005.

Making this photo available on my web site requires considerable compromise, as the native photo size was 3000 X 3000 pixels (31 X 31 inches). This is an excellent size for a poster, but not very suitable for a web site. The photo exhibited here was reduced both in resolution to 72 pixels per inch, and in size to 750 X 750 pixels. You can still see a lot, but the image cannot be enlarged very much. Also, in order to keep the size as large as possible, I had to drop part of the wetland area.

The prairie and savanna areas really show, and all of our fire breaks and trails are quite visible. I plan to use this photo to create a new, more accurate, map of the property. I will do this in Corel Draw 12.0, the high-end drawing program I have been using for over 20 years. (I started with version 0.9!)

This image was taken in early September when all the prairie grasses were nicely visible. The south slope prairie remnants are very visible, and the three major planted prairies (Toby's, Pocket, and Valley) really stand out. The colors are sufficiently distinctive that one could probably construct a rough map of the vegetation

 

Meeting on Managing Data on Invasive Plant Species

Today and tomorrow is an interesting meeting here in Madison on acquiring and managing data on invasive plants. This meeting is sponsored by the Northcentral Integrated Pest Management Program and the Invasive Plants Association of Wisconsin. Also involved is the National Institute of Invasive Species Science, which is based at Colorado State University.

This meeting brings together researchers and land managers from most of the midwestern states, and a major goal is to let attendants share their approaches to acquiring and organizing invasive plant data. A lot of the talks had a strong GPS and GIS content, and there were many maps showing distribution of various invasive plants across various states.

Several sessions dealt with the use of personal digital assistants (PDAs) for use in the field. NIISS, the Nature Conservancy, and other groups have developed specialized software for use in these devices. There are lots of possiblities here, and interest in the use of these devices was high.

I was particularly impressed with the work being carried out in Minnesota and Michigan. Other states seem less far along.

A phrase I heard a number of times was "citizen-based monitoring", which makes good use of volunteers to survey broad areas of states. Another phrase was "rapid detection and early response", which means finding "new" invasive plants before they have become well established, and eradicating them. Several of the PDA devices were being fitted out so that intelligent nonscientists could take them in the field, record data, and bring them back for downloading into various regional or national databases. The idea here is that government sources lack the funding to do comprehensive studies and there are lots of volunteers who are willing to help.

I am sure this meeting is meeting its objectives, and folks will go home with lots of new ideas.

IPAW Annual Meeting

The annual meeting of the Invasive Plants Association of Wisconsin (IPAW) was held this evening at the UW-Madison Arboretum auditorium. The meeting included a social hour, banquet, reports from the board, and talks.

IPAW was formed in 2001 to serve as a statewide organization concerned with invasive plants in natural environments. (In this way, it contrasts with the agriculture-based organizations which are concerned with ag weeds, most of which are quite different than those invading natural areas.) I was one of the founders of IPAW, and in fact handled the initial incorporation of the organization with the Wisconsin Department of Financial Institutions. I also handled the application for nonprofit status, and served as the first treasurer.

IPAW has moved quite a ways since those early years. It has a nice web site (IPAW.org), a fine newsletter (Plants Out of Place), and a very active board. One of IPAW's early activities was establishing a list of the invasive plants of concern in Wisconsin. This list was based on the results of an extensive questionaire sent to a large number of people with various types of expertise. (This list can be seen on the web site.) Not surprising, garlic mustard is top of the list, followed by reed canary grass. Prominent among the top ten species are buckthorn and honeysuckle.

IPAW is primarily an educational organization, but it does have a small amount of political activity, focused primarily on establishing firmer laws for control of invasive plants. This work is beginning to bear fruit. A draft rule for the identification, classification, and control of invasive plants is now making the rounds for public input. See this link: http://dnr.wi.gov/invasives/classification/

One speaker at the annual meeting talked about the role of IPAW in the invasive plants network of midwestern states (Ohio, Indiana, Illinois, Michigan, Wisconsin, and Minnesota). Another talked about the attempts by the federal government to organize itself for the control of invasives, not only plants, but also animals.

But the main function of the annual meeting was to provide a chance for members to talk among themselves about matters of common interest. It was a very successful annual meeting!

Dealing With the Wood

Clearing a savanna generates a lot of trash wood. Some of it can be used for firewood, and the problem is to get this wood off the site without any damage. Conditions right now are ideal: cold weather and enough snow to cover (but not so much that work becomes difficult). We have made an arrangement with a local person who sells firewood. We give him all the parts of the downed trees that are large enough for firewood, and he cuts them up and hauls them away. This saves us a lot of money and he gets a lot of free firewood.

