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Good morning and welcome to In Our Range.
I'm Mike LeBeau.
Our guest this morning is Sawyer Forbes with the Golgebic County Conservation District.
The Golgebic Conservation District is one of Michigan's 78 conservation districts.
The conservation district provides natural resource management services and information
The goal is to help local citizens manage their lands and preserve our environment for a clean, healthier, economically stronger Michigan.
Conservation districts were formed during the Dust Bowl years.
At one time they were referred to as the Soil Conservation Districts.
That has since changed to reflect the district's broader environmental conservation goals.
The belief is that we have an obligation to one another and to the land to appreciate, understand, and respect soil, water, plants, trees, wildlife, and people.
The Conservation District's mission is to educate, encourage, and promote good stewardship in every way of protecting and conserving these natural resources.
Sawyer is originally from Vermont, where she graduated from the University of Vermont with a bachelor's in forestry and a minor in emergency medical services.
Before moving to the Great Lakes region, she worked in Colorado and Montana in forestry.
As the FAP Forester, she's dedicated to answering any questions you might have about forest management, land objectives, or anything else that comes to mind.
Good morning, Sawyer.
Good
morning, Mike.
Welcome to In Our Range.
Thank you.
Yeah, it's good to have you.
It's good to be here.
So, the Gogebic County Conservation District has a broad mission of caring for our environment by promoting stewardship among folks in local ecosystems.
One of the ways that this happens is through the Forestry Assistance Program.
Can you describe that program for us?
Yeah, so the objective of the Forestry Assistance Program is to help family forest owners achieve their objectives for woodland ownership.
We do this through two main ways.
The first is free technical assistance.
This can be things like site visits, if you need help contacting consulting foresters, help with federal cost share programs and state tax incentive programs.
Also, we do free outreach and educational events and you can find those on our website.
Excellent.
So it almost sounds like a program that's similar to what NRCS folks do when they go out to farms and help people who are trying to get farms going and help you get resources and what programs could potentially help you keep that land healthier.
Yeah, exactly.
We work with NRCS a lot in collaboration to help people get enrolled into their programs as well.
And so throughout the year you guys host workshops.
You have all kinds of different events that are really wonderful opportunities for people to learn more about this specific watershed ecosystem that we live in.
Like recently we were just promoting the apple tree grafting workshop.
How did that go?
That went really well.
We had 25 participants, which was the most we could have, and everyone was able to take home their newly grafted tree.
That is excellent, and you're teaching the whip and tongue.
So what variety of apple?
So the rootstock is GE935, that's Geneva 935, and the scion wood was Spartan.
Okay.
So yeah, so scion wood, that's the cutting that you take from the apple tree.
And
then the rootstock is a specific rootstock that will give that tree the best chance of adapting and growing as a clone,
right?
Yep.
That's correct.
Wonderful.
And then not only that, but you had another event a couple of weeks ago.
It was your tree ID walk through the miners park.
That went pretty well.
Yeah, we had a good turnout for that one.
And then in between those two workshops, we had an apple tree pruning workshop.
And that went well as well.
One of the nice things about living this far north is I don't think we deal with as many fungal issues and blight issues as folks do further south.
Yeah.
And we have a lot of old like heritage apple trees on people's properties, which is amazing.
It really, really is there.
I've seen so many incredible varieties that I've just never, ever heard of.
And a lot of times when you go and you think you're going to pick an apple off of a tree and eat it.
99 times out of 100, you're gonna wish you never did that.
But around here, your chances are at least one and two, that you're gonna get a good eater.
off any of these apples that are on the side of the road.
It's really incredible.
Well, I'm glad to hear that those programs are going well and you have a lot lined up for this year as well, right?
In May, you'll be doing an invasive species removal kind of work bee in the Miners Park, which I think is an incredible offering.
Could you tell us a little bit more about that?
Yeah, so that's going to be on Saturday, May 9th.
It's going to start at 1 and go till 5 p.m.
And we're just going to get together as many people as we can gather and help remove the buckthorn.
from Miner's Memorial Park and then will dispose of the plant material afterwards.
Now buckthorn that is a tree that most people in the area are probably pretty familiar with even if they don't know it and it has started to really grow over in the park quite a bit.
There are some portions of the park that are where it has become quite invasive.
What's the plan?
What's the the mode of operation that you plan to use to make sure that these trees get removed and
don't come back.
Yeah, so we're going to be going in with hand saws.
We're going to be cutting them at the stump and then covering those stumps with the wood chips from the plant material that we gather.
And the hope there is that the bacteria that naturally breaks down the wooded material will work super well on the stumps once they're cut.
Great.
Yeah, we always got to go back and check
though.
Yes, it'll probably be a multi-year mission, but we have to start somewhere.
Yes.
There are two kinds of buckthorn and we are fortunate enough to have both of them here on the Gogebek range.
How did such an invasive tree get here?
Yeah, well, most of the time invasive plants are brought over by people for like ornamentals or sometimes medicinally.
And then once it's here, it's really spread by birds.
Birds eat the seeds of the buckthorn.
They sit in those like higher limbs and they poop out those seeds and then they grow into new buckthorn.
Yeah, the sad part about that is those seeds aren't even really nutritious for birds.
It's just kind of all they have and it does make them poop.
So
yes So you just get more and these invasive species there.
They're really filling up niches too, right?
