Indiana Dunes Wetland Restoration Team 1 2012

It was our first full work week with our new Japanese intern, Emi. Last week, we had more of a transition/training week for our new roommate and co-worker. She was quick to pick up our routine and has been adapting nicely. But now it was time to really get our hands dirty out in the Great Marsh. We headed out for a week filled with planting and herbiciding. We decided to split the duties within our team to have one team plant the area herbicided from the day before, while the other team herbicided the next area we would plant in. The system thus far, has worked out great. We are moving at a better pace, which may also be due to the awesome weather we have been encountering. I will take working in the mid 80s over 100 degree weather any day. Before, I could barely stand the heat but I have been able to adapt accordingly.

At the end of the week, we had the opportunity to tour the JFNew Greenhouse! It not only gave us a chance to see where our plants come from, but also to further explore Indiana, to see what work is put into growing these plants, how a multi-dimensional greenhouse operates, seed processing tools and techniques, and career prospects. The hour long journey to the greenhouse reminded me a lot of the central valley in California. Just field after field after field of farmland. Not really much else out there. A house here and there and your corner store gas stations filled the rest. Upon our arrival, we realized we were an hour late! We crossed over to the eastern time zone but it ended up working out anyway.

The tour began in the offices and quickly moved into the shipping garage and storage, which also included refrigerated storage. It was mostly filled with seeds and packaging materials. We promptly found out that most of what they actually send out isn't plants, its seed. They collect it from their production fields and sometimes private properties, which are then brought back to JFNew to dry. We next entered their seed processing garage where they had many unique machines to clean seeds ranging from antiques to gravity machines. We learned the seeds are then packed up, labeled, and stored. Moving from the garages, we walked out to their production fields where they collect most of their seed from. The fields seemed endless! We then moved to their green houses and wetland nurseries. After the tour was over, I learned that JFNew has a knack for paying attention to details and from the vast amount of fields, endless plants, and what seemed like infinite seed, JFNew definitely knows what they are doing and do not carelessly go through their routines. They learn from their mistakes and adapt accordingly. They not only understand the importance of maintaining data, but to also utilize it to their benefit, which can invent, experiment or alter processes to ensure they get the most out of what they have. They also provide numerous other services including permitting, restoration, and ecological consulting. For anyone in restoration practices, I would highly recommend visiting their plant source. It was an excellent opportunity to see how a greenhouse operates and has inspired me to look into working in greenhouses.

P.s. Unfortunately JFNew does not allow photography within their quarters so you will have to imagine the tour I described above.

Written by: Patrick Maloney

This past week saw some exciting times as our team continued to plant on the open soil of Unit 23 and awaited the arrival of our new intern from Japan, Emi. We built upon the skills developed over the past few weeks which capped off with planting 2200 plants in one day, nearly 300 more than any other day so far. Our high numbers are helped by the fact that we are planting mostly the sedge Carex stricta, which can be planted in large populations and in straight rows. With a practice we found that a three person team can really get some speed going. To top it off, Adam did some number crunching and found that so far, we have installed 10,229 plants into the Great Marsh!

As we finished up with the open space of Unit 23, Jason and I strapped on herbicide packs and began spraying the cattails on the perimeter of our workspace and did some touch up work where we had noticed some sprouts popping up. Carolyn and Kristina went back to a previous week’s site to put a few more plants in the space that opened up after cattail we had sprayed died. With the help of Adam in the afternoon for a bit they put in over 1000 plants, not too shabby guys!

We got lucky on Thursday. With the weather forecast predicting a heat index in the high 110's the park superintendent declared that no one work outside unless absolutely required so we were blessed with an office day. We used it to do last minute touch ups on our plant guide and presentation for the two interns from Japan who we look forward to meeting!

Written By: Carolyn Boyd

WANTED: Person(s) willing to begin the day at 5:30 am and work till about 5:30pm, plant and identify endless buckets and trays of carex and scirpus species, operate a brush cutter, willingness to target and eradicate invasive intruders and upland species which have invaded the wetland domain with a 3.5 gallon tank of plant deadly blue power aid on their back and some near Hazmat gear. Your own waders required to go traipsing about in hip deep muck, work in adverse heat and rain, little to no breeze at times and gale force winds at others, willingness to wring out excess sweat from clothing, and reapply sunscreen at regular intervals a must, ninja skills in poison plant avoidance always a plus, and you might need some skills in PowerPoint as well. Little pay, but awesome muscles, farmer's tans and plant identification skills gained along the way.........
Any takers?

