Quiet Sunday

 I think we are enjoying the quiet two nap days too much.  

The Oak danglies have turned brown and will soon fall off.   The rain what little we got less than an inch helped to wash down the pollen.  The Oak leaves are getting larger every day soon we will have dense shade. 

Mowing will be on my agenda this week. 

I will leave the dandys in the side yard yet for the bees. 

Minnesota weather; the high was 53 F or 12 C  the low was 37 F or  3 C   it was a chilly morning. 

We went for a Sunday afternoon drive to our favorite Mexican place it was too cold to sit on the patio but the place wasn't too busy so we sat inside.  Lupper was great as usual. 

Far Side

Pretty Branches

 We enjoyed the bit of snow on the Balsam Fir branches.

The snow makes for interesting designs in the woods. 

Today we both have Doctor appointments.  Nothing exciting just regular check ups.

Far Side

Tamarack

 The far tree is Larix laricina also known as Tamarack or Larch. 

Their needles turn from green to a faded green to bright gold this time of year.  Then the needles fall off.  Tamarack is a deciduous conifer.  

Most certainly a interesting tree...that will never be cut down for a Christmas tree.

Not much new here...Far Guy turned all the clocks back and changed the batteries in the smoke detectors.  We need a new CO2 detector as it would not stop chirping when he changed the batteries...they are only good for a few years. 

Far Side

April Days

 We had a quiet day yesterday, Jen and Andy were the highlight of our day.  They stopped on their way through for lunch and to drop off Far Guys carving supplies. They helped carry a bunch of stuff to the garage....stuff we store inside for the winter...Round Up, Poison Ivy Killer etc...and some "stuff" that Jen unearthed under the stairs that can be sold at a rummage sale. 

I mowed the tall grass East of the house, noticed that the little Lilac there is beginning to show some buds.  It was a terribly dusty job...I came inside washed my hair and had a bath in the middle of the day then a nap! 

I took a break from working on the big sort.  We took paper and plastic to recycle. 

Dangles from Piss Popple on the East side of the house blew in on the patio.  Spring must be here.

Son In Law Andy is tempting the snow spirits...he put away my electric snow shovel and my regular snow shovel.  Last year at this time we had snow on the ground.

Far Side

Barn and Yard

 My other baby brother called and said "Come look at the barn Steve ( neighbor married to Jo) made for me!"  

It sits next to the desk at his office.  A wonderful replica of the barn at the farm where we grew up. A real work of art! 

As you can see our yard looks tidy.  There are leaves in the woods but not on the lawn.  Not many leaves left on the trees.  The Bur Oaks drop their leaves. 

The Red Oaks along with Northern Pin Oaks will keep their leaves most of the winter,  wind and snow knock some to the ground.  Swelling new buds in the Spring will force the old leaves off.  

Big word alert.  The leaves have marcescence ...they wither but remained attached by the stem. 

Far Side

Trillium

 The Trillium is in bloom.  Just one bloom. 

It is a beauty! 

Here is it's spot along the edge of the woods with the Daylilies. Years ago there were two plants...not sure who ate the other one.  HA!

Far Guy and I had a quiet Saturday.  We visited with one of my cousins in the morning and then in the afternoon Far Guy took me out for lupper....enjoyed on an open air patio.  

 It was quite warm here yesterday 76 F  or 24 C eh!   The Piss Popples sometimes known as Aspen are puking out their annual fuzz....the air is filled with it...just like snow. 

The skeeters are HUGE!  I have not seen them so big or in such great numbers this time of year.  Some one once said the State Bird of Minnesota should be a mosquito.

Far Side

Quiet Weekend

We had a quiet weekend.  Trying our best to get over these colds.  I was able to work on a new crochet project learning some new to me stitches.  I watched numerous episodes of Once Upon A Time....and napped. 

Far Side

Plink, Plink

This year we have some Acorns! Not as many as some years.  The plink plink sound as they fall off the trees and onto the steel roofs is good to hear.  Last year we had no acorns.

We sat outside and woodcarved for awhile yesterday, it was about 78F and a nice breeze was blowing.  Our Christmas Ornament project is moving right along.  37 are completely done and many more await painting.  We have about 7 left to carve. ( I think the total is 99 ornaments)

It seemed like a very “loud” day with traffic noises and people leaving the lake…and one  “summer teenager” on some kind of loud dirt bike.  When it was quiet we could hear the plink plink of the acorns reminding us to enjoy every bit of these last Summer days as Fall is coming on fast.

Orange Trees Update

The trees were injured by some kind of field chemical overspray in the Fall of 2014. I wrote about the Orange Trees here.

They are looking better.  The smaller trees seem to have recovered almost completely.  The older trees have many dead lower branches.

This is what they look like today.

This is what they looked like in April of 2015.

It goes to show you that given time trees can recover from the brink of death.  If someone had told me they would recover I would have said they were nuts.

Timber!

Yesterday I watched Jody my other baby brother’s  crew cut down a huge Norway Pine at my baby brother’s (Carey) lake place.   The crew was like a well oiled machine, they work well together.  They are used to removing large trees safely.

She had to be removed for the new addition to the house.

See how close it is to the house?  AND she is leaning too.

Here it is falling.  Timber…not sure if anyone said that.  Many of her smaller branches and twigs exploded when she reached the earth filling the air with the scent of fresh pine. “She who sees Robins first” and I were glad it was over…so they do this all the time…but we don’t watch all the time. (The person down there is Frank and yes he was supposed to be there…he was half way in between the chain saw operator Josh and Jody on the Dozer.)

