Monthly Archives: November 2009

Colony Farm Orchard (= Enchanted Forest): Western Herald Wins Again

By rbrewer | Published: November 30, 2009

The major story in the Western Herald today, on the front page above the fold, is “SSE advocates Orchard property preservation.” The story was written by Fritz Klug, News Editor of the Herald. SSE is the student organization Students for a Sustainable Earth.  SSE describes itself as the premiere organization for student environmentalists at WMU. [...]

Posted in Conservation, Michigan (including Kalamazoo) | Leave a comment

Tamarack in Oshtemo Township

By rbrewer | Published: November 19, 2009

Wetlands are scarce in Oshtemo Township.  Its thirty-six square miles are mostly high and dry and the soils are mostly well-drained.  A few kettles exist in the moraine-outwash plain topoography.  These are depressions formed when ice blocks left behind during the retreat of the last Pleistocene ice sheet melted.  Most kettles in Oshtemo Township don’t [...]

Posted in Michigan (including Kalamazoo), Plants and Plant Communities | Leave a comment

A Conservation Plan for the Colony Farm Orchard (=Enchanted Forest)

By rbrewer | Published: November 11, 2009

As we all know,  HB 5207  put forth by Representative Bob Jones (D–Kalamazoo) is designed to strip the conservation/public use restrictions from the Colony Farm Orchard as a first step in turning the 54 acres into an Annex to Western Michigan University’s BTR Park.  Here are the stated restrictions: “The conveyance shall provide that Western [...]

Posted in Birds, Conservation, Michigan (including Kalamazoo), Plants and Plant Communities | Leave a comment