Hobbitstee Wildlife Refuge Wetland Restoration and Habitat Enhancement Project

In December of 2021 Hobbitstee was able to purchase this amazing property. 47 Acres with 30 acres of woods and wetland and 17 acres workable farmland. In July of 2021 the farmer who rented the 17 workable acres took a wheat crop of the land and nothing was planted due to the pending change of ownership. We didn't do much with the land during the winter other than planning for the upcoming year. Busy with getting a temporary wildlife hospital (in the form of a 40' seacan) set up and made functional occupied a lot of my time as well as the planning and permit application process for the brand new state of the art wildlife hospital to be build as soon as the afore mentioned permits get issued. As soon as the weather got a bit nicer I lay awake at night planning the necessary outdoor wildlife enclosures that needed to be build and needed to decide on where on the 17 acres they would go. I am very visual person, so I endlessly walked that 17 acres all the while planning in my

Monarch Butterfly on aster   My parents instilled in my brother and me a deep and abiding love for nature.   Don’t worry - I’m not going to tell you that when we were young, we had to walk 10 miles to school, uphill – both ways.   But I will say that the best days of our childhood in the 1960s were spent playing outside, seeing all the life in the creek and all the milkweed in the fields, walking through the woods with our Dad to find – (but never pick! We were taught that too!) - Lady’s Slippers, hearing the whip-poor-will at night, seeing the sky full of bats at dusk, and never wanting the day to end.   We were fortunate, because my parents, both hard workers their entire lives, made time to show us places of incredible beauty, and pass down to us their respect for the environment.   While visiting Luther Marsh and Oliphant Marsh, my Mom never failed to declare, “I love marshes”.   Years later, I discovered that the original meaning of my surname is “Bog Dweller”.   So given all that

Hobbitstee has embraced a rather large undertaking. The newly purchased property consist of 30 acres of forrest and 17 workable farmland with 11 acres of Provincially Significant Wetland (PSW) mixed in. Agricultural practices have unfortunately eroded the PSW as well as the many vernal pools present on the farmable portion of the property. With the help of a huge team of specialists (who will all donate their time) and a group of volunteers efforts will be underway to start the arduous task of restoring the wetlands and vernal pools, buffering them with native plants and vegetation, removing invasive species, enhancing the wildlife habitat we have, enhancing the “accidental meadow’ and recently established tall grass prairie while monitoring present species, water quality and bring back some of the species of flora and fauna historically present, but not seen in recent years. We are very happy to work with the Mississaugas of the Credit on this. This property is on their ancestral land