You see them growing on edges
Yes, they definitely favor those like disturbed areas.
So those roadsides by rivers and any place that has like recent management done they can really like sneak in those cracks
Yeah
We have so much of it here.
I would love to see a community-wide program, even like a holiday.
You
know, we just all go out and get it in and go berserker on the buckthorn because it's covering most of Mount Zion and it's all over the miners Park.
It's over in Norrie Park.
They have both kinds over there, the glossy and the
common
buckthorn.
Being involved in a program like the invasive species removal work bee that will be happening on May 9th will help you get really familiar with what these trees look like from when they're tiny little guys all the way up to when they're older.
And we can take that information and good feeling home with you and start getting after it because it would be wonderful to see the native habitat restored.
So that's happening May 9th.
I was looking on your website and I noticed that there is a program for community garden grants.
Would you like to describe that for us as well?
Yeah, so the community garden grant
It's going to go until April 29th at 4.30.
That's when organizations have to get their applications in.
There are four specific tracks for your organization so you can look and see which one fits your area better and then apply to them specifically.
So organizations will come to us with kind of like a framework of their community guarded and then we'll give them the funding for that and they'll go ahead and make those community gardens.
Okay, so you have the funding and the grants available for four different gardens to be placed wherever the
who are applying for the grants would like to put them?
Yes.
Okay, that's great.
Community gardens are incredible, especially in a community like ours where many people aren't homeowners, they're in apartments.
Sometimes we have difficulty accessing fresh, nutrient-dense foods, and community gardens are a great place to get to know your neighbors really well and grow your own food that's fresh and delicious.
Good luck with that.
What's the deadline for applying for grants?
It is April 29th at 4.30.
April 29th at 4.30.
So in addition to the community garden get grant program and these other workshops that are going on Every year the conservation district does a native plant and tree sale
And I would love to hear everything you want to tell me about that because it's like something I look forward to every year.
Yeah, so the native tree sale did just close on April 3rd.
That was the last day to get in your orders.
We have moved our pickup this year.
It was supposed to be at the end of April, but now it's going to be Mother's Day weekend.
It's the 9th.
10th and 11th of May.
The 9th and 10th are in Bessemer, and then the 11th is going to be in the Water's Me area.
So you can just stop by between 10 and 2.30 those days to pick up your native trees that you've purchased.
And it can be a great time to like learn more about the trees that you've purchased or how to plant them.
And there's always next year if you didn't get in it.
I
look forward to it every year.
This year has just been kind of a mess, but I love it because when I get rid of all that buckthorn, I want to get rid of it so I can put an oak tree there.
that can put some natives in there.
We have a variety of native golden rods
and all
kinds of wonderful things that we can plant here.
And it's just beautiful.
Well, and we sell a wide range from your hardwoods to your conifers and then also fruit trees.
Yeah, there's some early succession trees there.
So if you have some poorer soil, then you can start with those and then put in more of your older hardwoods and things later.
They're really affordable.
Like they're baby trees, you know, their roots are bare.
And so you've got to get them planted once you get them.
So have a plan before those pick updates.
If you've ordered your trees this year, I want to encourage you to have a plan and get them in the soil as quickly as possible.
And then in June, there is another program, and we're going to promote all of these as they come along.
You can find them on the WJLS Community Calendar, and we announced them on our morning show here, but there will be a composting workshop on Saturday, June 6th.
Where will that be held?
Yep, it's in Bessemer off of Powderhorn Road.
It's going to be from 1 to 5 p.m.
But the morning section is going to be learning about different types of composting.
And then in the afternoon, you can choose to stay longer if you want to try your hand at building your own composting system.
Awesome.
And there's so many ways to do it.
And compost is incredible.
It's one of my favorite things on the planet.
You know, you can take the food that you eat rather than send it to a trash can to a dump, turn it into healthy living soil.
So that healthy composting workshop is in Bessemer.
On June 6th, you can call or email Sawyer to register for that when it comes along.
So we've covered a lot of ground here today.
I really appreciate you coming in and talking about the Gogebic Conservation District.
I am a fan.
You know, I know that one of the things the district has tried to do in the past is bring in local gardeners and farmers and folks to try to begin a local food organized movement.
That's something that's happened.
Is there any word on that front?
Is there any initiatives rolling as far as bringing together the people who are growing food here and people who have an interest in generating a local food movement here?
There's not anything happening right now other than our community garden grant, which hopefully will kind of get that started and then we can look towards new initiatives in the future.
Yeah, we will.
We will.
We're going to make this happen.
You know, we live on the Pinocchi Range.
We're kind of at the end of all the supply lines.
Yep.
So the more that we can all pool together, take care of the soil, take care of the plants, take care of the water, we can have a healthier food system in place.
Many hands make lighter work, right?
Absolutely.
All right, Sawyer, is there anything else that you would like to add before you head on out today?
I don't
think so.
Well, thank you, Sawyer Forbes, for joining us on In Our Range this morning.
Thank you, you as well.
My guest this morning was Sawyer Forbes with the Gogebek Conservation District.
You can email Sawyer at Sawyer.forbes at MACD.org to find out more about the workshops coming up and the invasive species removal work B that will happen in the Miners Park in May.
Thank you for joining me this morning on In Our Range brought to you by Westgate Nursing Rehabilitation and Assisted Living.