Surprisingly Challenging Things
- Clayton County Conservation
- Mar 4
- 7 min read
"Ecology is not rocket science. It's way more complicated. This is not to downplay the difficulty of rocket science, but to point out the incredible complexity of natural systems where all the variables aren't known and are often connected to and influence one another." -Armell Castellan, Meteorologist with Environment & Climate Change Canada
Trying to describe various practices in the art and science of ecological stewardship can seem overwhelming.
Just last month, the Iowa Prairie Network hosted their winter seminar, and several of the talks became extremely technical. I live in this world, and even I had a hard time following. Survey methodologies for bird diversity & abundance, the timing and interaction of burning and chemical application to control reed canary grass...
Meanwhile, in the back of my head, I'm constantly wondering how the test areas in those slide shows compares to the sites I try to manage; is "November" in Polk County the same as November here in Clayton County? How do their deep black soils compare to the sandy loess of the uplands at Motor Mill? But certain practices, in general, remain the same across all landscapes and ecotypes. All of us land stewards cut trees and shrubs, mow herbaceous vegetation, apply herbicides, and monitor the response of various animal, vegetable, and mineral guilds.
One of those practices, burning brush piles, has not regularly figured in to our operations here in Clayton County. For the most part, we let the brush sit to decompose naturally. If it's not antagonistic to the grander resource or recreational goals, a brush pile is a wonderful piece of habitat, as I wrote about in last fall's newsletter.
Last year, however, we generated quite a few brush piles that had to go. Utility line construction had cleared one swath, and we decided to break a few more eggs to make an omelet by clearing an old treeline bifurcating two prairies, and thus creating issues with predation and area sensitivity. .
Now, many of our staff are farmers, and for my part the Slocum family has a strong bonfire tradition dating back to my parents' feud with the local garbage disposal company (They have since made amends, but do still enjoy a good paper fire when the bin gets too full). For many organizations, piling and burning brush is standard operating procedure. As with most things ecological, you can make a convincing argument both ways. Leaving the slash is unsightly, and in areas where prescribed burning may occur, it can complicate that picture tremendously.
Slash can halt the flame fronts leaving unburned spots. That can be a good thing; "refugia" leave some habitat behind after the burn, but if the goal is a total burn, that's a bad thing. Similarly, many weeds thrive in nutrient-rich soils, and removing those nutrients by either burning, piling, or hauling out woody debris can, in some instances, make the site better by making the soil poorer.
But a hot burn pile can sterilize the soil, making it harder to grow plants or increasing its vulnerability to weed invasion. I have also seen, repeatedly, an observable increase in nesting turkeys where we have created a "mess" of timber debris. Insectivorous birds like woodpeckers and nuthatches also love a good crop of dead wood.
A mess of tree tops provides a lot of free protection for young seedlings; some of our most conservative flowers have expanded their territory amidst the crumbling tops of bitternut and ironwood. Oak seedlings, the finest food plots around, have managed to become established even amongst heavy deer pressure because they remained hidden against a fallen elm trunk during those first few treacherous growing seasons.
For years now, I have carefully weighed those pros and cons. Occasionally, the "pile and burn" column won out, but mostly for smaller piles - nothing like the massive heaps in the old quarry or prairies here at Osborne after last year's activities.
Still, it's not rocket science, right? Humans are generally pretty good at fire. It's kind of our whole thing.
Turns out, no, it's not as simple as a backyard bonfire. For starters, these piles burn for days - I had to wait until the weather looks right (especially in the prairie), and the adjacent fuels would either be unavailable (wet) or too far away for a wind gust to throw an ember. This winter, that was a challenge, with burn bans in November and February and snow events few and far between.
I also needed wind. The piles were large, and the trees were large, too large to move by hand. Dirt mounds became incorporated when the dozer pushed the debris together, and the flames needed some wind to clear the gaps. The wind also needed to come from the right direction to keep the smoke off of highway 13. It needed to stay that way for several days, to make sure it didn't swing around and affect drivers' visibility. It took all the planning of any other prescribed burn to find the right conditions to light.
We brought the tractor up to push the piles together as they burned down; logs frozen into that dirt gave our hydraulics everything they could handle. After a while, a layer of ash hi an exceptionally hot bed of coals that could melt tires or shoe soles.
My clothes became pockmarked by embers that would shoot up after I'd throw a piece back into the center. My eyes stung. My arms and back got sore from repeatedly lifting and throwing heavy chunks of wood. Even with some snow cover, a bit of the prairie ended up burning when one of the fires got hot enough to melt the surrounding snow.
In the end we got there, but it took much longer than I expected. What seemed, in my naïve head, like a fun little break from the heavy-duty TSI work we do in the winter, turned out to... well, it was a lot less fun than I imagined. An excavator or grapple bucket would have made life easier, but given how rarely we do stuff like that we do not have those implements.
It's a funny thing in ecology, often we get so caught up in the science we skip right over the logistics. We knew those piles needed burned; we probably should have been more explicit with the operators during the tree removal about how we needed the piles arranged, given our equipment and staffing limitations.
The same thing happens when I introduce a new person to the idea of forest management. We know there are desirable and undesirable trees; we want the undesirable stuff removed. But where do you start? Pro tip: you start at the bottom of the slope, at the farthest point. You want to minimize the amount of time you'll have to walk through your own slash.
We know the stems of those invasive shrubs need treated - do you do all your cutting and then spray at the end of the session, or hit each stump as you go, or somewhere in between? My advice: work in strips, and spray after each strip - you'll miss fewer stems this way.
A timber harvest can do wonders for woodland health, particularly for our woodlands that are starting to lose oak due to mesophication and forest succession. You know you want the loggers to take, say, bitternut, hackberry, and maybe some red oak.
So, you mark all the trees of that species, but... can the logger actually fell them without damaging your more desirable trees? Where will they build the skid trails? Can they get the skidder to the site without obliterating your woodland? Maybe you want the work to occur only on frozen ground - will our increasingly unpredictable winters oblige your wishes?
When we think about the complexity of ecological restoration, the science only makes up half the picture. At the end of the day, the practicality and feasibility of any given practice will play a much bigger role in the outcome than many of us realize.
The good news is, we did get those piles burned - now to rehabilitate the burn scars!
Looking Back
The biggest news on our front is the mild February's assistance in getting the Osborne Campground up to snuff! Staff installed fire rings and picnic tables to the sites last month. We hope to close out our last grants and start getting reimbursements at the end of March, and then we'll be ready for the 2025 camping season. We also hosted Coffee and Conservation last month of February 18th, with representatives from Iowa Natural Heritage Foundation, Iowa DNR forestry, fisheries, and wildlife staff, Allamakee county conservation, The Natural Resource Conservation Service, US Fish & Wildlife Service, Clayton County Sheriff's Department, Dubuque and Delaware County Conservation Boards, Iowa State Extension & Outreach, and probably several others I'm embarrassingly forgetting to mention.
Two years ago we hosted the first such get together as a means to talk shop and see what other organizations are focused on. This years talk centered around the new faces in new positions around the area, with a lot of discussion around the uncertainties of federal grants and administration hiring.
Looking Forward
Presently my mind is occupied with all things Motor Motor! This year's race will take place on March 15th, with the proceeds going towards a tree planting here at Osborne Park. If you'd like to have a hand in developing a new forest here in Clayton County, sign up today! The O.W.L.S. will kick off their 2025 season this month! This year's theme is a grand tour of the Silos and Smokestacks National Heritage Area, with March's trip down to Waterloo for a visit to the Grout Museum/Sullivan Brothers Iowa Veterans Museum. Call the office to sign up!