Heavy Duty Acres 2008
In addition to making collages and books, we work with our hands in the earth. 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. We have recently begun talks with a small group of midwestern artists about the possiblity of co-caring for the property...a work-for-rent arrangement for artists in metropolitan areas interested in spending a few days in the country. Here you can view the documentation of our sculpting of the earth.
April 30, 2008 As mentioned above, we started paying the bank for this property nearly seven years ago. It's too bad you can't see the history of those seven years, but you're in luck now, sister, because now there's this incredible web site like no other on earth.
P is the prairie. This area was planted with a native wisconsin prairie seed mix prepared by Randy Powers of Prairie Future Seed in 2002. I worked with Mr Powers that summer doing prairie restoration. We followed the instruction of most prairie experts and used a dose of Round-Up to kill off anything that was living in the area before broadcasting the seed. Lesson learned: this doesn't work for shit. Yes, after 5 years, we see some prairie plants in this area, but it's stil loaded with early season non-native grasses and black medic. We collect seeds from around the area and attempt to get in a force-burn in June to set back the grasses.
B is the berry batch. We put in three varieties of raspberries in 2007. The deer like them very much, but we're hoping that we see some production in 2008. We also planted two choke cherry trees in the middle of the patch.
O is the orchard. Here we have black and red currants. Planted five of each last year and three of each are alive this year. The stumps used to terrace the hillside came from the giant dead elm you will in other pictures. It died in the middle of the summer of 2002. We planted three apple trees around the currants (Prairie Spy, Honey Crisp, and Harelred) and three plum trees. The Honey Crisp didn't make it, and rodents girdled the Prairie Spy this past winter. All of the trees are struggling, but we're hoping that if they make it through another winter, they must be hardy enough to live here. If only there were no animals.
P is a closer look at the prairie. Not very interesting in photographs...especially in April.
ps is the where the Prairie Spy apple tree is planted. After getting munched by deer and rodents, it's been reduced to about six inches tall after two full summers at Heavy Duty Acres. it's not dead yet, so it'll be fun to watch its comeback this summer.
cc is one of the choke cherry trees in the berry patch. Like all of the other trees, even though they are guarded with three-foot-high chicken wire, it's just nearly impossible to keep deer and rodents away from these things year-round. Without living there to spook the animals, there's not much we can do other than cross our fingers.
G is the garlic garden. In a large, terraced garden we began crudely contructing in 2002, we have tried to grow squash, pumpkins, gourds, corn, beans, melons, carrots, peppers, and probably more that I can't remember right now. Again, like the trees, it doesn't seem to matter how you fence this stuff in, the critters will get to whatever they want. Our most consistently successful crop has been squash, and lucky for us, we like to eat it. This year, however, we've dedictated the bottom half of the 16 x 32 space to garlic. It's doing well, and we're letting the top half go fallow for the summer...will plant garlic up there in the fall.
A is the aparagus bed. Fifty crowns of asparagus went in up here in 2007. The bed was carved out of the hillside by our sawyer friend, Greg, who has helped up clean up several fallen hickory trees on the property. In fact, the last remaining grand-daddy of all shagbarks was felled by Greg right on top of the asparagus. When he came to clean it up this spring, it left the mess you see here.
S is the new squash patch. It is also the aforementioned mess left by Greg's skid-steer.
June 01, 2008 It's really amazing how green everything becomes in May.
fp is the where the fire pit sits. A beautiful place to watch the moon cross the sky from left to right.
P is another close-up of the prairie planting. Right now it's sort of depressing how much grass in there, and I'm not sure if we're going to find time to force the burn this June, of if I should just hold off until next spring and let whatever happens happen. I'm usually suprised by a few prairie flora blooms in the summer, and there are some grasses. I'll try to capture the guara in bloom this summer in a decent photograph, just to show that it's not a complete flop.
P is another area that was prepped with Round-up (we'll never do it again, I swear!) back in 2001 and seeded with prairie seeds. It's been so disturbed with all the tree-felling and skid-steering up here, that I have very little hope for it. Still, I watch it, and pull out the invasives, just to see what little progress can be made with just about no effort.
A is the asparagus bed after a little TLC. Many, but not all, of the fifty crowns we planted in this heavy clay bed sprouted this year. Vicki cut them all down, I ran the tiller between the crowns, we seeded it with a mixture of barley, bachelors buttons, and amaranth, and lightly mulched it with straw. Highly experimental, but potentially very oddly beautiful. Let's see what happens!
S is the new squash patch, for reference. (This photo is looking east.)
A is the asparagus bed, as viewed from the east, facing west.
S and S are the new squash patch. You can almost see the mounds. This year we planted Golden Hubbard squash, because their incredibly thick skins are said to be almost impenetrable by the deer. This is an experiment to see what other crops (in addition to garlic) we can grow without fencing. We have also planted Spaghetti squash in this area, thinking that we'll either get to eat them, or the deer will eat them first and lay off the Hubbards. The same barley/bachelors buttons/amaranth mix that we broadcast over the asparagus bed is under the straw in the squash patch. Again, nothing like a $5 experiment. We'll see how it looks in a few months.
June 12, 2008 Hosted a gathering with the Continental Drifters. And if that link wasn't enough for you, you can always try this one.
Nice, interesting people, the drifters. This group is an extension of the small group of midwestern artists mentioned in the header of this page. Nothing nailed down, nothing really proposed, but a good, comfortable gathering of like minds. Something's bound to happen.
Are you a prospective renter at Heavy Duty Acres?
If you are interested (seriously) in our work-for-rent program, don't hesitate to contact us via email. There is a rough cabin on the property, complete with two full size futons, electricity, fridge, sink, and a well. Excellent country road bicycling and trout fishing in the West Fork of the Kickapoo River are right next door. And if you don't want to work, but have cash (only $20/person per night!), we take that, too!