Leave a Mark - Part 1

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 the valley I found a few deer tracks. I saw tracings of rodent trails under the snow. I know they’ve been here, even when the woods seem quiet.

After a fresh snowfall, the tracks on the trail may be my own, but coyotes, squirrels and deer also leave their mark.

Other obvious marks on the Iowisota landscape are trails and signs of agriculture. There is also clear evidence of biological and ecological legacy. Past management and activities shape the future of the land, but a more in-depth discussion of that will be the topic of a future blog!

I know a bit about the “recent” history of this land, so it helps me to interpret the marks I find on the landscape. For instance, I know that Henry and Ruth Stabe acquired this property around 1935 and used the land for agriculture. Their family grew apples and other crops, kept bees, and built barns and a house on the property. Henry was skilled at reading the landscape, as I can tell by the choice of where they built and planted. After Henry’s untimely death in 1953, the family tried to raise poultry. Between 1958 and 1963, the abstract shows mortgages and bankruptcy claims; by the time my parents bought the property (from multiple owners) in 1966, the 11-acre field up on top was rented out for hay and the valley was no longer tilled. The land and a few property records can only tell me so much, I wish I knew more.

I was a young child when we moved here in 1968, and I remember the condition of the valley. The barns were in disrepair, the orchard became a pasture, and brush began reclaiming the fields. During that time of brush and young forest, grouse would fly up when we walked the valley path and nights were filled with the call of whip-poor-wills. What we do (and don’t do) makes a mark; today the well-maintained valley trail passes through a mature forest, and nights are filled with the call of barred and great-horned owls. When I walk the trail now, I still see marks from the 20+ years of agricultural use. Occasionally I see empty hardware cloth cages on the forest floor… remnants of barriers to protect apple trees from voles so many decades ago. The voles still abound, challenging every effort I make to grow things! About ½ mile up the valley, the broken remains of an old moldboard plow rusts in the woods, reminding me that this land was not always forest.

The trails on the property are a strong mark. The hillside trail up the North Bluff was carved into the side of the bluff at least 90 years ago; it shows on aerial photos from the 1930s, along with open fields in the valley and on the top of the bluff. I sometimes wonder what this land looked like before that and what marks were left by the previous inhabitants; I’m sure fire was part of their mark. But I suggested I’d save that for a future blog and I’m getting ahead of myself. The hillside road up the South Bluff is a mark we have made. We flagged a ribbon-shaped timber sale about 30 years ago with the criteria that a trail would be pushed in (via bulldozer) during harvest. This trail has greatly improved access to the top of the bluff, allowing us to more readily manage, enjoy, and share the woods. It is a bold mark. The animal tracks I observe along our human-hewn trails tell me that wildlife also find our trails useful. I often find their trails useful too, so I think we have some compatible use going on.

The paths we travel and the actions we take leave a mark. Some are fleeting and temporary, some will last long into the future. My desire is that you and I have the discernment and capacity to choose wisely the marks we leave!

I’m still working on planning activities and workshops at Iowisota for 2026. If there are events you’d like to see us host here, feel free to send me some input! Meanwhile, don’t forget to check back often to see what we’ve added to the schedule.