Inspired Media

Lake Meyer Park and Campground
2546 Lake Meyer Road
Fort Atkinson, Iowa 52144
www.winneshiekwild.com
563-534-7145

Hours: Daily, 6 am – 10:30 pm (year-round)

Admission: Park, free, though some programming may have materials fees. Campground (open from April through October, depending on weather): $15 a night for an electricity-equipped site and $10 a night for a site without electricity; no reservations taken. Nature center currently closed for renovation.

Binoculars…check! Hiking boots…check! Pocket field guides…check! Wristwatch…yep, better strap that on too!

So brilliant are the wildflowers, so captivating the birds during spring at Lake Meyer that odds are good you’ll forget “little” details like, say, what time it is should you venture to this 160-acre gem of a park, located off Highway 24 between Calmar and Fort Atkinson, Iowa.

“Years of restoration work have transformed Lake Meyer into a wonderful place for viewing spring wildflowers – come April and May, you’ll see the whole spectrum of native ephemerals,” says Lilly Jensen, Winneshiek County Conservation Board (WCCB) education and outreach coordinator. “It’s also a bird-watching hotspot, especially for small songbirds like warblers.”

More than three miles of scenic trails winding through a variety of habitats and terrain await park visitors. Prairie, wetlands, and woodlands – you’ll find all three native Iowa habitats here, as well as the turtles, snakes, deer, turkey, and other critters that call them home.

You’ll also find a 38-acre lake teeming with northern pike, bluegill, black crappie, largemouth bass, and channel catfish. A handicap-accessible dock and 60-foot fishing jetty offer easy access to the lake for fishing (or just viewing!), and fishing by boat (electric motors only!) is also allowed. Lake Meyer, in fact, offers the only public option to fish by boat in all of Winneshiek County. And while non-motorized boats are not allowed for fishing, canoeing and kayaking are permitted – though you’ll have to bring your own vessel as rentals are not available.

Those looking to unplug for longer than a day can take advantage of some of the most scenic and relaxing camping in all the Driftless Region. The campground boasts 27 electric and eight primitive (non-electric) sites – all are first-come, first-served – as well as restroom facilities with showers and flush toilets. Picnic shelters, a ball diamond, and a playground and natural play scape round out Lake Meyer’s amenities.

The park also plays host to a variety of outdoors-based public programs offered by the WCCB throughout the year. On tap for March are hands-on workshops on building Leopold benches, bluebird houses, and even rain barrels as well as a waterfowl viewing excursion. April will bring an Earth Day geocache hunt, May a workshop on making bird feeders from recycled tires, and June a canoeing and kayaking adventure. (For specific dates and other information, visit the WCCB website or Facebook page.)

“Lake Meyer is a very unique, very family-friendly spot offering a variety of activities and native ecosystems,” says Jensen. “It really is the perfect place to get away from it all and enjoy the outdoors.”

What not to miss: A two-part workshop on leaf casting August 6 and August 11. Start with large leaves and concrete and end with a stepping stone or bird bath!

See more Driftless Nature Center profiles here!

– By Sara Friedl-Putnam

Tim Blanski of Granary Woodshops, Spring Grove, Minnesota

Story and photos by Kristine Jepsen • Originally published in the Fall 2015 Inspire(d)

Historic dream home you’d finally saved up for? Check.

Corporate tech jobs and a community of friends provisioning a predictable retirement? Check.

Logical next-step: Give it all up for an acreage in the rural Driftless, funded by woodworking skills dated to junior high?

Wait. What?

“It’s true,” Tim Blanski of Granary Woodshops says. “We hadn’t been in our dream house in St. Paul nine months – a house we’d walked past for years and saved to buy – when an ad for this acreage caught my eye in the paper.” One tour of the 1880 brick farmhouse and outbuildings at 18666 County Road 4, north of Spring Grove, Minnesota, had both Tim and his wife, Lisa Catton, testing fate. “We got back in the car, and she asked, ‘Do we make an offer tonight, or tomorrow?’”

The problem was, they’d have to make a different living to make the move. As a marketing executive with an eye for salable detail, Tim set up a woodworking shop in the acreage’s original granary and turned his attention to the growing trend of artisan crafts made from reclaimed antique wood. “At first I made just gift boxes, picture frames. I’m not God’s gift to woodworking – this was stuff straight out of your average school shop class,” he says with a laugh.

Lisa, who continued contract tech consulting part-time, pitched in with varnishing and managing the fledgling business’s public relations, and they peddled their first goods at craft shows across the Upper Midwest. Soon, Tim found his niche: a rare patience for not only salvaging historic barns and sheds but in working the wood just enough to let its story shine.

“All my wood is trouble,” he says, explaining that he’ll spend days matching up weather-worn grooves at the mitered corners of a box, or travel a state over to have a one-ton white oak burl sawn into slabs with the live edge (the outermost bark or surface) intact. “I’m giving people the story of this wood, its history,” he says, “and that means not shearing it down to its smooth heart. I leave the saw marks, the nicks and grooves mice have worn a passageway through.” He also believes in letting the material’s colors create their own mosaic. “I don’t paint or stain anything. I work with the texture of the wood’s original paint or patina.”

