volunteers gathered by new truck ready for work

Preparing for the prairie burn season

Mike Sweitzer-BeckmanCare for the Earth, Friends of Wisdom Prairie Leave a Comment

Volunteers gather before preparing to remove woody invasive species. Special thanks to the Endres Manufacturing Company Foundation for a grant to purchase the pickup truck used to transport supplies. Today, a couple volunteers are going to be cutting woody invasive plants along the fire breaks. The fire breaks are what a burn team will use to stop controlled fires from going beyond the area that we want to burn. Prairie burns are a very effective way to remove invasive plants and allow native plants to thrive. A couple weeks ago, Dane County provided the use of a Fecon mower at the …

Preparing for the prairie burn season

Mike Sweitzer-BeckmanCare for the Earth, Friends of Wisdom Prairie, Wisdom Prairie Project Leave a Comment

A group of six gathered today to do some work in the Wisdom Prairie in preparation for the upcoming prairie burn season. The work was made easier with a grant from the Endres Manufacturing Company Foundation to help purchase a used pickup truck at the end of 2014. Having this extra truck available allows us to haul supplies and transport volunteers to remote parts of the property. It complements our other pickup truck so that we can have multiple groups working at the same time on different projects on different parts of the property. Today,a couple volunteers are going to …

Creating an Oak Savanna at Holy Wisdom Monastery

Holy Wisdom MonasteryCare for the Earth, Friends of Wisdom Prairie, Nature Notes Leave a Comment

By Ron Endres and Will Mann As you drive around Lake Mendota on County Highway M and pass in front of the Holy Wisdom Monastery property, you see two primary ecosystems: prairie (or fields that have been recently planted as prairies) and woodland. Prairie and woodland are wonderful ecosystems. If we finished constructing the prairies, cleaned up the weeds and hedgerows, did a bit of maintenance in the woodland, it would be acceptable to call the Wisdom Prairie project complete. But in nature this is not exactly how a prairie transitions to woodland.  In pre-settlement days, the Eastern states were …

volunteers cutting down and burning hedgrerows along snow-covered fields

Winter work activity at Wisdom Prairie–removing hedgerows

Holy Wisdom MonasteryBenedictine Bridge, Care for the Earth, Friends of Wisdom Prairie Leave a Comment

by Friends of Wisdom Prairie Council Members Ron Endres and Will Mann Winter is the ideal time of year to remove the hedgerows in and around Wisdom Prairie. Hedgerows (also called fencerows) are areas that previously separated sections of crop fields or are rough areas that were too hard to till. Weeds and invasive trees and shrubs grow in these areas and their seeds are easily spread into a nearby prairie, often completely overtaking it. Hedgerows at Holy Wisdom contain species like honeysuckle, buckthorn, box elder, wild grape vine and mulberry.  They shade the ground, thereby preventing grasses and ground …