Westbrook Artists' Site (WAS)
  • Home
    • Site >
      • Prescribed burns at WAS 2016-
      • Prescribed burns at WAS 2017-
      • On the land
      • In the forest
      • Along the River
      • Apiary (Bee hives) 2018
    • Vision >
      • Creative Potential in the Post-Industrial Rural Environment
  • Events and Projects
    • ARCH 301 LandscapeXArchitecture >
      • ARCH 301 Inquiries
    • Homeboat Workshop
    • Foraging Notes - Imagining America
    • Foraging Notes Rural Arts and Cultural Summit
    • Prairie Burn Field Day
    • Field Day Exhibition
    • World Congress of Environmental History - 2014
    • American Society of Environmental History - San Francisco, 2014
    • EDRA45 - Environmental Design Research Association
    • Project for Westbrook Artist Site (WAS) 2013: Horror Vacui (Nature abhors a vacuum. What do we make of its plenitude?)
    • 2015 Tallgrass Prairie and Oak Savanna Regional Fire Conference
    • Rural Art - Next Generation
  • Publications
    • Gateway - The Three Rivers Country
  • People
    • Kevin Lair - Co-Director >
      • re-Imagining Leopold
      • Gateway - The Tree Rivers County
      • THE RURAL POST-INDUSTRIAL ENVIRONMENT AS SITE OF AESTHETIC ENGAGEMENT AND TRANSFORMATION
      • Non-human
      • TELESCOPE at Instinct Gallery
      • Implement Series
      • Series A - xHUMA
    • Elizabeth Walden - Co-Director
    • Seth Andrews - WAS Project Artist
    • Artists/Designers/Investigators
  • Archives
    • Field Chapel - 2010
    • Clean - exhibition series 2006
    • stases - exhibition series 2005
    • N00955859F; exhibition series 2004
    • strata - exhibition series 2003
    • sequence - exhibition series 2002
    • re fuse - exhibition series 2001
    • selfsellmewellasis - exhibition series 2000
    • exhibition series 1999
    • exhibition series 1998
    • exhibition series 1997
    • exhibition series 1996
  • Community
    • Community Commons
    • Community Events and Announcements
    • MovableARTfeast
    • Links
  • Untitled

Wildlife activities
​

Picture
Owl or hawk got this rabbit  1/30/19  
Picture
Big Brown Bat -  09/14/18  
Picture
WAS 08/05/18  Bumble bee (Bombus Impatiens)  on Bergamont.  
Picture
WAS - 12/18/17   -  Large burrow just emerged ... owner not yet identified.  
(07/25/17)  Timber Rattlesnake in action.   The TR is rare now and protected in a number of Iowa counties.  Populations of the snake have continued to drop-off significantly but people still feel the appropriate response is to kill them on sight.  Settlers in 1848 held a snake hunt to see which part of the county could kill the most rattlesnakes.  Over 3000 snakes were killed then.  W.S. Wilkinson wrote the story of the hunt (presented to the Madison County Historical Society and published in the History of Madison County 1915).  
Picture
Picture
07/10/17  -  Green Heron at the main pond.  It has been here on a regular basis mid-summer the last couple of years.  
Picture
Picture
 Woodland snail. and Ailanthus webworm moth.  The webworm is a moth who likes both milkweed and tree of heaven.  We have both.  We are chipping away at removing the invasive tree of heaven but it is a tall order.   A grove of tree of heaven was at WAS going back prior owners over 40 years ago.  
Picture
Picture
07/05/17  -  Habitat log in pond (left) and American bullfrog on the pond's edge (right.)   
Picture
06/26/17 -  Moving out from along the creek near under the large Burr Oak (southern field)  
Picture
Picture
06/24/17   Clearwing hummingbird moth (left) resting on partridge pea and dragonfly (unidentified)  on the lower CRP field.  The field was burned this spring and has responded well. 
Just a snippet of the chorus from the main pond (5/17)  
​
Picture
Along the Middle River bank (3/16)  
Picture
Along Middle River 3/16