Now specializing in custom furniture, particularly farm tables and decorative side pieces, Tom will build four or more buildings into a single piece: walnut for the base, cherry for the upright table trestle, rare 1-inch-by-12-inch barn siding across the top, oak trim fumed to a deep mahogany color by the ammonia of its previous installation: a horse stall.

He also aims to give his furniture a full life of its own, calling in the mechanical expertise of other craftsmen to make the leaves in his tables sturdy, for example. “This is mortise and tenon,” he says, pointing to tiny rectangles inset in a table’s edge, “and these hold a single oak bridge across the leaves when fully extended,” he says, jigging a discrete set of polymer tension knobs just out of sight. “Reclaimed, antique wood is some of the sturdiest, most valuable wood to grow on earth,” he says. “Its worth is not just in looking pretty. It’s in doing a job, part of daily life.”

As his finished pieces have expanded in size and notoriety – it’s been nearly 15 years since that first handmade gift box – Tim has pared back art show travel, preferring instead to host prospective customers at the farm, where they can walk with him through his neatly stacked trove of woods in his barn and express exactly what they envision for their table or chair or entryway mirror frame. He makes a steady stream of contacts through his website, granarywoodshops.com, and on Craigslist.com, where clients are looking for something a little extraordinary.

“I started out woodworking to make a living, almost a desperate living,” Tim says. “And instead I found a passion. Creativity came pouring out of me. I get up every day excited about what I get to make next.”

Learn more about Tim’s work at granarywoodshops.com or by setting up a visit to The Granary Woodshops in rural Spring Grove, Minnesota.

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Kristine Jepsen understands the compulsion to ‘make things,’ as evidenced by whole drawers in her home of light-gage wire, glitter, beads, fabric scraps, papers and, especially, writing instruments. She’s proud to call the Driftless home, where creatives are far from the exception.

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Check out Tim’s work in Lanesboro!

Lanesboro Arts presents “Story Wood: Combining Nature & Rural History”, an exhibit of 3D woodwork by Tim Blanski. The exhibit opens with an artist reception on Saturday, April 16, 2016, from 6-8 p.m., and runs through June 12, 2016. The reception will include wine and hors d’oeuvres, as well as live music. Always free and open to the public, the Lanesboro Arts Gallery is open five days a week through May and six days a week through December. Inspire(d) is a proud sponsor of this exhibit! 🙂

 

International Owl Center
126 East Cedar Street
Houston, Minnesota 55943
www.internationalowlcenter.org
507-896-6957

Hours (year-round): Friday through Monday, 10 am to 4 pm; educational programs with an owl flight at 11 a.m. and 2 p.m. daily; owl enrichment (fun activities for owls) at 3:30 p.m. Admission: Adults: $5; children 4–17, $3; members and children under 3, free
Can’t make it to the center anytime soon? Check out the 24/7 live owl cam on its website.

There was a whole lot of hooting going on at the International Owl Center on one recent Saturday morning. The sounds, however, aren’t emanating from Ruby, the imposing great horned owl perched on the forearm of educator Sue Fletcher, or any of the other education owls currently at “work” at the center. Instead, two young boys and their mothers were attempting – with varying degrees of success – to imitate the distinctive “hoo, hoo-oo, hoo, hoo” call of the great horned species.

“I love owls!” proclaims one of the boys during a lull in the action. The other quickly agrees.

“That’s the reaction we always strive to get from our visitors,” says Karla Bloem, executive director. “Our goal is educate and inspire people – and invite them to make changes in their lives that will benefit the owl community.”

In addition to its educational programs – which are customized according to the makeup of each audience – the center boasts more than a dozen highly realistic owl mounts representing owls engaging in different behaviors as well as an array of hands-on exhibits to give visitors a better idea of how owl wings, feet, and tails look and feel. (Touching the live birds is not allowed.) Those who want more of an outdoor adventure can take a self-guided tour of 10 pieces of owl art scattered throughout downtown Houston.

“If you want people to care, you have to show them that there’s so much more to owls than they ever realized,” says Bloem. “We want visitors to leave our centers having learned that owls are real creatures with real personalities.”

The seed for establishing an owl center was planted in 1998, when Bloem acquired an injured great horned owl, Alice – currently on maternity leave – to use in educational programs at the nearby Houston Nature Center. To celebrate Alice’s “hatch day,” she created the celebratory International Festival of Owls in 2001. The success of that three-day festival – which last year drew nearly 2,000 people from as far away as Norway, South Africa, and Nepal – sparked interest in establishing a center devoted exclusively to owls.

“This is the only facility in North America dedicated to teaching people about owls,” says Bloem. “It really is a must-see.”

What not to miss: The annual International Festival of Owls features activities for owl enthusiasts of all ages, including live-owl programs, an owl-themed pancake breakfast, an owl photography contest, nest-box building, and a kids hooting contest.

See more Driftless Nature Center profiles here!

– By Sara Friedl-Putnam