Driftless Area

I live in Richland Center, Wisconsin.

They are trying to run a power line through the Driftless area.

It's like a 765 line, one of the biggest ones they can do.

And it's an easement of 250 feet each direction, and they want to run it right through Richland County.

It's the second line of the sort that's currently proposed in the area, with the first one known as the Maribel Project.

which would run a similar line from southern Minnesota across the Mississippi and into western Wisconsin.

If approved, both projects would run through parts of the Driftless area, which is a special, special part of the Midwest, characterized by forest prairie remnants, limestone rock valleys, cold trout streams, great smallmouth fishing on some of them rivers and productive farmlands, big honking white-tailed deer, Many folks are worried about the impacts that the power lines could have both on the way of life there for residents and farms, as well as the effect on wildlife.

And according to the U.S.

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Or explore the natural landscape of the Driftless and the Ho-Chunk's connection to the area at the Kickapoo Valley Reserve.

The reserve is jointly managed by the Ho-Chunk Nation and the state of Wisconsin's Full of hiking trails, towering sandstone bluffs, and the winding Kickapoo River.

You can check out the Visitor's Center, which was freshly redesigned a few years ago.

Yeah, totally, dude.

I mean, in Wisconsin, we've got this big proposal for the 765 line, which would be basically a massive power line system that would go basically essentially cut straight through the driftless region of Wisconsin, like kind of like that lacrosse area shooting all the way towards Madison and Milwaukee.

And it's just going to cut through people's private land, people's farms.

Like, so you're going to have like decreased property value.

And I can't afford 40 cows frankly.

So it's really great to be able to, you know, these relationships we're making with some really, really interesting people out here in the Driftless doing really interesting things.

been a real asset and I think that's anybody who's a small producer should really think about that and really be open and look for opportunities to get out in the community talk to people face to face um join a group you know we just joined this um we're just starting to work with this Richland County Legacy Alliance which is a newly formed producer shed producer-led watershed group here.

So I wanted to ask you about your pasture walk.

Oh, there's such a variety.

You know, this is such a great part of the country because we've got this, like I grew up in Kenosha and we sort of had a set of birds that would come there and we knew it's this sort of eastern or central set of birds.

But here in the Driftless, you get this whole cohort of western birds that overlap here.

And there's species that are new to us that are really exciting.

And meanwhile, a few years later, in the early 60s, they moved to Sterling, Illinois.

And what was that area, Jim, that you were talking about? The Driftless Zone.

The Driftless Zone.

So they moved to Sterling, Illinois, which is about 50 miles from the Driftless Zone.

And that's where I was born.

And I was significantly far behind my other siblings.

So It is called Annaway Place.

This is in the Driftless, Richland County.

It's a tranquil cabin escape.

It's been loved by visitors for decades.