Wasioja Revisited, Part II

The Battle Of Gettysburg was "scheduled" for three o'clock in the afternoon but we arrived at Wasioja early in the morning.  While there were stores to shop in, speeches, music and authors to talk to, I most enjoy meeting and talking with the reenactors who are always in character. Come on along a take a look....

Mrs. T. stopped to visit with a friendly neighbor lady

Friends Gary and Rosie (on the right) joined a discussion with another local citizen.

Gary led the way up a hill to an encampment where things were just stirring.

A few of the "boys in blue" from the second Minnesota Volunteer Regiment, Company C (Wasioja) were just starting to gather.

I talked to a pharmacist who was just checking his supplies.

In another section of woods some rebels from South Carolina (the Pee Dee regiment) were up and about. They were confident they would be able to push the "damn Yankees" off the nearby ridge.

I talked to artillery men from both sides of the battle.  Here are pictured some of the Confederate guns.  Later, I met the men of a battery from New Ulm,  Minnesota.  They managed to put me in my place when I had said that I had visited their town many times and was highly enamored (being of German heritage) of their famous Schells beer. "So why are you wearing that Wisconsin beer hat, they asked.  Yes, I'd  forgotten I was wearing my Leinenkugels topper, recently purchased on a trip to Chippewa Falls, Wisconsin and its fine brewery. I must say were proud of their unit as well as their town beer!

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Wasioja, Minnesota Revisited. Part I

It had been two years since tiny Wasioja, Minnesota had held it first Civil War Days.  We had attended  then and enjoyed the festivities, reenactments and meeting people from all over the country.  The event had been such a success the local committee decided a repeat was due given the upcoming 150^th anniversary of the Battle of Gettysburg. It was a three day affair and we decided to attend  on the second day,  which featured the Battle of Gettysburg. 

Wasioja isn’t really much of a town. It’s just a few scattered homes from the 1950's. Also,  there are some nearby farms and a nondescript business or two. You would begin  notice  some limestone buildings obviously from the 19th century. This home, for example, built in 1858

There is a sign in front of another small limestone building which begins to tell the tale.  When the Civil War began in 1861, brand new Minnesota was the first state to offer and send troops to aid the Union cause. In April 1861, this building, which had been built as a law office and community meeting center in 1855 for the village, became a recruiting station.

Recruits from the Wasioja station numbering over 200 formed the nucleus of Company C of the 2nd Minnesota Volunteer Infantry Regiment. The building was Colonel James George's, a Mexican war veteran, law office who later led the volunteers at the Battle of Chickamauga.  Another stop on a wooded hillside told a more grim story. There was a scene which might remind Civil War buffs  of a   famous photograph of the ruins of Richmond, Virginia at the end of the Civil War.

Sometime after the Civil War this building had been destroyed in a fire. It does speak, however, to a time when Wasioja was a live and vital village. Anxious to promote the growth of the new town it citizens agreed to provide the Free Will Baptists a seminary. A structure of native limestone was completed in 1860. The seminary opened in that year with an enrollment of over 300 students. By 1862 Wasioja had more than a dozen stores, a hotel, a flour mill and was surrounded by farms and quarries that promised a great future.

Then the course of history was changed. The Civil War had begun and men from Minnesota were on the battlefields. Colonel George asked for volunteers. Led by Professor Gilley, many young students from the new seminary and others from various walks of life marched down to the law office and enlisted. Just over a year later, on Snodgrass Hill, near Chickamauga, they stopped the Rebels advance at a very high cost. Of the eighty young men who left Wasioja only twenty-five returned with life and limb intact. The town never recovered from that loss and also the railroad that bypassed the town.

Wasioja and its people paid in the coin of their future, by standing for Union and against the immorality of slavery.  Thus the tiny Minnesota crossroads still pays homage to those people and events of long ago.  Join us in Part II next.

