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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.

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 monastery for a period of three hours. Greg Armstrong, director of land management and environmental education, describes this as a “monster of a mower.” He estimates it removed more woody invasive plants in three hours than five people using chainsaws could have removed in a few weeks. It is wonderful having a partnership with Dane County to be able to do restoration work more effectively at the monastery.

The other group of volunteers will be returning to the area where the Fecon mower was used to remove some of the smaller woody invasive plants that were too small for the Fecon mower to remove. This group will also be clearing some of the remains left behind by the Fecon mower, placing these remains in the prairie so they can be burned during an upcoming prairie burn this spring.

• Learn more about upcoming Wisdom Prairie workdays, sponsored by the Friends of Wisdom Prairie.
• Make a donation to support land management efforts and care for the earth initiatives at Holy Wisdom Monastery.
• For more information about land management, contact Greg at garmstrong@benedictinewomen.org, 608-836-1631, x123.

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Ron Endres (center), Will Mann (left), and Greg Armstrong (right) prepare seed packets for the Wisdom Prairie seeding day.

Ron Endres declines to be called a prairie expert, but he truly knows and loves native prairie culture. Ron has spent more hours than he can estimate harvesting, drying, smashing, screening, weighing, bagging and labelling prairie seed which he can provide to non-profit organizations to create new expanses of prairie habitat. ​It was his generous donation of 80-90 species and 240 pounds of prairie seeds which he collected and processed, along with additional seed donated by Dane County Parks, that made possible the seeding of our new Wisdom Prairie at Holy Wisdom Monastery.

Ron has spent many hours working on the land at Holy Wisdom Monastery. Recently he became one of the founding members of the Friends of Wisdom Prairie Council. A passion for preserving natural spaces draws Ron into many area conservation programs.

“I was attracted to the Wisdom Prairie Project because of its significant ecological impact,” Ron shares. “The prairie will improve the quality of the lake and watershed, provide food and habitat for insects, reptiles, mammals, and nesting and migrating birds.”

Ron (pictured here on the left) spent much of the Wisdom Prairie seeding day handing out seed, giving instructions and offering information.

A retired IT Applications Development Manager, Ron describes himself as that little boy who loved to collect rocks and insects, who grew up on the edge of Waunakee where expansive fields and woods were his playground. Retirement has provided Ron with the opportunity to return to that love of the land, and Ron shares his passion generously by volunteering for groups such as The Ice Age Trail, Dane County Parks, The Prairie Enthusiasts, as well as private conservancies like Swamplovers Foundation and Pleasant Valley Conservancy. You might see him burning, chain sawing, killing invasive species, collecting and processing seeds, planting prairies or leading other volunteer groups.

Ron and his friend Will Mann, Dane County Lands Manager and fellow Friends of Wisdom Prairie council member, have been clearing non-native trees and woody invasive species found in old hedgerows on the Holy Wisdom property. By doing this they hope to lessen the amount of weeds that can move into the new prairie and let all the prairie areas flow into one another. In the spring they will begin a regiment of prescribed burns to improve the health of the prairies.

At Holy Wisdom, Ron says, “The work of volunteers will bring about the reconstruction of a vanishing ecosystem. I wanted to be a part of that.”

And we are grateful!

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Restoring the health of the land at Holy Wisdom Monastery

The sisters, and their many friends, at Holy Wisdom Monastery have been working at renewing the ecological health of their land for nearly two decades. During that time they have restored over 95 acres of tall grass prairie, the kind that occupied some of this land prior to European settlement. In doing so, they have increase the biological diversity on their land; providing a place to live, and food to eat, for animals, birds, insects and many other organisms.

The motivation of the sisters to care for the earth in this way, at Holy Wisdom Monastery, came from the universal reverence for creation and the stability of Benedictine monastic communities. These spiritual concepts came down through the centuries and still hold a central place in the lives of those who follow the Rule of Benedict. The sisters are also motivated by the teachings of another Benedictine, Hildegard of Bingen. Hildegard believed in a creation-centered theology and wrote and spoke eloquently about the human relationship to God and nature. “Humanity is the most profound of all the works of God’s mighty creation made in a wondrous way with great glory from the dust of the earth and so entangled with the other parts of creation that it can never be separated from them.” This sounds like ecology from someone who lived in the 1100s. The sister’s also appreciate ideas from more recent thinkers on the human relationship to nature. For example Aldo Leopold wrote in A Sand County Almanac, “When we see land as a community to which we belong, we may begin to use it with love and respect.” The sisters do truly love and respect the land and give generously toward caring for the earth.

