DRIFTLESS - The Southwest Wisconsin Spring Gathering of Wisconsin Women in Conservation (WiWiC) drew almost 25 women to B&E’s Trees, a maple syrup farm in rural Cashton. The gathering on Friday, April 7 started with sunny spring skies, and ended with clouds and a spectacular gust of wind that sent participants scurrying for their cars.

WiWiC is a statewide collaborative effort led by the Michael Fields Agricultural Institute in partnership with Renewing the Countryside, Marbleseed, and Wisconsin Farmers Union.  A five-year multi-faceted project funded by the USDA’s Natural Resources Conservation Service (NRCS), WiWiC brings together Wisconsin women landowners to learn about conservation practices, resources, and funding opportunities.

Women landowners and producers are a growing demographic. The 2017 Census recorded 38,509 female producers in Wisconsin, showing that women make up 35 percent of all producers in the state. But women have been, and still are, underserved by NRCS and other federal and state conservation agencies. WiWiC is aiming to change that.

B&E’s Trees

B&E’s Trees is owned by Bree Breckel and Eric Weninger, and is completely solar powered. The two recently welcomed their child, Sylvan, to their family.

The business’ website says, “There are few things Vernon County native Bree Breckel can't do.  She spent most of her youth toting tools into the woods, making forts, climbing trees and reading books while up there.  Now, she lives in a fort in the woods and totes tools through the forest to make the most delicious maple syrup around. She became a full-time farmer in 2015, and has only regretted it once. Her super-strengths include taming giant metal monsters, making lists, and analyzing trends.“

In leading a tour of the maple syrup collection lines in their woods, Breckel carrying her child in a backpack, demonstrated a lithe and vibrant energy. In addition to helping with collection of the sap, Breckel also runs the process of cooking the sap down into syrup, using a gleaming stainless steel machine that employs pre-heating and an evaporative process.

Eric Weninger, after years as a weekday combustion engineer at Harley-Davidson and weekend maple farmer, joined the farm full-time in 2017. Breckel, along with Crawford County organic farmer Harriet Behar, is a Southwest Region Conservation Coach for WiWiC.

“Every year is a little bit different with the maple syrup, which is only produced in a narrow band in the northern United States and Canada,” Breckel told the group. “This requires spring temperatures below freezing at night, with day time temperatures above freezing, and how long the season lasts varies from year-to-year.”

Breckel told the group that the first year they were in business, it had been an extremely bad year for sap, and this had caused financial problems for the young business. She said that the bulk price for maple syrup is also highly variable, and like dairy farmers, they were left waiting and wondering how much their bulk maple check would come in at.

“We had to figure out a better, value-added, business model so that there was a little more predictability in the financial picture,” Breckel said. “First, we launched our line of Bourbon Barrel Aged maple syrup, and then we began processing our syrup into our Embark ‘Maple Energy’ line of athletic energy products.”

The company processes the maple syrup into the products at the Food Enterprise Center in Viroqua. The three flavors – Salted Maple, Coffee Maple and Elderberry Maple – are available at retailers throughout southern Wisconsin, and from their website.

Gathering participants

As usual, it was a bright and enterprising group of women farmers and landowners that showed up, wanting to learn more about conservation and funding opportunities. The gathering last Friday drew women from Reedsburg, Wildcat Mountain, Stevens Point, Yuba, Hillsboro, Dane County, Crawford County’s Utica, Freeman and Clayton townships, Pepin, LaCrosse, Viroqua and Sparta.

A few examples of the women attending the gathering, and their resource concerns are:

• Becky Liscum, who owns 73-acres near Wildcat Mountain in Vernon County. Her resource concerns are the slopes on her land, and she is working with Harriet Behar on a conservation plan for her farm. She plans to plant elderberries on her farm.

• Haven Varnes-Epstein is a recent UW-Madison graduate, living in Stevens Point where she works for a Forest Landowners Association. She attended the gathering to learn more about soils.

• Jessica Haucke works for the Center for Watershed Science and Education in Stevens Point, and grew up on a farm near Viola. She and her husband recently purchased land in rural Yuba, and are hoping to convert a hayfield to prairie without use of agricultural chemicals.