The small limbs are thrown on a burn pile. The crew usually has three or four burn piles going each day. If the weather is really cold, crew members can warm up near the fire from time to time.

Trucking the wood away. Paul Ihm has cut up enough wood to make a truck load. He will either store it nearby to let it age, or take it to his place of business. Firewood is heavy, so we need cold weather. Although we don't have to have snow, it helps protect the ground. This site is very near our newly planted Ridge Prairie, so we don't want gouges in the soil.

 

 

Getting rid of the small stuff. Sarah is using a chain saw to cut up the slash in pieces small enough to throw on the fire. Note that the brush pile is being braced against the stump of another tree that had been cut. When the brush pile is mostly burned up, this stump will be cut and thrown on the pile. The goal is to have essentially no woody materials left.

 

 

Finally Back to Brush Cutting

The warm weather and rain took care of most of the snow, so we could finally get back to our real work, brush cutting. Today was a sunny day with temperatures rising to almost 40 F. Susan, Heisley, and I worked on the brush in Unit 13.

When our work day started, it was still icy. Since we were going to work on top of the ridge, I took the truck. Our woods road is fairly steep, with a sharp turn just at the place where it gets the steepest. Fortunately our truck, a GMC Sierra, has an excellent 4-wheel drive low gear, and we crept steadily up to the top of the ridge. The Michler/Brown crew was already working on the East Basin (Unit 23), which is being cleared this winter. Unit 13 is near by, so the sound of chains saws mixed in with the sound of our brush cutter.

Susan and Heisley took turns running the brush cutter, while the other one treated. I treated too. We were cutting mainly brambles, but there was an occasional buckthorn, some gray dogwood, and small cherries. The brambles were mainly black raspberry, with a few blackberry and an occasional small patch of red raspberry. There were a few down logs within which the brambles were really proliferating.

This is fairly small brush, so we let it lie where it is cut. We plan to burn the unit in the spring, and the cut brush will provide additional fuel for the fire.

Long-Term Preservation of Digital Photos

Digital cameras are fast becoming indispensable. I now own three, and am using two of them often. However, as one who spent most of my life in the film era, I am concerned about how long digital photos will last. Remember: A digital photo is not really a photo. It is just a series of ones and zeroes. You need a computer to see an image.

How long will digital files last? I have been using computers since 1979 and have seen computer systems, and digital storage media, come and go. They deteriorate with time. Even more serious, the "readers" for digital information become outmoded and disappear from use. I started out using teletype punched tape, moved from there to punch cards, followed by 9-track tapes. These media can no longer be read. I also have Apple II floppy disks, 8" IBM floppy disks, 5.25" inch and 3.5" floppies, compact disks, USB flash drives, etc. etc. How long do the ones and zeroes last on these various media? I have been told 20 years and that digital files should be copied periodically to fresh media. Who is going to do that, especially after I am gone?

One thing I know: a photo print has the potential for a very long life, and the only "reader" needed is a pair of eyes. I have photos well over 100 years old that I can still read.

My approach to long-term preservation of digital images is to make an archival-level print of each "photo" that I think I might want to use again. This isn't as easy as it seems. Although there are many companies that will make prints of my digital files, do I really want a print of every digital photo I have taken? My hard disk currently has over 10,000 images, many of which are of little or no interest. I need only a small subset.

In addition to the print, I need information on what is on that print. I need the date taken, the location, the content, and some sort of numbering system, so that I can find that photo again when needed.

Here is the approach I used.

1) Using Windows Picture and Fax Viewer, I looked briefly at every image on every folder on my hard disk. This includes images back to 2004, when I started using a digital camera.
2) I recorded the file name of each image I wanted to save, and an abbreviated idea of what that image contained. Most of the file names were simply the cryptic designations that my camera had given them, such as DSC_2379 or IMG_0105.
3) I then went through all the folders and copied the chosen images, and pasted them into a new folder called "Digital photos to print".
4) I ended up with 882 images that I wanted to save. Since the file names were cryptic, I needed to make a log, connecting the file name with the content. I did this in Word.
5) The index (or log) was a Word table that had four columns: folder name, file name, date taken, and a few words giving the content. This information will eventually end up on a label to be affixed to the reverse of each print (see below). Having a computer with two screens was a help here, as I could have Word open on the left screen and Windows Picture Viewer open in the right screen. It took me about 16 hours to prepare the index for the 882 images.
6) I then copied the Word table into Excel (which has better sort capabilities). I first sorted by date, which revealed a number of typographical errors. (Those not in proper date format sort as text and end up at the bottom.) I fixed the errors and then resorted by file name.
7) Now that I had the index, I could return to the prints themselves. I copied all the files in the "Digital photos to print" folder, 932 MB, to a USB flash drive.
8) I took this drive to The Camera Company on Odana Road (Madison), to get the prints made. (Their prints are fairly archival in quality.) I was worried about the order that the prints would come out of their automatic machine, since I needed to match up each print with its label. Fortunately, the prints come out of the machine in file name order. Even better, the file name can be printed on the reverse side of each print.
9) The final step was to make a label to affix to the back of each print. For this purpose, I used Mail Merge in Word, using the Excel file as the database. Mail Merge creates sheets of labels that I can print on my Samsung laser printer.

