Range Line Valley Alamanc

I know exactly the moment I decided it was time to learn a little more about the eco-system in which I was living: standing in the Boyce Thompson Arboretum in Arizona, I realized I knew more about the Sonoron Dessert ecosystem than I did my own. I didn’t even know the name of my own ecosystem.

Turns out I grew up in the Southeastern Wisconsin Savannah, the Wisconsin Till Plain subsection. I now live, just barely, in the Northern Lacustrine-Influenced Upper Michigan and Wisconsin section, Green Bay Till and Lake Plain subsection. What a mouth-full.

School is also located in my current home’s section. The dominant pre-settlement vegetation was northern hardwood forest, dominated by beech and sugar maple, with basswood and some oaks, including red, white, and black. From a conservation perspective, we’re a part of a major migratory bird corridor, especially for raptors and waterfowl, according to the United States Geological Survey website on the area.

I think I still know more about the Sonoron Dessert.

Madame Dupee has learned in her travels that Swiss children are both familiar with and caring of their surroundings:

. . . the more I talked with and spent time with Albert and his cousin, the more I realize what a commitment they feel to the beauty of their country. For example, when we were walking, Julian noticed a cloth that was lying on the ground in a pasture. Without hesitating, he ran to it and picked it up, and later threw it away.

Also, whenever I asked him what cetain flowers were called, he always knew the answer. I was so impressed with his ability to name each of the wildflowers that grew in his region- there were so many! I felt quite inspired to learn the trees and common flowers in Milwaukee when I return home.

The kids and I have visited the school’s garden, known as Karen’s Garden, both to lend a hand, to have a place to bike to, and to learn more about gardening in our environment. Last week, John helped Mr. Jacobs (a.k.a. our neighbor, Kip) with some of the gardening work. Next week, we’re the Garden Captains. We’ll learn a little about the weeds that grow here, I’m sure, as well as how our late harvest garden is doing. Our crop will feed students at school in the LS/MS and US Dining Rooms.

Finally, the kids and one of the neighbor boys flew kites a couple of weeks ago on a windy June day. I may not know the names of common trees and flowers in this corner of the world, but after a childhood of water and wind sports out on the lakes of Waukesha County, I’m familiar with the weather patterns over the seasons. We took over Ken Laird Field at school and the kids, using two news kites from their Uncle John, ran 100s of yards. The south/south-easterly wind kept them busy for almost two hours! (I wish I could figure out how to post the video from my cell phone so you could hear Elizabeth as she sang out, “WEEEEEEEEE!”).

Next time: Why does it matter that there’s buck thorn?

Buckthorn, garlic mustard, and dandelions

Suburbs–among many of my good friends and professional colleagues, they are homogenized enclaves for people who want to get away from the problems of urban communities and the taxes that come with them.

Maybe they should read Yale University professor, Robert A.M. Stern. In 1981, he organized a Cooper-Hewitt Museum exhibition called “Suburbs.” The exhibition, according to Witold Rybczynski, “made an important polemical point: suburbs are an integral part of American urbanism. Stern said, “The single-family house is the glory of the suburban tradition. It offers its inhabitants a comprehensible image of independence and privacy while also accepting the responsibilities of community,” (quoted in Rybczynski’s book in chapter 2).

Does this mean I have to spray for dandelions?

No one has told me that we do, and ours is not the only lawn in the neighborhood with the bright yellow buttons popping up every mid-morning. But we dandelion tolerators are clearly in the minority.

We have been told to remove both the buckthorn in the community areas around our homes and there’s a “no garlic mustard” campaign going on in the neighboring village.

So in the interest of “accepting my responsibilities to the community,” I offer you a photo of buckthorn and of garlic mustard. Both are in the “common areas” of our neighborhood, and the garlic mustard is not next to anyone’s property. Who will pull it up?

WARNING ABOUT GARLIC MUSTARD. Here’s what the signs down south of me left off: garlic mustard juice burns like crazy. Use gloves, wear long pants and sleeves, don’t use a week wacker. They come up very easily, so it’s not hard to pull them.

And as for buckthorn removal, good luck. We’re getting started after school ends and I’ll update you on our success. In the meantime, the Minnesota DNR has alot of information here about this invasive species.

Spring in the Valley

Today I grabbed a few minutes in the morning sun to clean up the perennial garden in front of our house.  Garden clean up conflicts with hockey and football season (and last minute shopping for homecoming flowers!) so the oak and maple leaves still carpeted the garden.  I caught them on a perfect day–the leaves hung together with morning frost and so they came up like a blanket.   And, I learned, the trip to the back to pile up the leaves was easier because the sun had not yet melted the mud across most of our back yard.   Worth noting for next spring.

I love having a backyard.  After more than twenty years of city and old suburb living, it’s nice to have an actual yard.  Real estate agents selling homes in the city and inner-ring suburbs ought to develop an abbreviation for the most common descriptor of a back yard in those communities:  “It’s a nice size–for a house in (insert your favorite densely populated suburb here).”  Maybe NSFAHIWFB or NSFAHISHWD.  Just a thought.

We’d been in this neighborhood just two months when I called my husband at work and asked, “Did you know we have waterfront property?”  Turns out a creek (man-made?) runs east to west through the front third of our backyard.  So much for that Cinco de Mayo party I was planning.

But the dog and I can still march across it without leaving foot and paw prints deep in the mud in the early a.m.   I’ll need to mark that on my calendar:  avoid morning meetings in early April to allow for garden clean up.