Stoneage Ramblings

By John R. Stone

Fifty years ago Barsness Park was much smaller. It was a campground, the ski  area on the south end and baseball and softball diamonds on the north part, the Lion’s Club built Chalet and maybe some horseshoe pits on the south part.

It was in the late 1970s that the Federal and State governments put some money into a program to encourage cities to set aside green space for use for outdoor recreation purposes.

The program was called LAWCON for Land and Water Conservation and it was intended to preserve the land permanently as green space for the benefit of citizens. That means no private development of the property and no selling the land to developers.

It was that program that led to the city of Glenwood greatly expanding Barnsess Park to nearly 250 acres. The city, with Bob Moe as administrator, was successful in several grants that allowed it to purchase land from the Wheeler, Lamb and Barsness families.

The Wheeler and Lamb properties are mostly what is south of Park Road. The families wanted the heavily wooded land preserved and preferably without motorized machine use. At the time snowmobiles were a big thing and they didn’t want a snowmobile trail through that land. The city agreed.

The Barsness property is north of Park Road and is largely prairie with an area of large oak trees at the north end.

For the most part not much happened after the land was acquired. Some hiking trails were put in the new addition and a multi-use trail was placed in the north part of the park.

It was only recently that mountain bike trails were added with the aid of a grant. Disc golf was greatly expanded and now offers 27 holes. A splash pad was installed this fall and should be open next year. That was funded with local donations.

Over the years the city has not had much funding to maintain the additional land. Most of the park budget goes to maintenance. There is a lot to mow in the original part of the park and the city also mows parkland near the ballroom, at Mount Lookout and elsewhere. Money just wasn’t available to do much else in the park.

A few years ago it was discovered that there is a lot of buckthorn, an invasive species, in the park. Actually it was discovered earlier because when the county had it’s Sentence to Serve program, Mark Holtberg lead several projects in the park, including cutting down some buckthorn. But the Sentence to Serve program ended.

The buckthorn project took life again a couple of years ago, this time spearheaded by Wayne Zimmerman, a long-time city resident. Over the past two and a half years or so volunteers called the “Buckthorn Brigade” first cut buckthorn by hand and more lately have used the service of forest mulchers to chew up the buckthorn.

The project in the north side of the park pictured in last week’s Tribune was part of a grant obtained by Holly Kovarik for buckthorn removal. That project will use forest mulching and chemicals to kill the stuff off.

On the south side of Park Road, due to the numerous springs and creeks, no chemicals are being used. Buckthorn is trimmed by hand or chewed up by a forest mulcher. Goats have been brought in to chew the leaves off the shoots that pop up after cutting and, after a couple of years, that should starve the root system enough so the stuff dies.

The forest mulcher is not a clear-cut operation, the machine operator avoids smaller non-buckthorn trees which should thrive without the competition.

The Buckthorn Brigade (which as a matter of full disclosure I am a member) provides free labor for this project and members contribute money as well–so far roughly two thirds of the cost of buckthorn removal, goats and equipment.