Celebrate the Natural beauty of the door peninsula

The Door County Festival of Nature is a series of events coordinated by The Ridges Sanctuary and our partners in conservation to encourage visitors, residents, members, and friends to explore and celebrate the natural beauty of the Door Peninsula. Each year, we organize a number of field trips throughout the county, and special events to allow you to experience the county with field trips intimately involved in protecting and preserving these natural spaces and educating our community on their importance. We encourage you to learn more about this incredible event series and get ready to join us for Memorial Day Weekend!

Schedule of Events:

Special Event:

4:30 pm - 7:30 pm: Festival Keynote Dinner

Schedule:

Reception & Beverage Service: 4:30pm

Dinner: 5:00pm
Enjoy a delectable family style dinner prepared by Thyme Catering!

Welcome and General Announcements: 6:15pm

Keynote Presentation: 6:30pm

Keynote Presentation
FieldNotes

The Ridges is excited to present Rachel Davis and Andrew Hipp as the 2025 Festival of Nature keynote speakers.

Rachel and Andrew have been collaborating formally as an artist (RD) and a writer (AH) for more than 20 years. They have published two books-Field Guide to Wisconsin Sedges and Oak Origins: From Acorns to Species and the Tree of Life-and several illustrated natural essays together. They are currently working on a series of paintings and essays based on the lakes of Northern Wisconsin, supported by a multiyear residency through the Drawing Water Program at UW Madison’s Trout Lake Station.

Rachel and Andrew collaborate at the interface between art, literature, science, and natural history. Their work is in part documentation, seeing and recording what the natural world presents, then sharing it in their own ways. However, their collaboration moves beyond documentation and delineation. It also informs their individual work in art, education, and science. For Andrew, writing mediates between subjects of inquiry-a weevil escaping from an acorn, an early-emerging false rue anemone-and the processes that connect individual organisms. Sentences convey information, but they also give form to understanding. The writing complements his work as a researcher and herbarium curator. For Rachel, photographing plants, fungi and insects is a first step to discovering the formal in the natural. Painting, drawing, natural dyes, and printmaking are ways to distill the shapes of plants, the light reflected off the water, mosses seen through a magnifying lens, and lichens into patterns. The rearrangement of shapes from the landscape with colors found in nature engages and feeds her as an artist and as a teacher.

Field Notes will illustrate how Rachel and Andrew’s collaboration both reveals and exists in parallel with the natural world, while presenting their understanding of how integrating art, science, and natural history have changed their respective practices.

Location: About Thyme Farm, 8425 County F, Baileys Harbor, WI 54202.

Fee: $40 per person

Click Here to Register

Field Trips:

Program:

Morning:

6:00 am - 8:00 am: Early Morning Bird Hike
8:00 am - 11:00 am: Mud Lake Paddle
9:00 am - 11:00 am: See Bird? eBird!
9:00 am - 11:00 am: Three Sisters Corn Husk Doll Making
9:00 am - 11:00 am: Boat Tour of Green Bay and Gravel Island National Wildlife Refuges
9:00 am - 11:00 am: Ellison Bay Bluff Exploration
9:00 am - 11:00 am: Stream Monitoring: Assessing Stream Health through Citizen Science
9:00 am - 11:30 am: Make a Spring Wildflower Pop-up Book - Part One
9:00 am - 11:30 am: Explore Open Door Bird Sanctuary
9:00 am - Noon: Dolomite, Sand, Peat Landscape at Shivering Sands Preserve
9:00 am - Noon: Nature Immersion/Forest Bathing
10:00 am - Noon: Explore Toft Point
10:30 am - Noon: Fish Creek Scenic Boat Tours - Peninsula Park Caves and Ephraim North Cruise
11:30 am - 1:30 pm: Boat Tour of Green Bay and Gravel Island National Wildlife Refuges

AfterNoon:

1:00 pm - 2:30 pm: A Bug Walk for People Who Don’t Like Bugs!
1:00 pm - 4:00 pm: Phenology in a Handmade Book
1:00 pm - 3:30 pm: It Isn’t Easy Being (Ever)Green
1:30 pm - 3:00 pm: Discovering Native Bumble Bees and Citizen Science with Bumble Bee Brigade
1:30 pm - 3:30 pm: Natural and Human History at Heins Creek Nature Preserve
1:30 pm - 3:30 pm: Sway Brewery Tour: Highlighting Wild Harvested Ingredients and Rustic Techniques
1:30 pm - 3:30 pm: Exploring Europe Lake and Newport Shorelines
1:30 pm - 3:30 pm: The Clearing History Hike
1:30 pm - 4:00 pm: The Sex Life of Plants
1:30 pm - 4:00 pm: From Field to Farm: A Sustainable Dairy Experience
1:30 pm - 4:00 pm: Explore Open Door Bird Sanctuary
1:30 pm - 4:30 pm: Birding by Ear Class
2:00 pm - 4:00 pm: Boat Tour of Green Bay and Gravel Island National Wildlife Refuges

Evening:

6:30 pm - 8:30 pm: Baileys Harbor Lakeside Coastal Tour - Sunset Trip