 

Yellow Ladyslipper (A native wild orchid)

The yellow ladyslipper is the most common wild orchid in the U.S. and is found in almost every state. There are 3 accepted varieties of Yellow Lady's Slipper, 2 of which are found in Minnesota: Greater Yellow Lady's Slipper (var. pubescens) and Small Yellow Lady's Slipper (var. makasin). Despite their wide range, they are threatened or endangered in many states. Habitat loss and public destruction are the main causes.
Recently, Mrs. T along with our friends Gary and Rosie visited a State preserve in Northeastern Iowa. There we saw what I can only describe as the most amazing appearance of a native wildflower I have ever seen in my life. There were literally thousands of these rare gems within sight..... 

A bad idea, besides being illegal, is to dig native orchids up and try to transplant them to your own landscape.  They rarely survive. Here Karl Ruser  explains why.....

"Why don't you sell the Minnesota State Flower?!!!!", is a very common question. We really don't like to disappoint our customers, really we don't! But, we just don't feel that the Showy Lady Slipper and the other native orchids are suitable plants for the landscape.

 

First of all, they cannot be sustainably produced in a commercial sense. It takes 12-15 years for a plant to reach flowering age. That would mean we could only have raised two generations - at best - in the whole time Landscape Alternatives has been in business!

 

Second, they are very picky as to site conditions. For the most part, orchids grow where most other plants cannot. This is usually in soils with very low fertility. Believe it or not, almost any otherwise suitable landscape setting has far too many nutrients available for the plants to survive for more than just a few years.

 

Third, each orchid species requires a very special fungus to associate with it in a complex cycle. A native lady slipper seed must be in contact with some of this fungus when it germinates. The fungus provides the energy and nutrients the young orchid needs to grow. Eventually, the orchid develops enough so that its own leaves and roots can sustain it. At this point the role of fed and feeder switch. The fungus partially grows into the orchid plant and is sustained by it for the rest of the orchid's life. When the orchid finally is able to produce seed, the fungus is already there and ready to once again take on its supportive role for any new germinating plants. Without this natural association neither the fungus or an orchid patch will survive for long.

 

The only way an orchid can get this fungus into itself is for it to be there during germination. If it is introduced later in the orchid's life it will not be taken up. There are tissue cultured native orchids that can be found for sale. Unfortunately, the methods used to culture the plants cannot also include a fungus or any other microbial growth. The medium that the seed is germinated on takes the place of the fungus - while the plant is young. However, once the plant is removed from culture and potted up it is too late for the fungus to be introduced. Therefore, while such a plant may reach maturity in your garden, its seeds will never have the opportunity to naturally spread and develop into a self sustaining orchid patch in your garden. The plant you buy is the plant you get. That is not the Landscape Alternatives' way. We strive to help our customers develop self-sustaining native plantings in their gardens. The opportunity for re-seeding is an integral part of native plant gardening!

Please support efforts to protect natural remnant populations of our native orchids. DO NOT DIG THEM FROM THE WILD! From time to time "rescued" plants from construction projects become available for sale. Again, while these plants may grow in your garden for a few years, all the problems in 1-3 above will still apply. It is far better to make sure that these plants are not disturbed in the first place or, at the least, are transplanted to sites with active native remnant populations of the orchid (and thus the fungus).

 

Prairie Smoke

We stopped for a smoke. A prairie smoke that  is…..   This unusual plant was found the day we hiked the Hayden prairie located in northeastern Iowa.  We had found hundreds of dainty shooting stars that day but only a few of this now rare plant. I had never seen one before. 

In birding terms it was a “lifer.”  

The silky, flowing styles of the fruiting stage of Prairie Smoke (Geum triflorum), never fail to win admirers at first sight.  When setting seed, large stands of the plant create a gauzy effect that resembles smoke hovering close to the ground.  Blooming in spring to early summer, Prairie Smoke will spread slowly from its roots in well-drained, dry to wet-mesic soils.  It prefers full to partial sun and has a native range from the northern tier of the US through most of Canada thus growing well in zones 3-9. It is quite rare in Minnesota.

 

I do believe finding a prairie smoke was, indeed, a "Lucky Strike."  :)

 

Shooting Stars

Just a few weeks ago now Mrs. T.,  Baron and I took our last hike together. We were looking for shooting stars. Not the kind that one looks up into the night sky to find but instead in a very special place.  That place was a few miles south of us across the Iowa border.    Near Chester is a remnant of America’s frontier past. It’s a three hundred plus acre plot of never tilled land. It’s called Hayden Prairie.