In 2012 the sisters initiated an ecological land assessment and planning process. They recently received the final Ecological Assessment and Management Plan which analyzes the current condition of monastery land and provides a plan for a comprehensive ecological restoration plan. This new plan calls for restoring several different kinds of ecological communities that once occupied this part of the earth. These include the fire communities of pre-settlement Southern Wisconsin; prairie, savanna, oak hickory woodlands as well as wetlands and other waterways. This rather ambitious plan will require expert understanding of how to restore the diverse ecology of the land, and will require a significant amount of effort to accomplish the work. They have a very modest staff to do this work and therefore will require many more hands to carry out this large restoration project. With this in mind, the sisters created a Friend’s group called the Friends of Wisdom Prairie.

The Friends of Wisdom Prairie is comprised of a fairly large group of people who wish to help the sisters care for the earth. This is an environmental organization with a Benedictine flavor! The members will help organize and carry out volunteer work days and participate in environmental education events including dinners, lectures, outings to visit other natural areas and tours. We hope you will help restore the land and preserve the Benedictine tradition of care for the earth at Holy Wisdom Monastery.  Become a Friend and join today!

To learn more about the Friends of Wisdom Prairie or learn about their upcoming events visit benedictinewomen.org/care-for-the-earth/friends-of-wisdom-prairie/ or contact me, Greg Armstrong, at garmstrong@benedictinewomen.org, 608-836-1631, x123.

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Preparing the new land for prairie restoration, April 2014.

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“Restoring the Land, Protecting the Lakes.”

That’s the theme of the latest visionary project of the Benedictine Women of Madison, known as the Wisdom Prairie Project.

Learn more about the Wisdom Prairie Project through this five minute video.

The sisters are pleased to take a leap of faith in living out the caring for the earth portion of their mission by acquiring 53 acres of farmland adjacent to their current property with the help of a $1 million lead gift from an anonymous donor.

“Caring for the earth is increasingly important in an area that is rapidly urbanizing,” said Mary David Walgenbach, OSB, prioress of the Benedictine Women of Madison. “Now is the time to look at this parcel of land that was up for sale, and we hope that the community will support us in the efforts to conserve more open space, restore it to prairie, and ultimately improve the water quality in the Lake Mendota watershed.”

Holy Wisdom Monastery overlooks Lake Mendota. Restored prairie protects the lake by absorbing runoff containing phosphorus from reaching the lake.

The 53 acre parcel was on the market beginning in 2011 as part of an estate sale. There were other buyers interested in the property, which could have led to the urban development of 50 single-acre homes. The sisters had a different vision for this parcel: open space for guests to enjoy and restored prairie to reduce the runoff of pollutants (especially phosphorous) into the Lake Mendota watershed across the street. The sisters are also partnering with Dane County to construct a bike trail on the north side of Lake Mendota, with hopes of connecting Governor Nelson State Park to the trails on the Pheasant Branch Nature Conservancy in Middleton. This parcel was the ‘missing link’ from having this happen.

Restored prairie on the grounds of Holy Wisdom Monastery. The beauty attracts guests and wildlife.

The sisters acquired the property in September 2012 for $1.7 million, with the feeling that it is the right thing to do to preserve open space on the north side of Lake Mendota. An anonymous donor stepped forward with a $1 million lead gift, and a fundraising effort was launched to raise a total of $1.9 million to cover the cost of acquisition and restoration of the property.

The sisters’ board chartered a Land Management Committee, made up of six volunteers and staff, to set policies and guidelines for the restoration efforts and volunteer involvement on the property. The monastery also hired Biologic Environmental Consulting to conduct a 12 month study of the property and create a land management plan in order to best integrate the new parcel into the current monastery property. Prairie restoration efforts will begin after the study is complete in December 2013.

In August 2012 we formed a planning team to begin shaping the fundraising effort and design materials to support the vision of the project. We hired longtime monastery volunteer Greg Armstrong in December to help with our fundraising efforts. Greg brings over 20 years of experience as the retired director of the University of Wisconsin Arboretum and jumped in with grant writing, research and outreach to potential donors.

• American Printing Company
• Bank of America Foundation, Inc.
• Consulting for Non-profits, LLC
• Herbert H. Kohl Charities
• High Wind Association Foundation
• John C. Bock Foundation
• —MGE Foundation
• —Middleton Community Endowment
• —Monona State Bank
• —US Fish & Wildlife

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