Stewarding a Forest with the Silvas

Bob and Diana Silva have been stewarding their 120 acres about four miles east of La Farge, since 1989, when they took over the farm from her parents. While living in Madison, Amos and Jean Burrows bought the land in 1971. “They did a lot of searching, found this farm, and fell in love with its beauty, diversity, and the creek that runs through it for half a mile,” Diana remembers.

Her parents built a home on the land in 1978. “They offered me and my two younger brothers five acres each if we wanted to move to the land,” says Diana. “We never expected to take them up on it.” However, in 1988, instead of making a planned trip from their home out East to the Boundary Waters, Bob and Diana came to Wisconsin because her dad was undergoing chemo and radiation therapy. “We decided to go back and put our Massachusetts house up for sale. The economy was changing, and it just seemed right to move here with our three daughters and be near my parents.”

Diana’s parents gave them the 12 acres on the other side of the road from the rest of the farm. “We built a house,” says Diana, “and Bob started taking over their timber stand improvement. They had been renting the place to cattle farmers who abused the land and the creek. My parents decided to plant trees instead.”

Some 65,000 trees were planted on the cropland. “They were all seedlings when we first arrived,” says Bob. “They planted pine, spruce, ash, and swamp white oak, but mostly walnut and oak. Those trees are 30 to 40 feet tall now. We hope they will be used someday for veneer to help keep the local carpenters and furniture makers busy.”

Bob and Diana have already had several loggings, following their Managed Forest Law (MFL) program directed by Thomas Wyse. “MFL has made us more able to afford to stay here,” says Bob, “because the land is taxed for agricultural use.”

“We have worked hand in hand with our local DNR and the Wisconsin Agricultural Department . They have been really great resources for us as landowners, not only to get extra funding — but to run ideas by. They were very instrumental in encouraging and helping us in putting projects together. For many years we were part of the Kickapoo Woods Cooperative, and we have tried to be in whatever organizations that we could to learn how to better work the trees and land. Maintaining the trees has been a constant project!”

The creek also benefited from the presence of the new trees. “They lowered the water temperature,” says Bob. “Amos and Jean added wooden lunkers to the sides of the creek and rocks to hold them down, which created a great habitat for fish. The brook trout and brown trout flourished.”

“The field across the road was always swampy,” Bob continues. “Beavers cut down some of the trees there, but the kids really enjoyed the beavers’ dam. It created a swimming hole so deep you couldn’t’ touch the bottom.”

Bob has a degree in wildlife management. “I worked with the DNR in Montana,” he remembers. “They were going to send me to grad school, but my project got cut. I ended up learning a number of trades and started a business here. I began fixing milk coolers on dairy farms when we first moved here. For a while we had 11 employees and took care of over 300 dairy farms as well as helping about 30 school districts and health care facilities with their heating, air conditioning and environmental control systems. It was pretty crazy then.”

Diana ran their home while homeschooling their daughters, who were 3, 10 and 13 when they arrived. “They had a wonderful time doing things with my parents, too,” she says. “My mom made furniture and my dad was an artist and painter.”

“The area has changed, I think for the better,” says Bob. “Organic Valley started around here in the late 1980s, and it’s nice to see what farm-to-market has done for the farmers in the area, as well as the land. Those Community Supported Agriculture projects (CSA)  have made the area what it is today.”

Several changes on their land have been less positive. “Amos and Jean called it the Whip-poor-will Tree Farm,” says Bob. “Whip-poor-wills used to sing all night outside our bedroom window. There were so many fields and open areas then. Walter Scott, a biologist who studied grouse, which is similar to whip-poor-wills, said when the small farms are replaced by woodland, the habitat changed and got better for turkeys, but the more open-area birds disappeared.

And, of course, invasive plants can change an environment. “Right now we are working to get rid of invasives like wild parsnip, multiflora rose and garlic mustard,” says Bob. We don’t like to use chemicals unless absolutely necessary. We are trying to build an organic community of insects, birds, amphibians, and other species. I have pulled a ton of wild parsnip, and actually gotten some bad rashes a couple of times. It’s no fun. I can’t do it all by myself anymore, so we have hired a company and work closely with them.”

“A good way to get rid of garlic mustard is hit it with the weed whacker when it is flowering,” Bob added.  “And for muiltiflora rose, I’ve been using a tool we bought for buckthorn that is no longer available. You can just push back on it, and the shrub pops out of the ground. It has saved a lot of strain on my back.” (A similar tool is available on line, called a weed wrench.) Bob uses a 61-inch zero-turn mower to maintain their great walking trails and a UTV to move things around the farm, trail maintenance and timber stand improvement.

About 12 years ago, they rented Diana’s parents’ house to Nicholas WazeeGale, whom they met in a wild edibles class at the Driftless Folk School, which has led to nature classes for children and adults on their land.

“It’s an incredible blessing to see how this land was used when we first moved here and to see what it is now,” says Bob. He and Diana have talked to the Mississippi Conservancy as they consider how to protect the native habitats they have created. “We have talked a bit about it with our children. As far as I know, they want to keep this land, but it remains to be seen if that fits with the lifestyle they are leading now, and where they live. We will have to take that as it comes.”

“This land never stays the same,” says Bob. “As the trees grow, and as the creek changes, the land also changes, and the plants and animals change with it. In the 35 years that we have been here — we have seen a lot of good changes.”