Country
Friday, March 20, 2020
cres A
Volume 8, Edition 3
Focusing on Today’s Rural Environment
Fireflies in the night
PHOTO SUBMITTED
The sun sets over a restored wetland pond at John and Lisa Holmquist’s home in Dassel.
Holmquists restore property to native wetlands, delight in return of wildlife By SARAH COLBURN Staff Writer DASSEL – During the summer the deep, gravely “ribbits” of the frogs ring throughout John and Lisa Holmquist’s property in Dassel. The 80 acres is teeming with wildlife, turtles, mice, gophers, pheasants, Sandhill Cranes, geese and, in the beginning, even otters, breaking holes in the snowbanks in winter, taking three steps and sliding on their bellies. But the creatures that make Lisa’s face light up are the fireflies. “There are fireflies galore in the woods,” she said. “All the wildlife came back. Once the use of chemicals stopped, the frogs were immediately back.” The Holmquists have spent the last 10 years restoring their property to wetland. They’re the fourth generation on the family land that was originally farmed by John’s great-grandfather, Per Holmquist, who settled on the property in 1884. Over the years the property has served as a farm with 40 tillable acres. John’s dad, Norman Holmquist, ran a small dairy operation on the property and had as many as 12,500 laying hens, later renting the land to a neighbor for farming. When John and Lisa took ownership of the land after Norman died, they needed to decide whether they were going to farm the soil or continue to rent the cropland out. John began to look into their options and decided on still another option, to bring the land back to its natural state through a wetland restoration project. Initially the couple was interested in organic farming but would have had to
This month in the
COUNTRY
PHOTO BY SARAH COLBURN
Lisa and John Holmquist spent years turning the family farm back to its original wetland state. Their property in Dassel is now teeming with wildlife.
start from scratch. The only equipment they owned were the original family tractors and plows; John’s father farmed with horses up until 1947. “He was slow to evolve and let go of the old ways,” John said. Once the couple decided to restore the land, they worked with a number of agencies to get the project going. The restoration was so successful the property was featured in a four-minute Pheasants Forever virtual reality video called “Management Matters,” which debuted in February at the Pheasants Forever Pheasant Fest. The Holmquists worked with the Meeker County branch of the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service Office to restore the property. Experts used aerial photographs
3
Where were we? Diane Leukam Column
6
Seasoned and savored Belgrade
10 Fair enough! New London
HOLMQUIST continued on page 2
15 Forever family Melrose 20 Off to a good start Sauk Centre 23 What’s this?
24 The edible landscape Freeport 26 Country Cooking