Luckily, we already have a crew and another crew member on the way, willing to take on these tasks and many more to come in the following months. A new member of our team will shortly be joining our 4 person team to make us a quintet for the months of July and August. As the first Corps team to host international interns, we will be experiencing many new challenges in the next weeks to overcome. This week has been such a whirlwind of tasks completed. Not only were the tasks drastically switched from day to day, but our sites and weather as well. Just a few challenges to get us geared up for the difficulties ahead.

06/18/12
Our days start bright and early from now until the fall at the coffee-required-to-function hour of 5:30 am when we leave our apartment to complete the vehicle inspection and head out to the National Park
Service Office to start at 6:00am. The grounds are eerily quiet at this hour, as most others won't start to arrive for another hour or so. We have the greenhouse and tools to ourselves now. Not only will we be avoiding the rush of the various other teams using the work spaces at the office, but we also hope to beat some of the heat of the coming day. Today is our last full day of planting in Unit 31 of the Great Marsh, so we bucket up trays of Carex stricta, Carex aquatilus, Scirpus pungens, and our ever so wonderful Scirpus validus (the plant we all love to hate, being as its a very fragile plant and likes to tear out of its tray and is planted in small groups and very spread out in the marsh, not like the large group population loving carexes.) Monday turned into a scorcher, but a pretty productive day none the least.

06/19/12
Today we separated the team into an herbicide team and a trail team. Kristina and I tackled spraying the stragglers from last week’s herbicide efforts and hiking into the mud to treat the ever resilient Typha x. glauca (aka hybrid cattail). Strapped into our tanks of blue dyed herbicide we set out to treat the remaining pockets in Unit 31 and then moving into the new Unit 23. Unit 23 was sprayed by a contractor in 2011 and the dead cattails flattened and planted into by various groups. Kristina sprayed the already 6 to 8 foot tall stands of cattails in the north part of the section, and I made a grid pattern of spraying the stragglers left from the previous seasons spraying and plantings. The baby cattails springing up from the rhizomes of their dead forebears continued to be a issue later in the week to fight because they are so small and numerous, but we'll just keep spot treating as needed and hopefully get the native species we plant to crowd them out. Meanwhile, while we were spraying, Jason and Patrick were cutting a trail along the old Constance roadbed from the old housing development. This will ease out travels carrying back trays and buckets of plants in the coming weeks. This patch was not quite at laden with trees and vines as the last trail we made on the Wells road, but littered with much more poison ivy and poison sumac. We'll try out best to avoid these native, but nasty, floras.

06/20/12
Today we employed more of our brain skills and took an office day taking over the library to start our guide book on native, invasive, and poisonous plants. This day was mainly geared toward our Japanese intern who will be joining our team on July 1st. The guide will also be useful to future teams including the plants scientific names, NPS codes, common name(s), planting instructions, moisture thresholds, and species to confuse it with. It also contains identification of invasive and poisonous plants and how to eradicate or avoid them. Part of this day was also making a presentation for the new intern's training sessions in early July, as well as trying out our new data entry spreadsheets. Definitely a switch from the heat and humidity of the marsh to the air conditioned quietness inside the Chesterton Public Library.

06/21/12
After our air conditioned lull of office work we're back in the field and ready to do some more planting. As we leave unit 31 and move into 23, new challenges and rewards abound. The ground is easier to traverse, and easier to plant populations without all the stomping down of rice cut grass, but previous erratic planting and baby cattail plants are everywhere. We flagged out the area in the far south section and, as two and four man teams, start to plant. The morning was sunny and cooler than the heat of the rest of the week, but by lunch we had planted all the buckets of Carex stricta, and most of the Carex pellita and Scirpus lineatus we carried out down our newly constructed trail. We headed back to the office to get more plants and the rain started. But we all got to test out the rain-proofing of our new rain gear as we bucketed another 20 trays of Carex stricta in a down pour. And back to the field to plant in the rain and when it died off another few hours of relativity cool planting. In total we planted 56 trays of plants. Another record broken (38 plants a tray X 56 trays = 2128 plants). A record surely to be broken as we learn the best methods and everyone’s planting rhythms.

In all a week full of heat, cold, mud, power tools, and computer skills, this week turned out to be a nice work week and lots of goals accomplished. We are looking forward to the next week of planting and more preparation for the arrival of our new teammate.

