Big Maple Lake

The Midwest’s First Horse-themed Food-Forest

Welcome to a Paradise for the Community

Imagine riding a wide, soft trail beneath apple, pear, mulberry, pawpaw, persimmon, and hazelnut trees. Plants and bushes near trails safe and chosen so your horse can snack as you go. You reach the lake shore and your horse walks into a gentle gravel drinking bay for a long, refreshing drink of clean, clear water.

In the center of the lake, a broad, stable floating bridge sweeps across the water to a living island garden of mushrooms, vetiver grass, tall hardy native cannas & irises, pickerelweed, and fragrant flowers. Fish flash beneath the surface, turtles bask on logs, and the whole place feels like a dream.

This could be Big Maple Lake reborn: A true rider’s food-forest paradise where horses and humans live in abundance.

What We Could See In 3–5 Years

*The lake had been low for a while, so if the lake has already been drawn down, this process can be skipped

  • Crystal-clear, horse-safe water - No toxic algae, no runoff, no worries.

    • Naturally “bio-dredged” + a living filtration island that cleans the water 24/7

    • One gentle, permitted 18–24-inch drawdown in late summer 2026 (the lake comes back deeper & cleaner the moment we refill)

    • Beneficial microbes + enzymes seeded lake-wide to digest decades of soft muck (drops another 1–2 feet of sludge naturally)

    • Fast-growing shoreline plants (cattails, hardy cannas & native irises vacuum cloudiness out of the water)

  • A gorgeous new roadside filtering wetland garden with a bridge that might be made from naturally fell trees

    • We open one section of the road ditch and sculpt a sweeping, curved forebay wetland

    • Stormwater slows, drops its dirt, gets polished by plants, then spills into the lake clean

    • Instant wildlife magnet and the prettiest photo spot you’ve ever seen (boardwalk + benches + bridge + beautiful stormwater forebay)

  • Floating bridge & living island

    • The island itself is a giant natural water filter: Oyster & King Stropharia mushrooms intertwine with edibles and vetiver grass, hardy water-cannas and tall native irises work, while others benefit from the lush nutrients provided by the lake

    • Free mushrooms for visitors to harvest and take home for supper (Creating low maintenance)

    • Wide non-slip deck rises and can rise and fall with water levels

    • Can use the same brilliant principle as the ancient Aztec chinampas – just simpler and faster for Phase 1

    • Clean, oxygenated water = massive zooplankton blooms

      • Bass, bluegill, and perch grow huge and plentiful on nature’s own buffet

  • Miles of lush, edible riding trails & horse-perfect waterfront

    • Wide, hoof-friendly surfaces (deep mulch, clover, and horse-safe grasses)

    • 100’s of fruit and nut trees, berry hedges, and winding, herb & medicinal plant spirals (free groceries for horse and rider)

    • Plants can be vetted by equine experts: (i.e. no red maple, yew, or wilted cherry near trails or if old growth, explicitly marked

    • Multiple gravel drinking bays perhaps with gradual entry and splash-and-roll zones for hot days

    • Shaded hitching posts, mounting blocks, and log “scratch posts” at perfect wither height

    • Soft riding trails along the edge

    • Overnight paddock tracks for horses that come to stay

  • Vivid horse joy built into every corner

    • Grazing orchards with low branches

    • Treat hedges that rain berries when in season

    • Log-over options, and gentle hills that invite a happy canter

    • Wide lanes perfect for a carefree gallop

  • Year-round magic

    • Solar up-lighting can be integrated for safe, magical night-time star-gazing experiences

      • Up-lights into trees illuminate overall space, water feature bridge and island glow - plants intertwined w/ solar lighting

        • Excess electric may be sold back

    • Plentiful fish & food

    • Happy wildlife & pollinators

    • Groomed trails for winter sleigh rides or brisk morning walks

    • Safe ice access to the bridge for winter walks with thermoses of hot cocoa

    • Fire circles with retractable, horse-safe fencing options built into the planting architecture

    • Evenings around the lake skygazing under the stars

  • Benefits

    • Mushroom mats seed & clean the water

    • Clean water explodes with zooplankton and insects

    • Fish grow huge and plentiful on that natural buffet

    • Everyone wins with clean water, healthy food, and fun

Phase 1

  • Spring is made for planning, starting & planting plants, and creating the building blocks

    • Fish spawn safely in spring & love the summer concentration

  • July & August evaporation + plants drinking water may drop it 12–18” on their own, meaning siphoning only the last 6–12 “

