EMBARRAS VOLUNTEER STEWARDS
Spring 2008
Volume 15, Number 1
Conservation days are subject to change. For updates, call or e-mail Larry at 345-6476, thors@cmecwildblue.com. To receive e-mailed updates, send your e-mail address to Larry and ask to be included on the list for updates. Conservation days are on Saturday mornings, and last about two hours.
CONSERVATION DAYS FOR SPRING
March 1 – 9:00 a.m. – Lafferty Nature Center for control of bush honeysuckle. Lafferty is behind Carl Sandberg School on Reynolds Drive in Charleston.
March 8 – 9:00 a.m. – Woodyard Conservation Area for pulling multiflora rose, bush honeysuckle and euonymus. These invasive species are just getting a start at this site and are small enough to pull easily. Enter off Route 130 about a mile south of Charleston.
March 15 – 9:00 a.m. - James Nance Woods for control of multiflora rose. Bring shovels. Take 6th Street west from the four-way stop in Neoga, go 2.2 miles past the city limits to Shelby County Road 3425 E., turn right and go 0.9 mile past two “S” curves to the woods on the right.
March 22 – 9:00 a.m. – Waterworks Hill Prairie for removal of woody species. We will evaluate our previous work here and remove what few woodies may have resprouted or escaped our attention. Park at the corner of McKinley Avenue and Stoner Drive East in Charleston.
March 29 – 10:00 a.m. – NOTE: This event is particularly subject to postponement because of weather. If wind or rain threatens, call ahead. Prescribed burn at Larry Thorsen’s prairie. From Charleston, take Route 130 south 4 miles to the Westfield Road, take the Westfield Road 3.5 miles to County Road 2200 E., turn right (south) and go 4 miles to County Road 100 N., turn left (east) and go ¼ mile to Thorsen’s. Please do not wear rubber shoes or synthetic clothing if you plan to be near the fire.
April 5 – 9:00 a.m. – Walnut Point State Park for scouting garlic mustard in the Upper Embarras Nature Preserve. The preserve has been GM-free and we want to help keep it that way. Walnut Point is 3 miles north of Oakland. Meet at the Pleasant View Picnic Area.
April 12 – 9:00 a.m. – Coneflower Hill Prairie to cut and spray exotics. Take Route 121 west from Mattoon to Coles Station, turn left and go 5 miles to the electric substation, turn right and go 2 miles to the “T,” turn left and go ½ mile to the pole barn on right.
April 19 – 9:00 a.m. – Douglas-Hart Nature Center to help with planting shrubs and trees. The Nature Center is at the corner of Lerna Road and Dewitt Avenue in Mattoon.
April 26 – 9:00 a.m. – Embarras Bluffs for a wildflower and warbler walk. This is a lovely woods on the banks of the Embarras. Take the Ashmore-Oakland Road to County Road 1470 N., turn west and continue across the Little Embarras River to Oak Grove Church at the corner of CR 2300 E. and CR 1600 N.
May 3 – 9:00 a.m. – Rocky Branch Nature Preserve for a second wildflower and warbler walk. Meet at the café at the top of the hill in Clarksville for car pooling, since there is very little parking at the site.
May 15 (Thursday) – 6:30 p.m. – Embarras Volunteer Stewards meeting at Douglas-Hart Nature Center to plan summer conservation days.
May 17 – 9:00 a.m. – A second outing at Douglas-Hart Nature Center to help with spring planting.
May 24 – 9:00 a.m. – Baber Woods for spraying garlic mustard. Take the Clarksville Road east from Westfield 4 miles to the Cleone Road. Turn left and go 2 1/2 miles to Baber Woods on the right.
June 7 – 9:00 a.m. – Lafferty Nature Center for continued work on bush honeysuckle.
June 14 – 9:00 a.m. - Coneflower Hill Prairie for pulling sweet clover.
