Leopold Legacy: March Traditional Cache
shanty: In 2004 my son Aaron (shanty) and I deployed the Leopold Legacy series. Aaron was active in Scouting and this was one of three projects that he completed for the Hornaday award with the BSA. Shanty, i.e. a little shack, was a parody on the famous Leopold retreat on the Wisconsin River.
The project was designed to combine the sport of geocaching and environmental education. Since the series was deployed, we have distributed about 1000 packets of pale purple coneflower (Echinacea pallidia) seed with propagating instructions and about 1000 dreamcatchers. There were over 4,500 visits to the series in its 15-year run. Many people we drawn to the Dane County parks because of the caches and discovered what a valuable resource they are to our community.
Aaron now lives away with his own home and career. Dad has developed health issues from his exposure to agent orange in Viet Nam. It’s time to wrap this project up and move on to new ventures.
Thank you all for the wonderful comments and photos over the years. It has been a pleasure.
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(regular)
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This cache is a part of the “Leopold Legacy” set. The Leopold Legacy set is a series of twelve caches all placed in Dane County Parks. Each one of these caches has a quote representing one month of Aldo Leopold’s The Sand County Almanac. At each of the sites you will find something relating to the quote at or near the geocache. Aldo Leopold was a famous Ecologist from Wisconsin, and The Sand County Almanac is his most famous book. It is a collection of short stories related to each month of the year. I decided to make this series to bring geocachers to some of the Dane County parks, and to give them a sample of some of Aldo Leopold’s writing.
The cache has been authorized and the proper permit was issued by Dick Black, Dane County Parks on July 16, 2004. I would like to acknowledge Wayne Pauly, the naturalist at Dane County Parks, for his assistance in my project.
“There are not many texts that I am able to accept as gospel truths, but this is one of them. I am willing to rise up and declare my belief that this text is literally true; true forward, true backward, true even before breakfast. The man who does enjoy his leisure is to some extent educated, though he has never seen the inside of a school.”
In 1892, Leopold began his education at the Prospect Hill School in Burlington, Iowa. It began an adventure of lifelong learning. He trained as a forester at Yale University. At the University of Wisconsin, where he founded the program in wildlife management, his students addressed him as “The Professor”. He enjoyed many leisure activities. Family getaways to his retreat “the shack”; grouse hunting, trout fishing, and wilderness canoe trips were a few of his favorite leisure pastimes. He maintained extensive journals of these activities and shared his observations with his students, other researchers and the public through his extensive writing. For Leopold, the role of leisure and learning were intertwined throughout his life.While you are here, sample the water from the pump in the schoolhouse yard. It’s worth the effort to draw out a cup or two. Also notice the large cottonwood tree on the other side of the farm field from the cache location. Cottonwoods were one of “The Professor’s” favorite trees.
This cache is at the Halfway Praire Park. It is very easy to find, and the cache is not far from the road. This is a very nice little spot. It is the site of an old schoolhouse. It is the oldest existing school in Dane County. It is well worth taking a look around. The schoolhouse is open from 1-4:30 Sundays from Memorial Day to Labor Day.
The cache is a brown ammo box. Inside I have placed a few carabineers, some small dream-catchers made by me, and some small packets of seeds for pale purple coneflower, a threatened species in Wisconsin.
Additional Hints
(No hints available.)