My matrilineal line hails from SE Wisconsin. Although I moved to Texas in with my mom in the summer between kindergarten and first grade, I spent all three months of my childhood summer vacations there, with my grandmother, who I nicknamed Granna, and mom’s stepdad, Grampa Louis, here. Once a week we would make trips to Milwaukee, where my great-grandmother, AKA Gammy, and great-aunt Betty lived, to help them run errands since they were unable to drive and quite frail. When Auntie Betty died in 1981, Gammy moved in with Granna and Grampa, so I was able to spend even more time with her. In adulthood, I went to college in Chicago and would take the train to Wisconsin to stay with them. I was a film student, so recorded hours of storytelling by Gammy and made my first films of her and Granna.
Gammy’s maiden name is Rita Martin. She was the daughter of Everett Martin and Ida Stickney. Ida inherited some land in Big Bend, WI in the late 1800’s from her father, but being the time that it was, she had to have a husband to own it on her behalf. Her and Everett were married and they turned a large portion of it into a farm homestead called Waukowis Farms (for Waukesha County, Wisconsin) where they raised dairy cows, harvested and produced maple syrup, and grew other crops. According to a copy of a May 21, 1944 newspaper article (publication name unknown), GGG Martin learned land conservation from his father- in-law. While many other men in the area clear cut their land, and often were left with no adjacent woodlots, the Martin-Stickney family just took “what was needed to use” for building and fires. He also sold cords for others home use. When a railway company wanted to cut down some of the woods, he offered them a large sum of money not to. Instead they insisted, but paid him about half of what he’d offered them, as recompense.
Gammy’s brother Sid took over the farm and land after Everett died, but had to sell the land in the 50’s. It’s not clear to me if the new owner’s purchased the woodland that hadn’t been farmed or if it was given over to the local government at that time. In any case, whoever owned it after our family left it alone, as Everett and Sid had. Eventually the Waukesha Land Conservancy was formed and took on stewardship of these woods, as their first property, in the early 1990’s, and in 2002 they became designated as a state natural area.
Granna and I drove by the old house and woods a couple of times when I was up visiting, and she let me know they were named after our family, but we never walked through them. I remember thinking they seemed mysterious and I felt curious about them, but I wasn’t yet familiar with roaming around in the woods. Granna taught me about our feathered friends through birdwatching and plants through gardening. They had a five acre plot with several beds created by stacked stones and railroad ties. There are certain plants which remind me of her to this day, purple irises, yucca, standing cypress, purple globe allium, moss roses, and many more. As I grew I continued to learn about the outdoor world and its inhabitants, primarily from taking photography on nature walks and gardening, then doing research to learn about the subjects I photographed. This has expanded into using motion pictures to explore my relationship with nature, usually by creating short films I consider to be video poems.
I am an avid reader of fiction and non-fiction. A few years ago I read Robin Wall Kimmerer’s “Braiding Sweetgrass” and learned she is a member of the Potawatomi tribe, which lived in the SE portion of what is now Wisconsin, I wondered if her ancestors had interacted with mine, and if so I hoped they didn’t have animosity towards each other. I thought about the Martin’s Woods and when I searched online for information about them, I learned about WCLC’s stewardship. I saw on Facebook that they guide people through the lands they steward, so I sent a message asking if they planned to give a tour of the Martin’s Woods anytime soon. I was given the contact information for the Land Management Director, Helen Holtz. Life happens and so, I didn’t get around to messaging Helen until much later. When Granna passed away, my mother was left with all of the amazing geneological materials Granna had gathered over the decades. Mom recently asked me to take them and then I learned more about the history of the Martin’s and Stickney’s and their land. I suddenly felt the urge to visit Wisconsin again since it had been about 12 years. If a tour of the Martin’s Woods was in the books, then I would make the trip…
I gave Helen a call and she let me know they were indeed planning a walk, with an ecologist, Aaron Feggestad, on May 10th, a day before my 55th birthday! We were both excited to talk about our connection to the woods and that I would be able to join her and the group. I booked our reservations for the “Spring Ephemerals” and the rest of our trip, glad to have such a wonderful reason to go back home. I don’t know any of my relatives there anymore, but I consider the land my home too. The Kettle Moraine area has such sweet rolling hills and soft light. Granna helped manage the beautifully wooded golf course and country club there, so I also spent a lot of time under a lovely willow whose leaved limbs swayed over the putting green and riding through the trees on a cart. I was looking forward to hearing the sound of Red-winged Blackbirds.
