Island Press Field Notes

Desolate as their reputation remains among people who are looking for a handy place to test weapons or dispose of nuclear waste, American deserts have had as allies an impressive bunch of talented, passionate writers. Among these lyrical defenders I’d include Wallace Stegner, Cactus Ed Abbey, Ellen Meloy, Ann Zwinger, Leslie Marmon Silko, Charles Bowden, Gary Paul Nabhan, and Terry Tempest Williams.

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.

I spent last week in Washington, DC, talking about wolves. I visited the Island Press office and gave seminars about the ecological value of keystone predators to the World Wildlife Federation, and to US government agency directors and leaders.

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.