    • Warm water + sunshine = microbes work 5–10× faster
      The bacteria and enzymes that eat the muck are most active at 70–90 °F, so by late summer they’re turbo charged

    • Exposed muck dries & kills algae in weeks instead of months

      • Hot sun + wind in August cracks and bakes the top layer of sediment

    • All the important fish (bass, bluegill, perch) finish spawning by June

    • By late July the babies are big enough to handle the deeper pockets and can grow huge gorging on concentrated food

  • Fall rains refill (Sept–Oct)

  • Water rises, new shallow zones flood, plants explode next spring

    • Wildlife and plants explode the following spring

    • The drawdown creates a perfect “seed bed” for native shoreline plants that sprout like crazy the next year

  • Long-term (2027 and beyond)

    • Brand-new spawning areas appear - Zooplankton blooms - Best natural fish food ever

    • By the following summer the lake could hold 2–5× more and bigger bass, bluegill, and perch than before

    • Clear water, locked-away nutrients, no more summer algae crashes

    • Stable oxygen levels all year. - Fish you can see from the bridge

Real-world proof
Lakes in Minnesota & Wisconsin that have done this exact drawdown + microbe recipe ends up with a noticeably better fishery within 1–3 years. Check out Lake Cornelia (Edina, MN), Long Lake (New Brighton, MN), Mitchell Lake (Eden Prairie, MN), and dozens more—all clearer water and bigger fish catches after restoration. The fish concentrate and grow fat during the short summer drawdown, then explode in numbers when the cleaner, deeper lake refills. Fish don’t just survive the process—they seem to thrive as a result.

Island oasis & food forest

The sparkling, fish-filled, oasis you imagine

Every technique has restored lakes exactly like ours, so let’s make the water clean & sparkle again.

  • The island itself is a natural bio-filter loaded with mushrooms & bioremediation plants

    • Phase 1 gets us the crystal-clear maple lake fast & builds the groundwork

    • Phase 2 turns the island into an Aztec food-forest chinampa paradise with horse-safe orchards, overnight paddocks, and miles of edible trails.

At a glance

Spring–early summer 2026 → roadside wetland construction, island build, plantings, mushroom inoculation

  • Early Spring-2026 → Planning, Disaster Avoidance & Groundwork

  • July/August 2026 → 6–8-week drawdown + microbe treatment (the big healing moment)

  • September/October 2026 → siphons turned off, lake refills with fall rains

  • Spring 2027 → you open the gate to a lake that’s already dramatically clearer and deeper

  • 2027–2028 → water keeps getting better

Disaster Avoidance Team

Spring is full of snowmelt and rain, so this is optimal time for planning with the Disaster Avoidance Team - City Storm & water experts, Planning, Landscape Architect & Design Expert, Permaculture Expert with experience building swales & hügelkultur berms, & Disaster Avoidance Students. Typical students are Jr. & Sr. High School Students & Local Community Talent. Members that would like to obtain hands-on learning and skills in this new, developing niche field of career.

Students learn by doing, working with the design team on project days. They will learn how to move and manage stormwater by designing & building swales & hügelkultur berms, strategically plan the floating filter rafts that become the island oasis, and understand which plants work best where, and for what function.

Over time, “Disaster Avoidance” students will become experts, and will be empowered to lead future projects, becoming exponential change agents for our local community, or have the skills to confidently lead the efforts anywhere in the world.

zooplankton

No,

  1. There are two very different kinds of plankton

    • Bad plankton = microscopic algae (the green soup you see in over-fertilized farm ponds)

    • Good plankton = zooplankton (tiny animals and baby insects)
      When the water first clears, we get a short, controlled burst of good zooplankton

  2. Zooplankton are crystal-clear themselves
    You can look straight through a bucket of water that’s full of them and make it clearer because they eat the last bits of floating particles and leftover algae.

  3. The fish eat them almost as fast as they appear
    Baby bluegill and bass show up within weeks and vacuum up the zooplankton. It’s a natural self-balancing act – the bloom lasts a few weeks to a couple of months, then settles into equilibrium. The lake ends up gin-clear with fat fish, exactly like every successfully restored lake in the Midwest.

  4. We’re pulling the nutrients OUT, not adding them

    • The new roadside wetland and the island plants strip phosphorus and nitrogen

    • Nutrient levels drop, producing clear water and big fish (aim for 15–25 µg/L phosphorus – the sweet spot for a sparkling lake).

