My beloved American elm tree has Dutch elm disease. It is just a baby, but it is a clone of the big elm that grew behind the old farmhouse. Of course I am sad, but I also have a morbid curiosity about what is going to happen to this tree. Because there is so much more to the story… (play ripple-sounding music in your head, going back in time…) Some of you know that I spent my career with the USDA Forest Service as a forest pathologist. I spent my days (and some nights!) tryi

Today as I write, it is a humid 96 degrees outside, one of the quintessential “dog days of summer”. In the far reaches of my memory, a step outdoors takes me back decades to running barefoot through the sprinkler, eating frozen popsicles, and dreading the imminent return to school. The song of the cicadas reminds me that these days will not last for long. The “Dog Days of Summer” are traditionally the 40 days from July 3 to August 11 when the Dog Star, Sirius, rises and set

We usually think of being “disturbed” as a bad thing, but perhaps I should differentiate between disturbance as a mental state vs ecological disturbance in nature. Many of my favorite foraged plants grow in places that are disturbed. I’ve touched on ecological disturbance in some of my other recent blogs, so I’ll keep today’s note brief. But there are so many tasty “weeds” out there right now because of disturbance, I must say a few words about them! Often our garden weeds or

Here at Iowisota, nestled between bluffs along the backwaters of the Mississippi River, I’m surrounded by wild things. And I love it. There are new surprises daily, some of them delightful, some not-so-much. The season of wild berries has come upon us quickly. I’m enjoying wild blackcap raspberries and wild gooseberries; they are abundant enough this year that I’ve even been able to beat the birds to as many as I want. I see quite a few wild grapes forming; we will see if any

I wrote part 1 on a snowy day in January, about how tracks and marks left behind tell a story. I promised to follow up with a more in-depth discussion of how past management and activities shape the plants on the landscape. The forest cover at Iowisota is vastly different now than it was 95 years ago, due not only to the passage of time, but also due to the actions that were (or weren’t) done on the land during that time. I’m going to talk about several types of vegetation, h

I’ve noticed that sensational stuff gets more attention. If I’m going to write, I want enough readers to make it worth my effort. So I decided to make this post truly “sense-sational”. It is all about the stimuli in nature that are most striking to our senses during this season. I am constantly delighted by the sights in nature every day… from the little details to the grand vistas. There are so many textures, shapes and colors. I can’t choose whether the most amazing is the

Spring came on fast at Iowisota, with plenty of rain and warm temperatures in April. Thankfully things slowed down a bit with the drier and cooler weather so far in May, but this latest heat and the promise of rain are probably going to catapult us into Summer. Don’t blink, or you’ll miss some of the joys of Spring! This post is image-heavy. You should be able to click on images to see them full-size. I took great delight in the early ephemeral wildflowers. The bloodroot, Dut

Wildcrafted is a popular term these days, but what does it mean to you? What does it DO for you? To me it implies that something is “crafted” from components that came from nature. The internet-search definitions say that wildcrafted is basically wild-harvested. But let’s break it down a bit more. The term “crafted” brings different images to mind. Some people envision popsicle sticks, yarn, and glue-encrusted small sized scissors. Some people envision an ice-cold beer, craft

Today's fresh, wild salad pick. I wouldn’t put it pasta me to do a cormy play on words… but every time I step out my back door, it seems that the landscape has suddenly erupted into a green carpet of salad! All the pictures here were taken this week at Iowisota. So many of our early Spring plants double as salad greens, so let me introduce you to a few of my favorites! The young tender leaves of cutleaf coneflower/sochan (Rudbeckia laciniata) serve as a mild salad green. This

We like our tasty mushrooms, but fungi need to eat too. Their food source is usually dead or living plant material. Many of our choice edible mushrooms decay wood to get their nutrition. Some also have mycorrhizal relationships with specific plants, in which the plants benefit from getting nutrients from the fungus and the fungus benefits by getting sugars/food from the plant. I simplified the explanation, but this relationship is one form mutualism or symbiosis. Sometimes th