The temperature was perfect when we arrived at Martin’s Woods and there were about a dozen attendees. The leaders let us know that there are 272 species of plants in the 32-acre forest! We learned that spring ephemerals are plants who are only in the reproductive stage for two days to two weeks and this was an excellent time to see many of them. There was a dead deer near our meeting point, but not near enough for us to smell thankfully. It was the perfect introduction to the first plants we met on our walk—dark red, prairie trilliums (below), which are named after the region, not the ecosystem, and mimic the color of decaying meat to attract beetles and flies that will help pollinate them.
Fuzzy wild ginger uses this color strategy, too.
So does white trillium, by tinting itself dark pink as it ages, if it hasn’t been pollinated yet.
Because the Martin’s Woods are partially a mesic environment, meaning the soil stays moist, water loving Jack-in-the-pulpit grow well there. Our guides shared that they are hermaphrodites, in that they can produce a male or female flower from year-to-year. This might be due to how successful reproduction was the year before. Male flowers can be identified by small holes at their base, making it easier for small flying insects to enter and escape the deep shaft with pollen on them. Females are much more difficult to exit from, so in a frenzy to get out, pollination is likely. This bisexual plant is also sometimes referred to as Jill-in-the-pulpit.
Another plant I was surprised to see on the forest floor, even though it loves dampness, is maidenhair fern. In Texas I usually see them growing on rocks near running water. They also had pinkish-purple stems, instead of black like the Southern maidenhair, which is common here. Finally, the leaves were slightly different, in that the scallops on the leaf edges are more rounded instead of feathery looking.
Wild leeks grow here, but because of over harvesting, it is now illegal to do so in Wisconsin.
Mayapple plants have a symbiotic relationship with turtles, especially box turtles. Their flowers are low to the ground and when they go to seed, the stem hangs even lower so that turtles can reach them to eat. Their digestive systems help speed their germination before depositing it onto the soil. It takes seven or more years for mayapples to grow two stems, before that they are not able to produce flowers. The whole plant is poisonous, except for the ripe apple.
Although the forest is populated by many oaks, ash, basswood, and maples, it also contains another life form I was not familiar with before—Kentucky coffee tree. While not an actual coffee plant, the seeds can be roasted and brewed as a caffeine-free coffee substitute. They are poisonous when not roasted and their leaves and wood is as well.
Other interesting tidbits revolved around insects and invertebrates: 1) The bumblebees buzzing in our midst were all females. They have been carrying sperm since last year but will only allow herself to be pregnated just now when the flowers are in bloom. They build hives in mole and vole holes. 2) In an act of myrmecochory (new word to me), ants inadvertently disperse ginger seeds because they have sugar packets attached to them, which the insects love to eat. 3) Sedge grasses (image below) such as the Carrix jamesii and Carix woodsii here have fine roots that when they decompose, make quick organic matter for ants. 4) Native worms are tiny. Larger worms, sometimes brought to nearby homes and facilities to compost are invasive and damaging because they destroy fungi and leaf litter, which local insects rely on.
Although my relatives have passed away, I still love SE Wisconsin because the land is my family too. It was wonderful to get a chance to walk where my beloved great-grandma and her family did a century ago. I understand now where her love of plants comes from, violets and geraniums (her “posies”), which were blooming while we were there. I’m so thankful that she and her daughter passed on to me the importance of caring for green beings, that her ancestors conserved this land, and the kind people at WCLC welcomed me on the spring ephemerals outing.
I feel incredibly lucky to have been able to walk through Martin’s Woods with such knowledgeable guides and fellow guests. Had I gone on my own, I would have missed out on learning interesting facts like plant names, how the plants and animals interact there, and their survival techniques. This depth of understanding brought the place to life more than a walk alone would have, especially since the wild plants here are so different from the ones that grow in Texas.
I hope that the next generation will continue to cherish the wild areas like Martin’s Woods in Wisconsin. These are refuges for our non-human cohabitants. The ways they provide for us should not be underestimated. Although humans tend to gravitate towards developed areas, if we learn to need less, we are leaving resources for the beings who clean the air we breathe, pollinate the food we eat, give us medicines, and more. Thank goodness for people like WCLC, and its members, for putting their energy and resources into sustaining wilderness.
HaikuFlash 