Written by: Carolyn Boyd

The Days before Training May 16th-May 20th

We finally arrive. To this far off place in Chesterton Indiana, by plane and by car we are picked up and shuttled off to our new home for the next 6 months. It’s hard to believe this is happening and we are able to participate in the SCA Native Plant Corps and work on the wetlands. At the Indiana Dunes National Lakeshore we will be partnered with the folks of the National Park Service to help them in their mission to restore the beautiful 15,000 sites of fragmented wetlands. Many of us have little experience in the field on this scale. It will be a challenge to be overcome, with a little hard work, but a great addition to our work skills and further progress toward our own conservation ideals.

The majority of the two teams working on the Indiana Dunes first met on the 16th of May. And before the whirlwind of training that would later take place, we received a few precious moments to relax and settle in. We also got to view the sites we will be working on and meet a few of the park staff. We learned that the wetlands have gone through a lot of changes in the decades since this area was first settled. A majority of the changes involved draining the marshes and bogs for agriculture, industry, and residential areas. This drainage gave way to a great many tree species to grow in what would have been several inches to feet of water. The land has since been cleared of many of the residential sites, only the small remnants of roads and concrete remain, with the occasional refrigerator or tire to mark human settlement.

Many of the different bogs and fens and marsh which make up the site have been heavily encroached upon in recent years by the hybridized version of a native and European species of cattail. This virulent strain not only grows to tower by as much as 12 feet tall, but also crowds thickly and spreads by rhizome root structures so that it chokes out other native species. Its only saving grace is that with the hybridization, the cattail cannot spread by seed. Much of our work this summer and into the fall will be spraying the cattail with herbicide and planting of native species in their place.

Aside from viewing the dunes and the wetlands and facilities, the extra days gave us a little time to explore the small town of Chesterton, population circa 10,000. It’s a very beautiful area with numerous bike-able paths, urban green space, and feeling of community. Accesses to the beaches along Lake Michigan are always an added bonus.

Native Plant Corps Work Day

The next day at training we met with the various Native Plant Crew teams to go into the field for some hands on training in grubbing out invasive species of Himalayan Black Berry and planting native sword ferns in their places. After so many days sitting around, inside or in small workshops, it’s what we all really needed, just to dig our hands into the soil and get dirty. It was a good day, and the first day to finally work as a team with our whole completed teams. Later that night the Trail crews were having a trail derby to test the trail building skills they had been learning the last few days, and a plant team was made (including two of our very own) to test our skills. Having no experience really with trails and after some crazy flipping through the guide provided we created a very beautiful trail system in miniature. In our opinion, one of the most beautiful trails, or at least the one with the most plants upon it. Complete with water drainage systems, a suspension bridge, log steps, endangered snail sanctuaries, it was definitely in the running, sadly we only received the prize of “The best trail made by a non-trail crew team,” but you can only show them up so much I guess and it surely was a fun night.

Chainsaw Training

The next and final certification of the training was chainsaw certification with the Game of Logging. This system practices perseverance, precision, perfect practice so that we might safely use the chainsaw and be aware of the hazards involved. Chainsaw certification proved most challenging for some, but by the end everyone was certified to operate a chainsaw, even those of us which had never picked up a chainsaw before were felling trees and limbing and bucking logs by the end of the long third day. These skills also came into practice in the field much sooner than we expected in the next week.

Final day and travel back the Indiana.

So on the final days, we bid our farewells to the other corps members as they left to start their seasons. We’ve made some good friends and connections in the past few days, but bigger things await and wetland planting must begin soon. So off we fly back to Chicago and drive back to Chesterton Indiana. Then proceed to indulge in life sweetest pleasures—in the terms of sleeping in past 6am and having hot showers….although nothing could compare with the amazing meals which were prepared for us in those 10 days by the wonderful cooking staff.

First week of Work June 4th-7th

Day 1...see the plants, feel the plants, learn the plants

We start bright and early by transplanting plants from microcosm tubs for replanting into the field and learning and studying the plants we’ll be using the next 6 months. Truly so many shades of green, and so little time to learn them all. With time and a little studying, we can surely come to master some of the plants on the wetlands, or at least the ones we don’t want to tangle with, such as poison ivy.