Every lake that has used this exact recipe in Minnesota, Wisconsin, Michigan, and Iowa (hundreds of them) goes through the same short sequence:

Mucky → slightly cloudy for 4–10 weeks → suddenly gin-clear and stays that way for decades
The short zooplankton bloom is a sign everything is working; within one season the fish eat it down & water turns clear.

Does the zooplankton make the water cloudy?

What About The Deer?

The deer will absolutely come to eat, and that can be one of the very best features.

Here’s what actually happens and why it’s perfect:

  1. Deer are the original testers
    Every fruit tree, berry bush, and herb we plant is already growing wild somewhere within 20 miles. If deer loved it in the forest, they’ll love it here too. Their browsing is free, real-world proof that everything is delicious and natural.

  2. We plant for abundance, not scarcity

    • Trees can be planted in dense guilds - much more food than one family or herd could ever eat

    • Low branches - deer, horses, and kids

    • High branches are for riders and adults to pick from saddle or ladder

    • Fast-growing “deer candy” (clover lanes, serviceberry hedges, crabapples) are placed along the forest edges on purpose – the deer eat their fill there first and usually leave the inner orchards alone

    • Community members encouraged to come and pick fresh food for meals, taking only what we need - we can begin to solve hunger via proven, grass-roots methods

  3. Deer & other wildlife become the attraction

    • Dawn and dusk rides with wildlife nibbling berries beside the trail

    • Community & visitors alike will love it - We came for the horses and stayed for the deer

    • Picture-perfect moments

  4. Simple, gentle adaptations

    • Don’t feed them - be respectful, let them feed themselves and watch them do deer things

    • Clean up after yourself or the Fae may not be kind

    • On-site waste asset reclamation station

    • Install tall poles near fire areas to hang food & gear bags

    • Give extra space during the rut

    • No fences, sensor, cameras or activated lighting spoiling the views, privacy and ambiance; no ugly netting to separate - they’re wild… that’s life! :)

Deer eating young tree branches

The food forest is built for sharing – with the horses, the people, and the wildlife that lives here

Waste Assets Collected from Community & Guests 

Resources can be collected for use on-site in various ways to create larger expansions or create pathways, or glass-crushed sand bio logs seeded with filtering plants and either mycelium or SCOBY centric bioremediation to clean the nearby Deep River water, while beautifully expanding trails & addressing erosion problems and riprap opportunities at the root-cause.

Each expansion is an opportunity to assess the local landscape to improve the way the water gets to where it wants to flow naturally, especially during heavy storms. By working proactively, we beautify our local scenery AND deal with our waste and stormwater management in ways we can be proud of.

Stormwater can be directed by swales into filtering areas which slow the speed and drink up excess water with filtering plants and hügelkultur berms. The result is a beautiful new, functional landscape that passively cleans road run-off, thus cleaning the local waterways prior to entry back into Lake Michigan.

Turning Big Maple Lake into Northwest Indiana’s First Horseback Eco-Oasis

A 2-3-phased, grant-funded plan that fixes the erosion & stormwater problems, cleans that water, creates new revenue streams, and costs the city almost nothing.

The Problem Today

  • Severe shoreline erosion (10–25 ft lost in places since 2010)

  • Murky, algae-heavy water (phosphorus from horse-farm runoff + road drainage)

  • Bare, muddy banks → no habitat, little fishing, no tourism value

The Vision
A 2–3-mile meandering food-forest trail along the lake with gentle horse-friendly slopes to the water, a glowing floating filter-island, solar-lit canopy, rustic benches from downed trees, and nightly horseback stargazing + berry-picking rides.
Horses drink clean water. Riders feed them fresh apples. Fish explode because we create habitat & natural food buffets. Wildlife & visitors enjoy free foraging & oyster mushrooms we harvest off the floating bridge.
Shiloh Stables & Exceptional Equestrians are close & may benefit from and influx of local & out-of-state tourists.

Great for photo ops with or without horses. 