• Marissa, who owns 33 acres near Hillsboro, is concerned about erosion and developing pollinator habitat on her land. Her partner Ellen is frustrated about soil erosion from their ridgetop fields, controlling invasives, and hopes to plant an orchard.

• Laurie and her husband own a farm in Monroe County, and are getting to know their new land after exiting the dairy industry. She says she wants to help the soils near wooded areas on their farm.

• Laura Mortimore owns 22 acres near Reedsburg, where she is the sole operator of an organic vegetable farm. She is concerned about the intensive use of her vegetable production acres, and about invasives on other areas of the farm.

Stewards of the Land

The gathering kicked off with an ‘Invitation to Circle: In Our Role as Stewards of the Land,’ read in parts by five women at the event. The ‘Invitation to Circle” was developed in collaboration with Professor Annie Jones, UW-Madison Division of Extension Organization Development and Tribal Nations Specialist.

The invitation reads:

“Self: May I feel my two feet grounded in this place. What gifts do I bring to my work as a steward of our land? How can I use my strengths, abilities and resources to nurture our Wisconsin landscape in a way that ensures her healthy future for many generations to come?”

“Spirit & Purpose: May we remember that we are all on a beautiful, continuous conservation journey in community. Though the work is never finished, the tasks become lighter as we draw strength from this circle today and the generations of women who have loved this soil before us.”

“Heart: May I remain gentle on myself in this work. There will be times when the work of protecting and stewarding our land feels lonely and insurmountable, at which point let me remember this circle and know I am not alone.”

“Mind: Like the rivers that flow through Wisconsin, may the ever-moving water remind us that we, too, are continually evolving – growing through new ideas and challenges. May the teachings of our elders expand our mind and world view.”

“Body: May my physical body reflect the healthy ecosystems we are co-creating around us, respecting the value of healthy sustainable foods, fresh air, and movement. May I delight in the ability I have to align myself and truly become a part of the land around me, in collaboration with those gathered here.”

Soil texture exploration

Laura Bybee and Donna Feren-Guy, soil scientists with USDA-NRCS, led the group in a ‘Soil Texture Exploration,’ designed to help the women learn to identify the soils on their land.

“Every soil type is not suited to every agricultural crop, so it is important to know what kinds of soils you have on your land,” Bybee explained. “The clay sand and silt that make up the soils were formed a long time ago, and are a persistent feature of your land – what you can change is the amount of organic matter in your soils.”

Bybee and Feren-Guy lead the group in identification of three different types of soil they’d brought to the gathering in five-gallon buckets, and then helped the women analyze samples of soil they’d brought from their land.

The identification involved first seeing if the soil could be formed into a ball. If it could be formed into a ball, then the next step was to try to mold it into a ribbon. The length of the ribbon that could be made before it broke was another step in identification of the soil type. The last step was to use water to make the soil sample very wet, and then feel the texture of the soil rubbing it between the hands. From this, the women could determine if the soil felt smooth or gritty.

The first sample was unable to be formed into a ball, and was identified as sand. The soil had been obtained from beside a stream.

The second sample could be formed into a ball, and could be formed into a ribbon of one-to-two inches before breaking. When wet, the sample felt smooth, and so for all these reasons, was identified as a silty clay loam. The sample had been obtained from the walls of a streambed.

The third sample could be formed into a ball, and into a ribbon of about 1.5 inches before breaking. When wet, the sample was very smooth, and so was identified as a silt loam. The sample had been obtained from a yard that had been in grass for generations.

Conservation plans

Southwest Wisconsin Conservation Coach Harriet Behar explained that helping to write conservation plans for women landowners is a key deliverable of the grant WiWiC has received from USDA-NRCS.

“The process is really very simple – I basically walk your land with you, helping you to identify resource concerns that need some help,” Behar explained. “The folks at NRCS are very knowledgeable, and are good people that can help connect you to the practices and funding you need to implement your conservation goals.”

Becky, an attendee at the gathering had just done a farm walk through with Behar that morning.