Prescribed burns (maintain), improve (wildlife, recreation) habitats
Prairie and savanna prescribed fires can be good trouble if they are carefully timed and controlled. Their purpose is to help keep prairies as grasslands and prevent or at least slow succession toward more forested habitats.
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Deer, eagle, turkey, and plant activity noticeableEven when a thermometer drops to zero, then jumps to 40 degrees, bald eagles, white-tailed deer, wild turkeys, and some plant growth occurs in the dead of winter.January 15, 2025 -
Force spring by finding trout, flowers to respondThis has been a peculiar winter entering 2025. Farmers are still hoping for more snow to cover alfalfa and then satisfy drought hampered seedlings and perennial stems after frost moves on.January 16, 2025 -
Chronology expressed using annual tree ringsOne of the most read chronologies using tree rings occurs in Aldo Leopold’s book, “A Sand County Almanac,” published and first printed in 1949 by Oxford University Press. Aldo Leopold, using a cross-cut saw, dropped a dead oak, which he used for heat. He determined the tree had 80 annual rings, the first being laid down in 1865. He used the date the oak died, the number of rings in the wood, and counted back to the trunk’s pith region and first ring. These rings in the wood (xylem tissue) are laid down by a meristem (growth producing) positioned between a tree’s wood and bark.January 9, 2025