CONSERVATION STEWARDSHIP PROGRAM
Property Tax Incentives
The Illinois Department of Natural Resources is offering property tax incentives for landowners who develop and follow approved conservation management plans for their woodlands, prairies or wetlands. Land that is not assessed as farmland can be reassessed at 5 percent of fair market value. For more information, go to:
http://dnr.state.il.us/Stewardship/index.htm
STALKING THE WILDS OF COLES COUNTY
A Personal Reminiscence
Ruth Riegel-Lamborghini
I believe that Euell Gibbons’ books appeared in our house because my older brothers suddenly decided, somewhere in the mid-sixties, that knowing how to live off the land was a useful skill. I’m not sure why, as they seldom went camping, unless it validated an inclination to collect weaponry and pore over George Leonard Herter catalogs. At any rate, I also began to read Stalking the Wild Asparagus and Stalking the Healthful Herbs with attention, and, to my pleasure, found that my best friend Lisa was also a Gibbons addict. At the age of 11 or so, we decided that we would prepare a wild feast.
One early spring day, armed with Wild Asparagus, we set out to collect whatever we could find to feed ourselves. We were aided, perhaps inspired, by a recent birthday gift: her father had given her a treasure—a tiny camping stove with a fitted lid that became a cookpot, and we were eager to try it out. We both had a slightly better than rudimentary knowledge of local plants, thanks to our parents, but we decided to stick to things that were easily identified and needed no more than boiling to be palatable. In case we were unsuccessful in our quest, we added some store-bought provisions: a large Hershey bar, teabags, and a coconut.
I had been intrigued by Gibbons’ chapter on eating Spring Beauty tubers, and we found an extensive stand of them. Mindful of his admonition to not destroy lovely flowers when other food is more readily available, we carefully dug our samples from a wide area, ending up with just enough tiny tubers to fill the bottom of her cookpot. We were lucky enough to find two or three small morels, the only spring mushroom either of us felt confident in identifying. Rounding off this first attempt at living off the land were the shoots of daylilies, which seemed to be in every roadside ditch. Lisa, a careful planner, had also brought along a stick of butter, which she rightly said would make anything taste better. With only one pot, we had to proceed with our meal in courses. We began with the tubers, first washing, then boiling them on the little stove, and I still remember how lovely and earthy the smelled as they cooked. We had to pop them out of their jackets, just like half-inch--long potatoes, getting the white inside slightly grimy with residual dirt. Doused with butter and salt, they were crunchy, slightly sweet, and delicious. We were wild food converts at that moment. The day lily shoots were next into the pot, and we agreed we’d never tasted a better green vegetable. To end, we tossed the morels in a little more butter and made short work of them. Tea, followed by chocolate, was followed by throwing our coconut at trees until it cracked and we could collect the juice and scrape out the meat. We weren’t hungry by then, but it was fun. We made many other wild food-gathering forays after that, trying, with mixed success, nettles, puffballs, acorns, smilax, sassafras, dandelions, violets, elderberries, persimmon, pawpaw, may-apples, and water lotus to name but a few, but the April spring-beauty-and-day-lily trek became an annual ritual.
I still enjoy gathering wild foods and collect books that discuss the subject. Here’s a recipe from The Weed Cookbook by Adrienne Crowhurst (Lancer Larchmont, 1972): Common Milkweed (Asclepias syriaca) Parts used: Young shoots, unopened flower clusters, unripe seed pods. Collect the shoots when young, usually early June. Tie them in bundles and boil 2 minutes in rapidly boiling salted water. Pour off this water, and boil another 10 minutes in fresh salted water. Serve with butter or oil and vinegar dressing. The unopened flower clusters may be served like broccoli, leaving the whole flowerhead intact. Cook the same way as the shoots, pouring off the first water. Unripe pods should be gathered while still green and tender, around the first of August. These should be boiled 20 minutes, changing the water several times. These are good with butter (of course!) but are also nice with a cream sauce, cheese sauce, or sour cream.