Heavy Duty Acres: Pink Moon 09
Heavy Duty Acres is a 4-acre property in Liberty, Wisconsin. It is primarily a wooded hillside on a south-facing slope, with the base nestled down in the hollow. When we began making payments on the property in 2001, everything that wasn't woods was mowed. On our first weekend stay (we lived in Milwaukee at the time), we got out the spades and dug out a fire pit. It didn't take long to see the property as a canvas, with the gifts of nature as our palette. Here you can view the documentation of our sculpting of the earth.
There has not been one successful burn of the prairie restoration areas at Heavy Duty Acres since the project began in 2002 until now. Got a torch, with the hose at the ready, and went to town on a beautiful Holy Thursday in Liberty, Wisconsin. It was all documented in moving pictures and in the stills that follow.
It begins with the largest and earliest areas, west of the raspberries and orchard, and east of the firepit. There's not much fuel here because the invasive grasses are still strong and they don't grow very tall. They are also the first to green up in the spring, which has a lot to do with their invasive tendencies. They get a head start because they come from cooler climates...some might call this an unfair advantage. But it's not their fault, we brought them over here and sowed the seeds of destruction ourselves.
Because of that, I feel a responsibility to clean up after my ancestors in an attempt to bring back the world that belongs here. So I set the shit on fire.
I started with what we'll call the West Prairie mentioned and illustrated with that excellent photography by yours truly above, and once that was under control, worked my way west to the other more juvenile plantings. This next photo shows the East Prairie ( planted with plugs last fall ) on fire. The plugged area didn't have much to burn, but directly to the west is an area thick with invasive Canada Goldenrod and a few asters. We seeded that area heavily with seeds collected from area prairie standings, and lopped the seed heads off all the goldenrod in the fall. It burned up real nice.
Around the big dead piss elm, a nice volunteer crop of Bee Balm (Bergamont) looks pretty healthy. There are some Grey Headed Coneflowers in there, too. Again, heavily seeded (as is the area further up the hill, around the stump from the last giant hickory, which can be seen in all its glory in the Treehugger book). The trunk of this mo-fo started smoldering and got me thinking about setting the whole thing on fire some day.
I was having so much fun I decided the burn the garden down. The squash crop was weak last year, and the bottom half was used for garlic. In a moment I decided to burn off the late season growth, with plans to till it all up and sow it with an oats or barley crop to see what happens. I probably should've just tilled in the green growth, but this hill's a hazard with any substantial rototiller, and I just don't want to make it any harder than it already is.
In the end, the areas beyond the raspberries and around and above the orchard were all sufficiently fried. Looked great, smelled great, felt great.
Looking forward to seeing what happens in 2009.
BEAVER MOON 2008 Prairie by plugs
HARVEST MOON 2008 Early Summer Growth
STRAWBERRY MOON 2008 An intro to Heavy Duty Acres