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Steven I. Apfelbaum

Steven I. Apfelbaum is Chairman of Applied Ecological Services Inc., a company he founded in 1975. He has worked on design, construction, management, monitoring, and research of ecosystems and has taught ecosystem restoration to land trusts, conservation organizations, and families interested in restoring their property.

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The Wonders and Surprises of the Unintentional

Stone Prairie Farm, the eighty acres of prairie, wetland, savanna and headwaters stream that we have restored serves as a snow fence. It captures snow and prevents drifting across neighboring county roads. The accumulating snow remains within the dense vegetation cover now growing on the restored undulating landscapes, including the high ridge tops and sloping expanses.
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Almost, a Welcomed Surprise

The dustings from most previous storms, and atypical warm conditions, and storm paths that have gone around our southern Wisconsin farm, have left us in an extended “fall or spring-season-like trance”.  Fields of standing upright plant stalks blow and shake in the wind, brown, gray and straw colored. Finally, after much of the winter without winter-like conditions, Stone Prairie Farm is under a blanket of deep snow. Usually, the first heavy snows arch these stems to the ground.