Osborne Park Tree Planting Gets An Upgrade

In last August's blog post I talked about our ambition to reforest the "old buffalo pen" here at Osborne. We also made the project the recipient of proceeds from our Motor Motor 5K/10K Trail Runs, and a few local advocates have also donated money to the project.

Like anyone writing into the endless void that is the internet in 2025, I often wonder who is reading these things (though our web host does give us a tally of internet traffic so I know it's at least someone), but the fact that I have had a few follow-up questions about the project's progress tells me we do in fact have an audience!

You, the reader, may have driven by Osborne this spring and found curiously little development in the old buffalo pen, and certainly no new trees (with tubes, anyway). But don't fret! The project didn't go away, we didn't get lazy and pocket the donations and race proceeds, and in fact we have some much more exciting news to share.

Motor Motor runners trottin' for trees

I applied last year for the Iowa DNR's wildlife diversity grant program; for the first time my application didn't score high enough to get the project awarded. A bummer but you can't win 'em all.

I then applied to the DNR's wildlife diversity habitat stamp grant program for a different project at our Pleasant Ridge wildlife area. Again, I was unsuccessful, and to add insult to injury my application scored dead last. I worried perhaps I had lost my touch.

Thankfully a member of the grant scoring committee called me afterwards to tell me this project had a much better fit coming down the line: the newly-minted Forest Resiliency Program through the Iowa DNR. I had never heard of it, and I had a little nervousness with the way conservation funding usually goes that a "new" program might have been wishful thinking.

But lo and behold a few weeks later DNR forester Dave Asche approaches me with more information. Not only did the program come to fruition, but it had the potential to make a huge difference to Iowa's forests.

The Forest Resiliency Program, without getting too bogged down in the minutia, aims to fill the gap in funding sources for basic forest maintenance activities in county parks. REAP funds often get gobbled up by bigger land acquisition projects, and the habitat stamp grants must occur on land that allows hunting and trapping.

This means important, but less "sexy" projects like invasive species removal or a small tree planting at Osborne Park can often fall through the cracks. Or at least, they had.

Honeysuckle removal at Osborne

The FRP aims to take big bites out of CCCBs' considerable backlog of forestry work by offering up $100,000 for counties or partnerships between counties who have enough shovel-ready projects to utilize all of those funds.

We have the immense good fortune in Clayton County that we have so much forested land, just like our neighbors to the north in Allamakee County. We also have the help of a good forester in Dave who has incredible passion for forest health and management, and has already written up plans for many of our properties.

One big caveat: to get the $100k, like most grants, you need to have a match. Well, guess what? All that fundraising we did for the Osborne Park tree planting puts us right in the sweet spot. Rather than one project for our money, we'll now be looking at a much, much greater impact per dollar. • The original 4-acre tree planting at Osborne Park, along with 8 acres of timber stand improvement and tree planting south of the new campground with the goal of converting the over mature pine stand to native hardwoods/white pine. We will also do some timber stand improvement near the archery ranges to ensure the beautiful white and red oak stands persist for generations to come.

Osborne Timber Stand Improvement Sites

• 35 acres of timber stand improvement favoring oak regeneration and herbaceous woodland vegetation at the Pleasant Ridge Wildlife Area, along with a 5-acre tree planting in a retired pasture/orchard at the same site.

Planting area (blue) and TSI area (yellow, approximate)

• 7 acres of tree planting similar to the Osborne species mix in the riparian area bisecting the Becker West Wildlife Area. This area saw significant wind damage in 2016, which created a jungle of highly thorny and invasive multiflora rose. Planting into this area will speed up the site's recovery and ensure a more diverse species mix in the future, while more quickly shading out the invasive species.

Planting area at Becker West

And that's before we even talk about Allamakee County's end of the project. Long story short, this program and your support of the original project have ballooned into a massive win for conservation here in Northeast Iowa. Looking Back

May is one of my favorite times to be in our parks, and the school teachers all seem to agree. We had a field trip (sometimes more than one) nearly every single day all month. The Osborne Campground also closed the books on its first month in a new location, and while we're still fine-tuning the operations a bit overall it has been a successful new beginning! Our seasonal staff came on board as well, helping us keep up with the unending demand of mowing, toilet paper stocking, string trimming, trash pickup, summer education programs, and whatever else I forget needs done on a day-to-day basis. We're grateful to have Katrina Moyna, Riley Isaacs, Isaac Wellendorf, and Ashley Fisher around to bring a little youthful energy to the office!

Meanwhile on the public programming front, we enjoyed the return of "Nature Kids," getting the youngest among us out exploring and enjoying the beautiful spring we've been having. We also partnered with Upper Explorerland for "Bicycle Care, Collection, and Cookies," inviting folks out to drop off their unused bicycles for recycling or trading, along with the ABC's (air, brakes, chains) of bike maintenance and of course a little nosh to incentivize visitors.

Looking Forward

Obligatory "June already???" First and foremost, this Saturday, June 7th we'll be hosting our ever-popular Hazardous Waste Recycling Day. If you've got a basement that looks vaguely like mine, give us a call to reserve a spot with the helpful folks at the landfill and get that junk disposed of correctly! This weekend is also free fishing weekend for Iowa residents and non-residents to wet their line even without a license! Fishing Fun at Backbone State Park would be a great spot to introduce a child to fishing; naturalist Abbey will be there with some reptiles and amphibians and a few extra poles so even if you don't have the gear you can see if they like it! We'll also have the Nature Kids doing a little hiking and beach combing along the Volga River here at Osborne on June 14th at 10:00 AM. This free program is open to any kiddos aged 3-7 accompanied by an adult.