Burn Baby Burn

I've arrived in Edgerton and so far have worked 3 days (12-13 hours each day! I've already almost worked 40 hours this week) for my new job at a different native landscaping company. It is now burn season, so on my first day they got me started on one of their massive burn sites. They told me that most of the land they burn in the spring and fall is CRP land, or Conservation Reserve Program, that pays farmers to not till some of their land, especially if it isn't that good for farming. They feel like massive burns to me because I only ever did tiny 2 acre or less burns, and these are 25-50 acres per burn unit. Yesterday we burned 154 acres in 3 or 4 (depending on how you look at it) different pieces. It's easier that way. I've learned a lot about burning that I didn't know or forgot, and I am feeling a lot more comfortable communicating on the little two-way radios. I say 10-4 when I understand some order and I am going to go do it.

I had a private moment of glory (it really wasn't a big deal, but I was proud of myself) when I was walking the perimeter of one of the larger burn units to join the crew on the other side, and I saw that the fire had crept over the burn breaks and started a bunch of dry grass on the other side on fire and was burning through the fence into the neighboring field. I radioed for help, trying to keep the panic out of my voice and mostly succeeding, and my coworker on the four-wheeler with the water tank got there pretty fast and we put it out.

I wish I could post pictures of the burns, because once the head fire is lit, it's a beautiful, exciting thing. Tiny twisters of smoke and ash and sometimes flame are a common sight, and there is nothing like a sunset behind a cloud of smoke. But, I'm worried about melting my camera, even though there's a guy who has one on the crew to document the fire. Plus, back in one of my posts from 2008, on Xanga, when I was working for the Nature Conservancy, I put up a picture of myself in front of the fire:

Which, in retrospect wasn't a huge deal since is was a prescribed burn, or purposely set, and pictures are often taken on prescribed burns to document it. I feel kinda lame now for doing it but I have a cool picture! At least I'm not this guy:


Seriously. Who does that? Apparently this guy.

One one of our burns on Tuesday, there were pasque flowers! They look like this:



Similar or related plant to crocuses, that appeared on Gino's blog. They are the harbingers of spring. Yes, we did burn them, but their roots are long and there's plenty more that hadn't come up yet.

And now about my town: Edgerton, WI. It's 10 minutes north of Janesville, and 30 minutes southeast of Madison. The people I work with are from all over, but mostly WI. One guy from MN! And one woman from Illinois. What is the term for those: Wisconsanite? Illinoisian? Is that right? Anyway, here's a picture of the bungalow I'm sharing with a guy who also moved here from MN:

We're on the right. It's pretty nice. Steve, my roommate, just bought us a couch for $10 at the thrift store. It's not a bad couch either. Makes me wonder if it's cursed... There's 4 nice cedar-looking trees in front:

Maybe to block the noise from the street. Seems like everyone and their grandmother has a motorcycle or something without a muffler. The population is around 5,000 according to Wikipedia. Also according to Wiki: "Known locally as "Tobacco City U.S.A.," because of the importance of tobacco growing in the region, Edgerton continues to be a center for the declining tobacco industry in the area." Near my place is an old tobacco plant that looks defunct but is still there for history? I don't know. What I do know so far is the grocery store is a Piggly Wiggly:


See Dad? I parked to leave space for the geezers.

There is also some Norwegian roots here, shown by this family insurance company called Jenson's:

See the Norwegian flag? As I drove by this when I first arrived, I thought, oh a good sign. I haven't mentioned yet, but I was accepted to the Norwegian University of Life Sciences for a Master's Degree in International Environmental Studies. Even though I enjoy the work I've been doing, I think I'm going to go for a shift that lets me still work on making a difference but I get a year-round job with health care and benefits--I don't care if the salary isn't high, just enough so I can support myself. Also I want to explore the Norwegian roots of our family and learn Norsk. More on this later. Maybe much later.

That's a lot but thanks for reading!

Halfway to Michigan

I know it's been a while...it's been pretty crazy for me these past few weeks, and before that I didn't feel like I had much to write. Well, here's some news: I just got a job with a company called Tallgrass Restoration, a native plant landscaping and restoration company not to be confused with Prairie Restoration, Inc. that I worked for last summer. My job with them didn't come through this year so I applied to a lot of different places, the culmination of which was a job with this company that is based in Wisconsin and Illinois. I will be in southern Wisconsin, about a half an hour from Madison. So, it's about halfway to Holland, Michigan. I'm really excited to be working full time again. Sometimes I think I could give workshops on resume building and interviewing, with all the job hunting I've done in the past 3 years.

At the University of Wisconsin, Madison there is a prairie restoration that is very old, considered the first restoration of an ecological community. Read about its history: http://uwarboretum.org/about/history/ Of course, in ecological restoration, what was lost can never be replicated, but I think of it as increasing biological diversity by planting and letting nature take over from there. It will be great to take look while I'm there.



A view of the arboretum.

To go along with my old theme of highlighting a native plant, and because I am still a big plant nerd and the coming growing season is giving me heart palpitations (in a good way), here is a plant native to the tallgrass prairie:


This is Desmodium illinoense, or Illinois tick-trefoil. It's a legume, so it fixes nitrogen to the soil therefore making it more fertile. The seeds come in pods (look like peapods) and they stick to clothing like Gov. Scott Walker sticks to his goal of destroying labor unions.

I wanted to do one specific to Wisconsin, but the tallgrass prairie there and in Minnesota is so similar that I couldn't find one. This one is more common in Wisconsin and Illinois, but occurs in Minnesota and other states as well. Prairie Moon Nursery has these cool maps now that show you where a plant is common, where it sometimes occurs, or sometimes where it used to be. Here's for Desmodium illinoense:


Earth Day is coming up. As you may know from my quote at the top, this is not so important to me, and in fact it's a bit annoying to have a day dedicated to one's own home planet, as though it only needs a day in order to be treated right. What's up with having special days anyway? But since it's there might as well take advantage. I'm sure there are lots of cool events to go to and be "earthy." By which I don't mean, "roll around in the dirt," unless you really, really want to. Oh, look, I found some in Minneapolis: http://minneapolis.about.com/od/environment/a/earthday2008.htm A lot of clean up events but some other events too.