La Crosse NFWCO biologist Mark Steingraeber pauses while driving staples to secure straw blankets that protect prairie seeds recently planted at the Browns Marsh Overlook on the Upper Mississippi River National Wildlife and Fish Refuge. Photo credit: USFWS.

As a fishery biologist at a northern-located duty station, where most surface waters remain hard for nearly half of the year, I am frequently asked by friends and family at winter holiday gatherings "What do you and your colleagues do at work this time of year?" 

My typical response to these queries is a listing of required in-door activities (e.g., data entry and analysis, report preparation, meeting participation, equipment maintenance, property inventory) that could eventually cause occupational cases of cabin-fever.  However, the co-location of the La Crosse NFWCO with five other Service offices in Onalaska, Wisconsin provides occasional opportunities for Fishery Program employees here to leave their office 'dens', where they may otherwise 'hibernate' for the winter, and resume work in the outdoors by briefly participating in cross-program activities. 

Such was the case on a mild day in late November when, at a request for assistance, I helped Upper Mississippi River National Wildlife and Fish Refuge-La Crosse District staff complete landscaping activities at the recently constructed Browns Marsh Overlook site adjacent to the Great River State Trail.  Having worked a seasonal job decades ago to restore and maintain remnant savannah-prairie habitats scattered amidst an expanding urban landscape in southeastern Wisconsin, the opportunity to mix and hand-broadcast sides-oats-grama grass, little bluestem, Indian grass, and a variety of other native prairie forb seeds in the sandy loam soils of southwestern Wisconsin was a youth-replenishing tonic for my spirit of conservation. 

Lest my body think that it too had found a fountain of youth, I was reminded of my middle-aged status by the end of the day after crawling for hours on hands and knees to cover the seeds with a protective layer of straw blankets held in place by countless staples hammered (i.e., chiseled) into the mostly frozen ground. 

But despite any temporary stiffness due to this labor of love, friends and family likely noticed that I gave a more enthused response at holiday gatherings this winter when I told to them what I had recently been doing at work.