The preserve is named after Ada Hayden, who was the first woman to receive a doctorate at Iowa State College (now called Iowa State University). Her doctorate was earned in 1918, making her the fourth student, male or female, to obtain a Ph.D. at Iowa State College. In 1920 she was appointed Assistant Professor of Botany at Iowa State. Teaching probably occupied a great deal of her time until 1934, when her appointment was changed to a research position in the Agriculture Experiment Station.

 

 

 

 

 

 

She devoted herself to prairie preservation and research and  wrote 29 papers, most dealing with Iowa flora. She campaigned for a system of prairie preserves. Take a look……

Dodecatheon meadia (Midland Shooting Star)

Midland Shooting Star, or often called just 'Shooting Star', is one of several varieties found in the Upper Midwest. It is a strong bloomer with a few dozen flowers often coming out of each plant; especially in moist rich soils. The color variation that naturally occurs in any population of Midland Shooting Star ranges from purple to pale pink to almost white.

There were literally thousands of shooting stars in this magical place.  I'll post an unusual prairie plant in my  next post.

R.I.P.

It is with great sadness that I must pass on the news that Baron our beloved GSD had to be put down yesterday.  Baron persevered for almost eight years in spite of malformed elbow joints in the front legs and chronic arthritis. All that knew him saw a gentle giant whose passions were to romp in the woods and have his ears scratched. He had admirers everyplace he went including the internet.   With tears I can only write “R.I.P. my best buddy.”

 

Lost In The Jungle

We are deep in the Minnesota jungle. Lost! Fighting for survival. The plants tower above us. Huge white flowers peer down at us. WHAT ARE THEY???? Ok, maybe it’s not the jungle but it sure looks like it from this angle. I hear a rescue helicopter approaching and I will provide an overhead view to make this a lot easier.

 The plants  are Mayapples and  the English called them mandrake.   English folklore says they scream when pulled from the ground! As you can see, the white flowers cannot be seen from overhead and so I had to lie down on the ground to photograph them. I did think the umbrella like stalk and leaves had a somewhat tropical effect. Thus my "jungle" fantasy.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

The plants beyond the mayapples are lily of the valley. These plants both represent the third year of my effort to restore woodland gardens to the north section of our property. The south plot is in its sixth year. Both are the result of intent to reduce grassy areas, fertilizing, herbicides and mowing. The oak wood, where our house now stands, was once the residence to several horses and later a playground for our two sons.

This area, also in the north section, gets a little more sunlight, so the buttercups seem to do quite well

I must admit some of the flowers here, I don't have a clue as to what they are. I cleared brush, did some burning and in the fall threw some seeds on the ground labeled "shady wildflowers." So be it. I'm not going to be a native restoration type of purist. In other words, if it’s a flower and grows in the shade I’ll take it. Mrs. T loves hostas . I do too. These  Japanese "aliens" are more than welcome here.

Finally I built some simple benches, restored an old picnic table and added a fire ring. This project is turning out to be a lot of fun and I'm just getting started!

Yard Birds

For Troutbirders complete book review on A Love Affair With Birds by Sue Leaf click on the above book cover to take you to Troutbirder II. 

I came late to birding in my life after having given up upland game hunting due to a defunct knee.  After an introduction to this new hobby by a good friend, I also thought it was also an excellent opportunity to take my big GSD for long hikes in the countryside.  And so it all began.

Here a just a few of the almost two hundred birds I’ve seen In Minnesota  and counted along the way…..

 

Chipping Sparrow and Indigo out my back window.

Early spring Northern Oriole on my white pine.

Blue Jay

Red Breasted Nuthatch & friends

Hummingbird on front porch.

Screech Owl in my woodduck box.

Baby Barn Swallows also on the front portch.

 

Rare Tufted Titmouse

Female Summer Tanager

Rose Breasted Grosbeak convention.

Ovenbird (warbler) rehabilitating in my beer cooler. I'll tell that story another time. :)

A few of our many "yard birds" taken with my little point and shoot camera.