Welcome to Door County Living, A Magazine That Celebrates the Culture and Lifesyle of the Door Peninsula

Our current issue features:

The Ephraim Preserve at Anderson Pond
By Mariah Goode

The Village of Ephraim is renowned for its beauty – its white buildings gracefully nestled amidst a stunning natural backdrop, facing another Door County treasure, Peninsula State Park. Until recently, however, other than the wetland preserve on the south end of the village, little environmentally significant land in Ephraim was in permanent conservation status and protected for public use.

That changed in January 2006, when the Door County Land Trust purchased most of the remaining acreage of the historic Aslag Anderson farmstead. The Land Trust purchased the farmstead, which dates back to 1858, in order to establish the Ephraim Preserve at Anderson Pond. Located along Moravia Street, just east of Highway 42, this historically and ecologically significant 27-acre property offers tremendous scenic views. Land Trust Executive Director Dan Burke notes, “It also hosts a wide diversity of wildlife habitat, including Niagara Escarpment bluffs, an old beach ridge, forest, meadow, wetlands, and, as its centerpiece, a spring-fed pond. The property is part of the Ephraim Preserve Project Area, which has officially been designated a State of Wisconsin Habitat Area.” (more)

How Does Your Garden Grow?
Door County’s Organic Farms
By Melissa Jankowski

For more and more locals, raising their crops and herds in harmony with Mother Nature is becoming the method of choice. By following organic practices (particularly, eliminating the use of pesticides and genetically modified organisms – or GMOs) these farmers are kind to the environment while producing exceptionally flavorful and nutritious foods, and they’re doing it right in our own backyards.

Door County native Kevin Kiehnau grew up working on his family’s dairy farm in Jacksonport. In 1979, he began running the operation, all the while continuing to educate himself about better ways to work his land. It was after taking a course in sustainable agriculture that he really began to see things differently. He found that he could actually reduce costs – along with the use of pesticides – and ultimately be responsible to the environment. From there, he says, he just “fell into organic farming naturally.” Kiehnau has been MOSA (Midwest Organic Services Association) certified for twelve years, ten of which he spent producing milk for Organic Valley. Five years ago, he began raising an organic grass-fed beef herd.

Whereas traditionally raised cattle are grain-fed, farmers like Kiehnau prefer to let their herds peacefully graze on grass. He explains, “Cattle are usually given antibiotics because they cannot tolerate eating only grain. No antibiotics are given to organically raised beef cattle, and no chemical herbicides or insecticides are used when producing the crops that feed them. Grass-fed beef is just healthier all around. It has a sweeter, truer flavor. It also provides heart healthful Omega 3 fatty acids that grain-fed animals don’t, and it’s much leaner – containing about half the fat of grain-fed beef.”

A year ago, Kiehnau chose to sell his milking herd and no longer produces dairy, but he continues to subcontract for Organic Valley, acting as a consultant and educator. Other farmers considering the transition into more natural cultivation methods now look to him for information about basic practices, as well as assistance in “weeding out” the (often intimidating) paperwork involved with becoming certified.

Making the switch to organic methods has made Kiehnau a more knowledgeable farmer, and certainly a more passionate one. He asserts that he “would encourage any farmer to begin following organic practices – for the positive impact it has on the health of animals, people and the future of our environment,” and concludes, “There aren’t many people involved in agriculture who can truly look back at what they’ve done and say they’ve harmed no one. All of the chemicals that are now known to be harmful were once considered perfectly safe. Once you realize something is wrong with the way you’re doing things, it’s already too late – so much damage has already been done.” (more)

A Family Man Foremost
Fred Anderson
By Madeline Johnson

Prior to our interview, I asked a handful of people, “What do you know about Fred Anderson?” Expecting the usual pleasantries and biographical snippets, instead I got a unanimous reply: Fred Anderson might very well be the nicest guy on the planet.

That seemed like an extreme statement. How could one even begin to quantify that? But with the interview over and after a little more digging, I have to say I agree with both the characterization and the emphasis. Fred is “niceness” incarnate. And, more, he’s the mold from which upstanding citizens are made. A family man foremost, he’s also an unusually civic-minded individual and a die-hard Door County enthusiast. (more)

Centered on the Sun
Solar Energy in a Timber Frame House
By Virge Temme, AIA

On a stretch of land just north of Baileys Harbor three ancient meadows converge. A satellite image of the land, with its dark patches of tamarack and spreading juniper, suggests a lunar landscape unblemished save for a winding stripe left long ago by some wayward adventurer. But the house that has settled into this primitive terrain is all about the sun.

In late November 2004 I received a call from John Wilson, a professional actor who moved to Door County by way of Alaska and Iowa to take over the family’s manufacturing business. His builder, Russ Cockburn, was ready to start constructing a new home for John, and they needed building plans. (more)

The Legacy of an Industry
Quarrying for Stone in Door County
By Allison Vroman

“Door County’s first export consisted of stone.” ~ Hjalmar Holand from History of Door County, Wisconsin: The County Beautiful, Volume I

Today, Door County thrives on the tourism industry; however, this was not always the case. During the mid-19th and well into the 20th century, the textured landscape and surrounding water served as more than a backdrop for quaint villages. The abundance of exposed rock and the ease with which it could be transported via water provided the basis for a successful stone quarry industry in Door County during the initial phase of harbor construction around the Great Lakes.

The Door Peninsula is part of a unique geological formation – the Niagara Escarpment. The foundation for the Niagara Escarpment, a prominent line of bluffs that stretches from its namesake, Niagara Falls, in a horseshoe shape through Ontario, along the Upper Peninsula of Michigan, down the Door Peninsula, and toward Horicon Marsh, was formed more than 400 million years ago when sediment was deposited on the floor of an ocean that covered much of the continent during the Silurian Age. After much shifting of the continents and the advance and retreat of glaciers over this region, softer layers of the bedrock eroded and an exposed rock ridge of dolomite, a limestone rich in magnesium which may also be referred to as dolostone, remained. (more)