Living Land: Big Hollow Lake needs a diet
By Chris Lee Executive Director of Des Moines County Conservation
What happens when you consume more calories than you burn?
What happens when you drink more alcohol than your body can process?
And what happens when you add more nutrients to a lake than it can process?
The first answer is you gain weight. The second is you get drunk. The third is that you get massive algae blooms. What’s constant is that in all the above scenarios is the system is put out of balance.
We can understand weight gain and inebriation pretty easily. Consume too much and your body weight and blood alcohol levels rise. Fix it by consuming less. Maybe forego that second piece of cake or that next drink.
Des Moines County supervisors and department heads hear plans for Jamboree substitute.
Bob Saar
for The Hawk Eye
A summer highlight in Des Moines County is the annual Outdoor Youth Jamboree at Big Hollow Recreation Area, but COVID-19 sidelined that for this year.
No worries: conservation director Chris Lee told county supervisors and department heads the event will be replaced with an open house including a scavenger hunt May 15. We re going to have canoe rentals, we ll have some fishing poles you can borrow, Lee said.
Fill the Lake Flotilla
May 15 will include the new Fill the Lake Flotilla, which Lee said is similar to a flotilla in the Quad Cities area.
The Hawk Eye
As the soil grows warm with spring s arrival, Kayla Schier and Ethan Jones look forward to taking their two children to their favorite spot to scour the earth for nature s delicacy.
The Burlington couple grew up hunting morel mushrooms with their families, Jones in Burlington and Schier in rural Mediapolis. I grew up on a farm and we d always go mushroom hunting when the season hit me, my mom and my brother, Jones said. We d spend hours out in the woods just picking mushrooms.
While Jones morel experience took place in wooded areas, Schier s family turned to the cow pasture.
Bob Saar
for The Hawk Eye
Des Moines County Conservation Board members, supervisors and department heads took in the county s scenic views Tuesday as they toured the Flint River Trail.
Leading the UTV tour on a golf cart was Des Moines County Conservation Director Chris Lee, who said the purpose of the journey was to give the group of eight an overview of the bike trail as it exists today. We re going to look at both the city portion, from the Burlington riverfront up to just past Tama Road. Then we re going to look at the county portion, from Starr s Cave all the way up to Big Hollow, Lee said. It will take a good few hours, by the time we jump and transport the machines across the highway, and go through and stop and talk here and there. Overall, it s almost 20 miles by the time you add it all together.