Al Batt, Nature&8217;s World

My neighbor Crandall stops by.

&8220;How are you doing?&8221; I ask.

Crandall comes from a huge family. There were 17 in his family and they all lived in one room. The only way they were able to make it was that his parents took in boarders. His father always left the screen windows off the house during the summer. It gave the kids something to do &8212; swat flies.

&8220;Step away from the Pop-Tart and no one will get hurt. Remember when you told me I should ask Large Marge out on a date? Well, I did ask her out. Large Marge chews tobacco, but she didn&8217;t choose me. I swear, if your brain was placed in a thimble, it would rattle around like a BB in a boxcar.&8221;

My neighbor farms a little and loafs a lot. He tries part-time jobs, but he doesn&8217;t believe in burning the candle at even one end, so his episodes of employment are short-lived.

My neighbor goes on, &8220;I got hurt in a bathroom accident. Luckily, it was only a flush wound. Maybe I will embark on a singing career. I have the voice of a bird.

When I sing, the cats won&8217;t leave me alone. Thanks for the Pop-Tart. I&8217;ve got to get home.&8221;

&8220;And work on growing the world&8217;s longest nose hair?&8221; I ask.

&8220;Your brain is fading. I&8217;m having the jeweler, come out and give me an appraisal on the ring around my bathtub.&8221;

Flandrau State Park

Flandrau State Park is partially within the city limits of New Ulm. That makes it easy to have a pizza delivered to a campsite. A scenic prairie river, the Cottonwood, flows through the Park.

Initially named Cottonwood State Park, the name was changed in 1945 to Flandrau State Park to honor Charles E. Flandrau, a prominent lawyer and Indian agent of the area during the 1860s. The Park has a 600-person capacity swimming pool and is the 10th most visited State Park in Minnesota with about 280,000 visitors annually. It is bordered by the Country Club and Schell Brewery. The Park struggles with invasive plants. The staff uses Garlon 4 herbicide to battle buckthorn. This does not necessitate cutting the buckthorn. The herbicide is applied to the bottom foot of the plant. The garlic mustard is pulled, beetles have been released on the leafy spurge, and the black locust is cut before Garlon 4 is applied. Reed canary grass and Canada thistle are other bothersome pests. Beavers caused some problems so a Clemson pond leveler was installed. This device does two things: It suppresses (but does not eliminate) the flooding of timber and cropland. It preserves the pond for waterfowl, plants, and other wildlife. Installed through both sides of the beaver dam, the Clemson leveler allows water move through the dam quietly. When beavers sense water is moving, they work to plug the source, which they are unable to do. The city of New Ulm administers a deer hunt. From mid-October to the end of December, there are approximately 50 deer stands in the park, with 25 to 30 deer taken annually in the archery hunt.

Chimney Swifts

I sat on a lawn near Villa Maria in Frontenac and watched a large number of Chimney Swifts funneling down the Villa&8217;s chimney around dusk. It was a spectacular sight. Swifts are wonderfully agile fliers that possess long, curved wings and short tails that cause people to refer to them as &8220;flying cigars.&8221; They are easily noticed because of the constant twittering as they hawk insects in flight. Their large mouths serve them well in capturing flying insects.

Long ago, Chimney Swifts nested in hollow trees and caves. Now virtually all Chimney Swifts nest in chimneys. Their nests are semicircular cups made of twigs and attached to the inside of the chimney by sticky saliva produced by the birds. Bird nest soup, an Asian delicacy, is made from the nests of Cave Swiftlets.

Hermann the German

I climbed high to spend time with the largest copper statue ever built in this country. The Hermann Monument, watching over New Ulm, was built in Salem, Ohio. The Statue of Liberty is a larger, but was built in France. Called by many, &8220;Hermann the German,&8221; Hermann, who liberated Germany from the Romans in 9 A.D., is but one of many things to see in a city that is fiercely proud of its German heritage. The Glockenspiel is a 45-foot-tall carillon clock on Minnesota Street. There are a number of restaurants offering strudel and schnitzel, and many shops with names ending in &8220;haus.&8221;

New Ulm is rich in history. During the Dakota War of 1862, Chief Little Crow set New Ulm ablaze.

It is home to August Schell Brewery, the second-oldest family-owned brewery in the U.S. The Schell Brewery has a delightful garden.

New Ulm has a Putting Green Environmental Learning Center that combines miniature golf with environmental education. The city has a Municipal Graffiti Wall, where graffiti artists display their talents.

Wind power

According to the National Academy of Sciences, an independent organization chartered by Congress to advise the government on scientific matters, by 2020, wind generators could offset as much as 4.5 percent of emissions of the greenhouse gas carbon dioxide from electricity production. Preliminary studies indicate there is the possibility of significant population effects on bats. Turbines placed on ridges have higher probability of causing bat fatalities than those at other sites. In the eastern United States, up to 41 bats are killed annually for every megawatt of wind energy generated along forested ridge tops. In Midwestern and Western states, the number is lower, no more than nine dead bats per megawatt. Poor statistics about bats make it difficult to estimate how severely such kills affect bat populations. Because bats are curious animals, they may be killed as they explore novel objects in their environment. At current levels of use, there is no evidence that fatalities caused by wind turbines result in measurable demographic changes to bird populations nationwide. However, data is lacking for many facilities. In 2003, wind generators accounted for only three-thousandths of 1 percent of bird killings &8212; no more than 37,000 birds. That same year, as many as a billion birds died in collisions with buildings, and electrical power lines may have accounted for more than a billion deaths. Domestic cats were responsible for the demise of hundreds of millions of songbirds. While there are aesthetic concerns about proposed wind-energy projects, few decision processes adequately address them. Other potential impacts include effects on cultural resources such as historic, sacred, archaeological, and recreation sites, and the potential for electromagnetic interference with television and radio broadcasting, cellular phones, and radar. Building wind farms requires soil disruption that has the potential for erosion.

Happy anniversary to my bride, Gail

Thank you for marrying me.

Thanks for stopping by

&8220;You were born an original. Don&8217;t die a copy.&8221; &8212; John Mason

&8220;Some people feel the rain. Others just get wet.&8221; &8212; Bob Dylan

DO GOOD.

Al Batt of Hartland is a member of the Albert Lea Audubon Society. E-mail him at SnoEowl@aol.com.