Welcome to the GIS Project 3
Home Page of David Hawkins
Some background about me...
I am currently attending Winona State University, and will be graduating May 3, 2002 with a Geoscience degree in Water Resource Management. This is a doubly exciting time for me as I will be getting married on May 11, 2002. This GIS project is in conjunction with my directed research project done this spring at Featherstone Farm. Featherstone is an organic farm, about 15 miles south of Winona, MN. I collected data using a Trimble GeoExplorer 3 GPS unit, and used the data to help form this project. Enjoy!
Where is Featherstone? Take highway 43, heading south out of Winona. When you come to the I90 overpass, just cross over it and take a left onto county road 19. The road turns to gravel, is winding, and steep, so take it easy! The valley is really beautiful, if you can look up from the road. You'll go about 8 miles on this road. You'll pass other farms along the way and several cattle pastures. The key to look for is the little old white school house on your right. Take the first right after the school house, the farm is about 1/3 of a mile ahead.
What's Near Featherstone? Featherstone is located in the Wiscoy Valley in Winona county. This valley is one of the more remote areas of the county so there is very little outside influence from just about anything! There is abundant wildlife at every turn, so keep your eyes open. Deer, turkeys, coyotes, and even bald eagles are very common sights.
GPS Layout of Featherstone This is the data that I collected through my research at the farm. This layout shows how the farm is situated. Please keep in mind that this is bluff country, the walking is not always easy. Bluffs may reach higher than 500 ft. in this part of Minnesota. Featherstone is a very large place, it took several long days of mapping to cover all of the territory. The fun part was getting to explore and discover new springs flowing out of the smaller valleys in the area.
Satellite Image of Featherstone This satellite image is a few years old, but it was the most up-to-date image available. It does give a fairly good image of what the lay of the land, and the farm are like. I did not physically map the pasture land outlined on the upper east corner of the map, but it is highlighted for its contribution to the pollution of Money Creek which flows along the southern edge of Featherstone.
Flood Susceptibility of Featherstone Farm Outlined along the streams are FEMA Floodways. The light blue areas show the flood potential of the streams in the area. Minor flooding will still occur, but the possibility of any major flooding of the size indicated on the layout is quite low. The streams in this area are first and second order streams, with the largest being a small third order stream. All of the streams are mostly fed by small springs, but also some field runoff.
This photo was taken at the beaver dam located in Money Creek located at the southern edge of the farm. Notice all of the trash that has collected on the dam. My research partner Jake Mueller is in the photo for scale.
This photo was taken at the intake pipe where water is diverted from a spring a few hundred yards behind us, to a swimming hole a few hundred yards to our front. The water is clear and cold, fresh from the hills.
Caution: This photo is very graphic!
There was an unfortunate thing which we happened upon while looking for springs. This deer got it's leg caught in the fence while jumping over it, and was subsequently eaten by predators... There are several fences around the property, some old, and some new. this deer was probably caught in the fence when it tried to jump the older barbed wire fence, as well as the new fence. The fences are offset by a few feet and it appears as though it was too much distance to clear.