This year, Brad Thome completed the update of our Pleasant Valley Conservancy website. Perhaps the fourth iteration, the site is packed full of useful information on oak savanna restoration in Wisconsin. And more. I want to point out some of the website’s features and navigate with you past hurdles and into some good stuff. You are already here, within the blog menu of the new site (as you know). The address is pleasantvalleyconservancy.org.

The clean look of the menu bar on gray is a bit plain. Nothing, not even beauty, gets in the way of your quickly accessing information. However, if you want to stop and view the picture gallery on the home page, you can do so as a slide show by clicking the stop button, then the play button in the upper right of the first photo.

Please submit photos to add here if you have any you’d like to share. I recently added a few more to the show.

Surprising to me is how well the search function works. Tap the magnifying glass (top, far right), type in what you are looking for, and press “return.”

This might be the fastest way to find what you are looking for. All the blog posts are included in the search, and Tom has umpteen blogs going back to 2008. For example, if you want a bird checklist for Pleasant Valley, type “checklist” and my January 22, 2024 blog with the bird checklist is the top hit.

Super helpful and interesting is Tom’s two-volume set containing the full and meticulously detailed history of the restoration at Pleasant Valley. These can be downloaded and read at your leisure. You’ll find them under the “Landscape and History” menu, at the “Conservancy Restoration” dropdown.

If you want to go to school on all things buckthorn, click on “Management Activities” and select “Brush and tree removal.” At the very top is a link to Tom’s 2011 power point presentation on buckthorn eradication. It’s comprehensive and well-illustrated. I’m even pictured starting fires with a drip torch back when my lungs were impervious to all things smoke.

I notice that our “Herbicides Used” page needs updating. But if you search for a herbicide (i.e., imazapyr), our SI (super intelligence) will find it.

Our “Controlled (Prescribed) Burns” page can also use an update. The prairies and savanna’s each are now burned every other year. The wetland is burned, historically, about every 5 years, although sections close to the prairies are burned more often. The north woods has been burned every 2-3 years. This would be a good blog topic for early spring!

The “Weed Control” dropdown menu (under “Managenent Activities”) looks as if “sumac removal” is the only choice. But it’s not. You need to tap “Weed Control” again to get a comprehensive list of species and methods of control.

There are other dropdown menu items (that fan out into choices) that also need to be tapped twice to enter the main (or title) page. For example:

Our Public Trail Map was recently updated, so use this one instead of any previously published maps.

All sections on plants, especially under the “Vegetation Overview” menu contain a lot of info and are well worth reading.

I would appreciate it if you would let me know of any typos or broken links or other glitches you find on our website. Also, send photos that we might use. Some of ours could use more pixels at the very least!

Oh, and if you are looking for wildlife, check under “Landscape History” (I know…)

Lastly, a poem to get us outside:

The Tables Turned

by William Wordsworth

Up! up! my Friend, and quit your books;

Or surely you’ll grow double:

Up! up! my Friend, and clear your looks;

Why all this toil and trouble?

The sun above the mountain’s head,

A freshening luster mellow

Through all the long green fields has spread,

His first sweet evening yellow.

Books! ’tis a dull and endless strife:

Come, hear the woodland linnet,

How sweet his music! on my life,

There’s more of wisdom in it.

And hark! how blithe the throstle sings!

He, too, is no mean preacher:

Come forth into the light of things,

Let Nature be your teacher.

She has a world of ready wealth,

Our minds and hearts to bless—

Spontaneous wisdom breathed by health,

Truth breathed by cheerfulness.

One impulse from a vernal wood

May teach you more of man,

Of moral evil and of good,

Than all the sages can.

Sweet is the lore which Nature brings;

Our meddling intellect

Mis-shapes the beauteous forms of things:—

We murder to dissect.

Enough of Science and of Art;

Close up those barren leaves;

Come forth, and bring with you a heart

That watches and receives.