Details

Phase 2 – Build the Attraction (2027, < $120k city share)

Feature: Floating Filter-Island

Description: Honeycomb myco-rafts + pickerelweed + water lilies + solar rope lights around edge + gentle horse drinking ramp

GLRI + DNR LARE (90 %) grants

2-mile Food-Forest Trail

4,000+ fruit/nut trees & berries (pawpaw, persimmon, serviceberry, elderberry, hazelnut) planted in hügelkulturs

$30–40k

NRCS + Sustain Our Great Lakes

Floating Mushroom-Harvest Bridge

  • Rustic horse tie-up stop by living bridge out to island

  • Harvest oyster mushrooms

  • Picture ops & ecotourism attraction

Same grants

Solar canopy up lights + trail markers

Trees glow at night - perfect for stargazing & night rides

(Tourism grant add-on)

  •  First horseback tours start summer 2027

  • Fish population doubles by 2028

Phase 1 – Stop the Bleeding (2026, < $40k city share)

  • Fix: Biologs + coir erosion mats + vetiver grass plugs on worst banks

    • Erosion stops in first growing season; water starts clearing after drawback & refill

  • How: LARE + NRCS EQIP Grants; Disaster avoidance staples & plants in a few big project days

Simple changes in procedure makes all the difference here, turning what was once work, into opportunity and expansion

  • Chain-saw teams turn downed trees into instant hügelkultur classes for eager students

  • Bridge designs for future or current engineers

  • Rustic furniture making workshops

  • Mushroom inoculated trail edging

  • Shiloh’s manure stockpile creates wonderful compost & compost tea

    • Free fertilizer for the entire food forest, possibly for purchase

A fallen tree could now be the small project someone in this disaster avoidance group begins with. They could teach a workshop on how to create a hügelkultur berm, what’s its used for and how they can stop erosion & control the flow of flood waters.

Plan out willow strategies

  • Tie-downs

  • Living fence

  • Willow furniture weaving classes

Phase 3 – Self-Funding Forever (2028+)

Revenue Stream

Conservative Year-3 Estimate

Guided horseback eco-tours: $150k

Special events, workshops & classes: $60–100

Wedding & event venue bookings (sunset photos): $80–150k

Potential mushroom & fish sales @ local market or fair trade to city restaurants for collecting food-waste

(excess oysters + perch/bluegill): $20–40k

Revenue estimates need real-world data and figures

Maintenance = horses walking the trail every day + riders harvesting mushrooms = basically free.

 

Funding Stack (already lined up for 2026–2028 cycles)

  • DNR LARE → $150–250k

  • NRCS EQIP/RCPP → $80–120k

  • Great Lakes Restoration Initiative → $100–200k

  • Sustain Our Great Lakes → $50–100k

  • Indiana Tourism micro-grants (horseback stargazing is perfect) → $25k

Net city cost for all three phases: under $150k total (and we can use volunteer hours + manure value as match → could drop to $0 cash).

 

Big Maple Lake → Indiana’s First Nighttime Horseback Eco-Oasis

The Problem Today

  • Ugly, eroding, murky lake

  • Not much public use, zero revenue, few fish

 

The Fix – 3 things we build (all proven elsewhere)

  1. Floating Filter-Island + gentle horse drinking ramp & tie-up stop
    Cleans the whole lake, glows at night with solar rope lights
    → City share after grants: $60–80k

  2. 2-mile Food-Forest Trail along the shore (Root-cause solution for food crisis)
    Apples, pawpaws, persimmons, berries – free horse & people snacks
    Built from downed trees + free Shiloh manure
    → City share after grants: $30–40k

  3. Floating Mushroom-Harvest Bridge to the island, water edge lip erosion solutions & filtering plants
    Riders harvest oyster mushrooms for dinner

    1. City share after grants: $15k

 

Total city cash needed for everything: under $150k spread over 2–3 years
(80–100 % paid by DNR LARE, NRCS, Great Lakes Restoration Initiative – money already waiting for us)

 

What Hobart & the horse farms get every year starting 2028

  • $340,000 – $590,000 new annual revenue (mostly for services surrounding the city, not for city revenue)
    (guided night rides, stargazing tours, weddings, berry-picking days, mushroom & fish trades)

  • Eventually no mowing, no chemicals, no algae

  • A lake people could drive hours to visit instead of one they never knew existed

Maintenance = almost free
Horses walking the trail every day + riders harvesting mushrooms = the place could take care of itself

 

All we have to do right now

□ Say yes
□ Let staff file the four grants already lined up
□ Allow volunteer hours + horse manure to count as match (city cash could literally be $0)

 

This turns a dying lake into the only place in Indiana where you ride under glowing trees at night, grill the mushrooms you just picked, and watch horses drink clean water from a lake.  Let’s make Big Maple Lake the thing people talk about instead of something they never knew existed.

 

Christine Pierce – Disaster Avoidance