Day2...Indiana Dunes and Searching for the Lost Trail

The second day began with chainsaw and brush cutter work to clear a trail on the Great Marsh. Aside from a slight detour and beginning our morning on the wrong sections we quickly recovered and started in on the right trail following an old road bed of the old housing development. It was hard going and required cutting through tangled brush and vines, downed trees, rotten logs, close set Aspen trees, Wild Rose, the dreaded Poison Ivy, and equipment malfunctions and dull blades. Not quite as easy as the straight Douglas Firs we learned to cut down in faraway Washington State. But we finished with some smiles on our faces and set out the next day to fix our equipment.

Day 3...chainsaw parts chase

Riding around finding chainsaw parts and trying to find appropriately sized waders took up most of our morning this day, but we came away with some parts, some sharpening tools, and one pair of waders from a local outdoor store. Back at the site we spent the rest of the afternoon still battling with chainsaw equipment problems, but we managed to cut farther down the road the rest of the day.

Day 4...more trail work...didn’t know we joined a trail crew? :)

After a quick jaunt into Michigan City for a couple more chainsaw parts, we started our final day of clearing trail. Today the routine of clearing tangled brush and working with the rest of the team as a unit really started to show with good communication skills and the end goal in site, or at least it was made more clear after we encountered a quite swampy section of the marsh and could no longer clear trail at least from this side without waders. Our NPS supervisor surveyed our work and seemed very impressed with the work which was done. This trail will make it much easier for planting crews to come in and access the marsh and have a place to stash their plants during and at the end of the day. So we’ve finally finished the trail and cleaned it up a bit around the edges. Trail success, with approximately 500 feet of usable trail into the marsh section. Put the chainsaw certification to good use, learned how to use a new power tool, and more about proper maintenance of the chainsaw equipment. A pretty good first week, looking forward to what they throw at us next week.

I grew up in North East Oregon, a beautiful region with snow capped mountains and blue green forests. I spent much of my youth camping, fishing, hiking, and riding our horses into the Wallowa-Witman National Forest. I attended college at the University of Idaho, in Northern Idaho on the Palouse, a lovely region of rolling hills and endless wheat fields. I acquired a B.S. Degree in Environmental Science in 2011. I was a part of many different clubs working on environmental and natural resource issues around the community, including a 3 year internship working on a wetland. I participated in the SCA in 2010 as a visitor service intern for the Flaming Gorge National Recreation Area in Wyoming and Utah. When not at school I enjoy traveling the world, and just got back from traveling SE Asia after studying abroad for my last semester. I love to garden, love cooking, watching movies and documentaries, as well as playing in the mud and water in the wetlands, but who wouldn't? That's half the fun of working on the wetlands.

The Indiana Dunes National Lakeshore represents a unique ecological history beginning with the retreat of the last great continental glacier approximately 14,000 years ago. The park currently consists of 15,000 acres spanning 15 miles of Lake Michigan shoreline representing four major successive stages of historic shorelines. Indiana Dunes is one of the most extensive geologic records of the largest complex of freshwater lakes in the world. In the late 1800s several scientific publications had been published featuring the entomology and botany of the Indiana Dunes and in 1916 the National Dunes Association was formed. Public approval for the formation of a National Park was at an all time high; however, the onset of World War I prevented this plan from becoming a reality until 1966.

The area of the park formerly known as the Great Marsh was formed over 4,000 years ago between the Tolleston dunes on the north and the Calumet dunes on the south. This area was an open body of water fed by a single watershed and emptying into Lake Michigan through Dunes Creek. Over time this body of water changed to include conifer swamp, wet prairie, fen, bog, sedge meadow, and marsh. Today, the remaining 205 acres of the Great Marsh stretch only twelve miles with an average width of one-half mile. These collections of wetlands, including Cowles Bog National Landmark, are now known as Cowles Bog Wetland Complex (CBWC).

The CBWC gained recognition in the early 1900s for its unique biodiversity and landscape. It would take Chicago residents a full day of travel to the north to see the same biological diversity they could find by travelling only ninety minutes east to the area then known as Mineral Springs Quaking Bog and Mineral Springs Tamarack Swamp. Its proximity to Chicago made it a highly visited and studied area. Henry Chandler Cowles published a paper in 1899 entitled, “Ecological Relations of the Vegetation on Sand Dunes of Lake Michigan.” For this seminal work, he was later recognized as one of the fathers of plant ecology. The area was first referenced as Cowles Bog in 1923 by Herman Kurz, a student of Henry Cowles at the University of Chicago.