I now have a box of "good" color prints, each labeled, and with an Excel index file that I can use to find a particular print again. Thus, if I would like an image of a cup plant (Silphium perfoliatum) I can search my Excel index and jot down the file names for the appropriate prints.

I like the idea that I will be leaving a photo legacy that someone in the future might find useful.

Using Windows Picture and Fax Viewer to go through the image files and select those to be archived.

Left: Windows Explorer showing list of files. Right click on a file name and select Preview to see an image.

Right: The full-screen image shown by Windows Picture and Fax viewer.

 

 

New Year's Day Skiing Open House

I've complained that the copious snow has kept us from working, but it has its great joys. The skiing is the best it has been since 2000!

To celebrate the New Year, we had an open "house" at Pleasant Valley Conservancy. Folks were invited to ski or snowshoe starting at 1 PM, and then to join us in our "shack" afterward for hot drinks and cookies.

It was a fine afternoon, with intense sunlight, and 15 people showed up for shorter or longer periods. The photo below shows one snowshoer and four skiers at the overlook at the end of the upper savanna ski trail. They seem to be happy, and why not?!

 

 

Restoration Work in the East Basin

If you look at the map of Pleasant Valley Conservancy you will see one area labeled Unit 22 (Unrestored gully). By spring that label will be changed, since active restoration work is now underway. Today the Michler/Brown crew was in full force, and chain saws were buzzing and burn piles were blazing.

In our area, restoration work of this kind requires snow, since lots of brush and wood is being cut and burned. The snow is now ideal for this work, and a lot was accomplished today. The photos below give some idea of what is going on.

The area being restored was completely open in the 1937 air photo. Presumably it was grazed, which means that it was burned every spring. As a south-facing hillside, it was almost certainly prairie in presettlement times. Grazing eliminated all of the native prairie plants. Once grazing ceased (about mid-1950s) the site gradually filled in with woody vegetation, as shown by the air photo series.

What is our goal for this site? Most of the trees on the site now are undesirables (walnut, elm, cherry, maple). A lot of the oak are black, another weedy tree. There is a large aspen clone on the lower slope that will be girdled in the spring. We plan to leave the few white and bur oaks, and any large open grown black oaks, but all the other trees are coming down. In addition, all shrubs except hazelnut are being eliminated. They are all bad: barberry, honeysuckle, prickly ash, blackberry.

There are even two garlic mustard patches, the first significant infestations we have seen. Because of the deep shade, there are no prairie plants.

Our current plan is to remove all the woody vegetation this winter. Girdle the aspens in the spring. Spray all the garlic mustard. Then wait and see what comes up. I am predicting there will be nothing good. If so, the whole site (4.2 acres as measured by GPS) will be sprayed with glyphosate several times, burned in the fall, and then planted in November to dry-mesic to mesic prairie.

Because of the topography and good insolation, this should be a nice site for prairie.

Cutting one of the large black oaks that are scattered through the site. I counted 72 rings on this 18-inch diameter tree, suggesting that it got its start just about the time of our 1937 air photo. See photo below.

	The tree after it has been "dropped". The stump is about 18 inches in diameter and had 72 growth rings. Willis cut this tree so that it would drop on top of the burn pile that is in the small gully. The small branches are cut and burned. The larger parts of the tree are saved for firewood.
	A fairly large elm tree in the process of falling. Steve cut this tree so that it would drop right on top of the burning brush pile. The cut branches can be dropped right into the fire.
	Brush piles are built around undesirable trees. Once the pile has burned down, the standing tree is cut and burned. Although this sort of restoration work is not rocket science, it takes brains and experience to clear a site efficiently, without causing any damage.