Field Notes

Do you, or does someone you know walk the trails for general wellness benefits? In agreement with ACRES Land Trust, The Wilderness Element, a newly-forming nonprofit, held a clinical counseling summer camp for teens on The Tom and Jane Dustin Nature Preserve in June. The group shared the trails as part of a two-week preparation …

In 2016, ACRES Land Trust launched quarterly staff development days in honor of seasonal changes. The ACRES Office is closed for the spring and fall equinoxes as well as for summer and winter solstices. ACRES staff use these days to explore places, build the team and discover natural wonders. Here’s the view from our 2018 …

Scott Namestnik’s eagerness to explore Quog Lake last summer was quickly replaced with trepidation. “It has to be the most challenging site on which I’ve ever conducted a survey,” he said of the ACRES Land Trust property in LaGrange County. Scott Namestnik supports ACRES’ plant species inventories. He’s leading an in-the-field Plant Workshop July 12–13. …

Bloodroot by Shane Perfect The curtain is going up on the greatest show on earth. Its nature’s display of spring wildflowers. And we have ringside seats, because the most beautiful display of spring wildflowers in the world is found in the American Midwest. Actually the curtain parted over a month ago, but few people recognized …

Photo by Jarrid Spicer Ecological oases are isolated postage stamps of biological richness surviving in a vast landscape of monocultures controlled by blade or plow. As we locate and preserve these remaining oases—these hidden gems, we realize they have progressed for years through a dynamic ecosystem striving to protect itself from periodically emerging environmental impacts. …

When you serve ACRES donors and members in protecting land, you’d better spend some time walking it, wondering over it – and working it. You also need to appreciate natural cycles. In 2016, ACRES Land Trust launched quarterly staff development days in honor of seasonal changes. The ACRES Office is closed for the spring and …

Last January I walked alone in a preserve, enjoying the brittle cold, the silence of fresh snow. Cedar Creek flowed beside me, black, swift and clear beneath a fragile film of ice shelves. And then—fur and bright eyes. Two river otters poked their heads over ice on the creek’s far bank. We three held still, …

Lauren Farrell, an intern from Huntington North High School, shares her experiences and her view on preserving natural places – for good. Lauren Farrell, an intern from Huntington North High School, shares her passion for the outdoors and her work with ACRES over the past 4 months: Because of my interest in nature and the …

In 2015, Brett Bloom and his wife, Bonnie Fortune, began posting Instagram photos of their family’s ACRES hikes. Their fun, frequent images and notes reveal deep connections to place and deep thinking about land use. To better understand their perspectives, writer Teresa Vasquez and her son Miles (6) recently explored Vandolah Nature Preserve with Bonnie, …

Editor’s note from Carol Roberts, ACRES Quarterly editor and board vice president: Tom was my friend, neighbor, mentor in the natural world. I cared more about nature after seeing it more closely through his eyes. He fought passionately and persevered to protect the Indiana Dunes, Wyoming’s Red Desert…his beloved Cedar Creek. While Tom’s vision was …

Every fall we all set our clocks back, but we each approach the extra hour differently, some sleeping in, others simply appreciating the luxury of extra “found” time. I see autumn as a slowing of pace, the perfect time for us to take note of nature, to take stock of what happened during the busy …