Spring is such a sweet season, in so many ways. Maple syrup is only part of the story! A challenging part of maple syrup season is determining the timing: Is it time to tap yet? When will sap run? Am I too early, or am I missing out? I put my first few taps out around February 10 th , and we’ve been through 3 Springs and 2 Winters since then! We’ve had several fluctuating periods of good sap flow and no sap flow. Natural systems are complex, with many factors. Spring sap flow

In ecology, we often talk about the “overwintering state” of insects, animals, plants, and other living things. As we approach the end of February and Spring is on the horizon, I think perhaps it is not too depressing to talk about overwintering. We’ve almost made it, although Thursday night’s surprise 11” snowfall may have brought some doubts. We woke Friday morning to discover that the predicted 3-5" of Spring snow had burgeoned to 11" and turned northeast Iowa into a winte

The weathered faces reveal lifetimes of adversity. They aren’t human faces; they are the rocky crags that look out over the Mississippi River. Each face is unique and beautiful, full of character. Their expressions change throughout the seasons and even throughout the day, with the nuances of snow and cloud, shadow and sun. The rocky faces of the bluffs reveal layers of limestone and dolomite of the ancient Paleozoic Plateau. This plateau of sedimentary rock was not scraped o

After a fresh snowfall, I go out to see what tracks I find in the woods. I want to see what left a mark. The tracks I see are temporary and short-term marks, but you know who’s been there. There are other marks on the land that tell me who has been there, and if I can read them properly, I can learn a lot. After the snow yesterday, I found lots of squirrel tracks tracing between trees and along the trail. I found smaller canine tracks consistent with coyote, and farther up th

Nature makes quite an impression on me: it gives depth to my life daily, is foundational for our Iowisota venture, and inspires my pottery designs. As we close out our second year of programming at Iowisota, it seems fitting to reflect on some of the things that have “made a mark” (or impression) on us in 2025! Living in the Driftless Area of Northeast Iowa makes an impression on me every day. This photo and the framing clips were taken from the "North Bluff" today, January 1

The 1931 Blackhawk Bridge over the Mississippi River at Lansing, Iowa, is often called iconic. Something “iconic” is a representative symbol, or something widely known or important. This got me thinking about WHY the bridge is iconic. The 1931 Blackhawk Bridge spans the main channel of the Mississippi River between Lansing, Iowa, and Wisconsin. It has been closed to traffic since October and is scheduled controlled collapse/destruction on December 19th, 2025. The bridge is ce

A while back, my daughter observed that her work is an endless series of side quests. Any given day may start with a specific project or objective—call it a quest—but then complications and new facets lead to other activities. Some of the side quests just keep growing to become major adventures. She works at a camp, so it is no surprise that she encounters this often, but I think we all experience this to some degree. A couple of weeks ago, I decided to squeeze in a hike on a

Fall is the time to clean up those loose ends of summer, so they aren’t blowing around in the winds of winter. I’ve been busy with my task list, preparing for the cold, snowy Iowa winter that people keep saying we are due for. One of our tasks is to renew our firewood supply. The woods are full of opportunity; we just need to cut, haul, split and stack it! Thankfully our son Nathan came home for a while and wielded the chainsaw for his dear old parents. A winter day doesn’t g

Shortening days signal the impending arrival of winter, and it seems everyone is heading South. Not me; I have a cozy space by the fire reserved for the coldest of days. But birds and people are on the move. We’ve been watching various stages of migration for several weeks now. In early September, the barn swallows left us. They spent the summer nesting under our balcony, cavorting above the yard, and singing (scolding?!) from the rail. But suddenly they were gone: off to Sou

I went looking for ART in nATuRe, and with a bit of a scramble, I found “une ART”. Une is the French feminine infinitive for “one” or...