​Mushroom cultivation 

Picture
the logs in their nature blankets  01/19
Picture
WAS 09/01/18  -  Shiitake fruiting on the logs.  Fairly robust fruiting after about 18 months since inoculation.  Starting dehydration process to preserve the output.  
Picture
WAS 05/27/18  -  Wine cap fruiting (finally).  We used straw for the growing medium.  The patch is located by one of our favorite Burr oaks.  
Picture
WAS - Shittake from the logs
Picture
WAS 05/15/18  -  Mushroom logs
Picture
WAS 05/06/18 -  Literally, the first mushroom grown from our logs.  It was a year long wait and not sure if anything was going to fruit.  Hopefully, many more to come but at least something grew.  Very tasty too.
Picture
Rebecca Beachy inoculating logs .... one heading to Chicago.  
Picture
11-17  Momo inoculating ironwood log with Shiitake pegs
Picture
(3/28/17)  Loading white oak logs to take in from inoculating with spores.  A large white Oak (single trunk from multi-trunk tree)  went down across the trail so clean up provides a bonus opportunity for more mushrooms.  
1000 Shiitake pegs in the bag and melted cheese wax on the hot plate. 
​
Picture
35 inoculated logs (1000 pegs done)  ready to go under their blanket for now.  
Picture
Picture
5/10/17 -  Wine Cap (native to Iowa)  spores ready to spread.  Stock tank patched up and used for straw fermentation vat that will be substrate for wine caps.  Two bales of wheat straw have been under water for several days.  


Hives

It not often known that honey bees are not native to North America.  They are believed to have been brought to Virginia in 1621.  However, much of our food supply now depends on them for pollination services.  Since they have been in the US for 400 years they are typically considered a naturalized species.  The honey bees are usually raised in Langstroth hives with removable frames. 

Our bees are Italians (Apis mellifera ligustica) which are the most common sub species of the western honey bee used in the US.   The cliche "busy as a bee" is true. Honey bees are "overproducers" of honey and must keep active or suffer stress.  Our bees have been busy on the prairie this past year and we plan to continue to expand our bee keeping endeavor.  
3/10/18  -  We ordered new Saskatraz queens.  We hope to split the hives this year to create the new colonies with the Saskatraz at the helm.  This is merely testing something new and different for us, but the Saskatraz characteristics look exciting.  
Picture
WAS -  Hive check shows robust activity with large brood.  Temperatures up in the 50s the past week have brought bees outside.  Capped honey still in store on all of the super frames.  We decided no need to provide additional feed.  
Picture
Aerial view of hives at WAS
Picture
01/03/18 -  The hives viewed from the prairie to the north.  ​ When we put the bee cozy's on (black insulation wraps) end of November it seemed a bit much but after numerous subzero days seems like a pretty good move.  
Picture
11/19/17  -  Eastern hive
Picture
11/19/17 -   Winterizing the nives...  adding insulation, vapor barrier and checking on overall hive condition. 
Picture
Picture
11/07/17  -  "Vaping" with oxalic acid  to treat mites.  It is interesting this kills mites and not bees.  The battery heats a wand ($$)  that vaporizes the powered acid. 
Picture
WAS 10/06/17  -  Pure Raw Prairie Honey  
Picture
WAS -  10/01/17    The hives (a bit jangling) just before the bee reduction and honey supers (upper boxes) collection.   Fume board was used to great effect to remove the bees from boxes on the western hive and to poor effect on the eastern hive.  The stowaway bees went up the road to the house.  A blower was used but still not good result.  It took a little research but then they were eventually removed and then given safe passage back to the hive.  Honey processing scheduled for Tuesday.  
​
Picture
WAS  - 9/28./17   Bees in west hive have nearly full frames of honey and so added the one more super.   The east hive is a bit less productive but coming along. 
Entrance buzzing 08/08/17  
Picture
07/09/17  -  Our bees have been working on the milkweed. 
Picture
Picture
Picture
Picture
Picture
Our new bees have settled in to their hives.  Queens are active and lots of good comb production in both hives.  We added supers on 6/5/17.  The Italian bees have been very well mannered and there bright yellow coloration is aesthetically pleasing. 
​
Picture
Picture
(05/16/17)  Bees dropped into their boxes.  We did have a stubborn subgroup who decided to make a home out of the boxes and had to be removed along with a lot of comb a couple weeks later.  
Picture
Andrea bringing out a queen excluder for the hive.  We set the hives up to the southeast to the barn in a lower meadow for a weather block from the north, access to the creek (150' to the south) and surrounding fields.  We also have planted a new herb garden to partner with the bees. 
Picture
Picture
Lighting up the smoker.  Ready to calm the bees to transfer from their Nuc boxes to their new hives. 
​
Picture
Katie (Andrea's sister)  getting ready to divide the hive.  The black Russians will have a new yellow Italian queen over at Andrea and Eric's.   While there are some good efforts at mentoring beekeeping we still have a lot of opportunity to expand.  This is encouraging development for those wanting to learn bee keeping in Iowa.  
Picture
Our new hives from Spring Valley Honey Farm on display.  We will site them and bees should be ready shortly to move in.  


​In the Fields

Picture
Honey Locust  02/02/19  
Picture
WAS 11/25/18  -  Old well in the lower prairie.
Picture
11/25/18  -  Solitude II (nest)  
Picture
WAS - 10/06/18  -  A New England Aster out on its own in the upper prairie
Picture
WAS 10/06/18  -  Upper prairie.  Based on the original survey maps for European settlement this seems very similar to how it might have been at the time.  The path would have been much narrower but still feels like just a foot or animal path. 
Picture
WAS upper prairie - 09/14/18   Golden rod (two kinds) 
Picture
WAS - upper prairie  09/14/18  
Picture
WAS 07/20/18  Prairie Blazing Star on the upper CRP.  
Picture
WAS 07/17/18  Grey Coneflower in the lower CRP at sunset. 
Picture
WAS 03/15/18  -  Middle river sunrise to the west of the lower field.  The river is quite low and has been since late summer last year.  This often changes with spring rainfall and can lead to flooding of the lower field.  The island of snags (far right)   formed a few years ago after flooding.  The peninsula on the far left is a beaver haven with many small willows.  
Picture
WAS - 03/03/18  
Picture
WAS -  02/25/18   Upper CRP filed along trailside
Picture
WAS - 02/11/18
Picture
WAS - 02/11/18  
Picture
WAS 01/27/18  -  Vividly golden prairie grasses are the large field.  This part was burned last spring is clear of cedars.  
Picture
WAS -  12/18/17  Lower CRP Field sunlight.  
Picture
WAS - 12/18/17    Middle River Field (old well). 
Picture
Juniper Way -  12/12/17  
Picture
Main pond - 12/02/17
Picture
Picture
Burr Oak (Wolf tree)  12/02/17  
Picture
WAS 11/18/17 -  Banks of the Middle River (Wild Raspberry)  
Picture
Field Chapel field  11/18/17  -  Tall Grass Prairie with Indian Grass, Big Blue Stem and grasses
Picture
9/28/17  -  Few forbs remain in bloom in the 4x4 plots.
Picture
WAS -  08/11/17  -  Allegheny monkey flower (Mimulus ringens)  and uncommon forb found along the Middle River bank. 
Wild Beramot has been thriving (with help from Swallowtail)  and endangered Royal Catchfly has found a home for now at WAS.  
07/`12/17 -  Heal-all (left) and Bellflower (right).  The Bellflowers are starting to bloom throughout the woodlands. 
Picture
07/05/17 -  Obedient Plant (native) 
07/08/17- 07/09/17   -  Day Lilly and Butterfly Milkweed
Picture
07/05/17  -  Among the counsel (council) of trees.  
Proudly powered by Weebly