Straps, cables and chains were tied off to the Dozer.  It all went off without a hitch…no one was hurt.

Four thirteen foot sections are off to the mill to be made into lumber of some kind to be used in the house.

When the tornado went through this area in about 1978 many of the tall Norways were taken out…this was a survivor…there are many more huge Norway Pines on this piece of property so they will still be able to hear the long bundles of Norway Pine needles rub together and make a swishing sound as the wind blows.

This 200 year old giant will come back to this property… just differently.

Tree Massacre

Yesterday we ran errands.   I keep “things” pinned to my bulletin board until I can’t stand it anymore.  The weather was half ways decent so we went to what the newbies call The Red Bridge Park ( The old farts call it The Foot Bridge Park) in town…newly renovated or massacred….I suppose it just depends on who you are.

The park has old willows flanking the river.  One such willow was known as the picture tree…because of its sweeping branch.

 

Noah and Adam in September of 2011

It was a branch that a youngster could stretch out on.  Both of my grandsons are much taller now…but I wanted to show you the magnificent branch.

  It has been butchered.

What were they thinking?  I realize that Willows grow fast but not fast enough to replace that branch in my lifetime.  I am not sure if there is a City Forester or not, but if there is he needs his head examined.  

Trees and Things

The first tree to turn color in our area greets me every morning.  It stands sentinel along the road blushing with early fall color.  It will have turned color and shed its leaves and stand there naked under a carpet of dried up leaves when the rest of the trees in the area turn color.

According to my Cousin Chuckie it is a Buckeye.  We don’t have too many Buckeyes in this area.  I would like to collect some seed..but it is just off the right of way..and I do not know the people that live there.

The light is too harsh in the morning for a photo so I waited until after work..I turned around at the Bean Plant and doubled back to grab a parking spot at a approach.  The traffic was too heavy and fast to venture across the road.

This is a sure sign that Fall is on it’s way.  I think I have 27 more days of work..I am counting. I am tired. I have many projects to finish up before I close the doors for the winter.  One of these days I will have to make a list.  Some things will not get done..I am only one person.. and I can only do so much.  I refuse to bring work home with me during the summer, I put in an average of ten volunteer hours a month on top of the hours I work.

I have been working on scheduling the programs for next year, I have a pretty good line up of interesting programs.  I don’t like to think a year ahead but meeting rooms must be reserved and some of the advertising for the Summer of 2013 goes to the printer mid September.

I met a gentleman last week..who is an expert on the Early Minnesota Fur Trade..well he got added to my Fur Trade with Trapper Mark program that will end up being a permanent display at the museum.  Sometimes just the right person stops by and strikes up a conversation..I need a Grant Writer to do that real soon:)

Hello Fall

The Northern Red Oaks are turning color.  We have a few in our driveway.

Hello Fall.  I guess you are officially here.  Chance is our very own personal leaf carrier..his big old fluffy tail is like a leaf catcher.

I watched this tree change color.  It is along the road on my way to work.

One day Far Guy slowed down so I could get a photo.  I have always thought this was a Maple.  Turns out it is a Buckeye according to my cousin Chuckie.  I have never stopped along the road to get a closer look…too much traffic.  It is the very first tree to color up in our area.  It stands all naked now..the wind and rain has denuded it.  We don’t have very many Buckeyes in this area…too cold during the winter..but this one is a beautiful survivor.

In the next few days the Fall color will peak in our area:)

Signs of Fall

September is here.  I see signs all over.

Leaves and berries have begun to turn.

The bees on the Gaillardia (Blanket Flower) are slow and drunk with nectar, their little legs are coated with pollen..perhaps it is their heavy legs that makes them lethargic.

The acorns have formed.  I hear them go plink, plink on the steel roofs, sometimes it is almost like they are serenading me.  They are beginning to cover the ground forming a bumpy layer that attracts deer. Deer like acorns.  Chance doesn’t eat them..we had a dog that like to eat them once..it escapes me who it was.. perhaps it was G’Day Mate or maybe Captain, both Shelties buried under one of the Burr Oak trees in the yard where the acorns liter the ground and cover their headstone:(

The Oaks

Burr or Bur( if you prefer) Oaks surround our home in the woods.  They are the last to get their leaves in the spring.  They are in bud forever. Their real name is Quercus macrocarpa.  They are in the white oak family.

They provide heavy shade all summer.  Shade that is ten degrees cooler than the temperatures in town.

Have you ever wondered about the sex life of a Burr Oak?  Well just incase you have, I can tell ya all about it. The Oaks are monoecious, which means they bear both male and female “flowers” on the same tree.

It is that time of year for the dangly earrings..or catkins. This is the male part of the tree or the staminate flowering part.  He is long and bumpy and has many dangles..covered in greenish yellow pollen.

This is the female part, tiny little pistillate flowers.. little specks..If the pollen from the male parts fall or gets blown onto the little tiny brown specks of female parts..we will have fertilization and acorns!  The brown specks are located at 12 o’clock and 5 o’clock in the photo.  The acorns remain on the upper portion of the leaves to grow, the male catkins dry up and fall off.

There ya are!  Everything you always wanted to know but were afraid to ask about the formation of the little nuts called acorns. Some years there are lots of acorns, some years not so many. I believe that the trees do that naturally, the years of plenty are their way of making sure that all the acorns will not be eaten by deer or squirrels..or whatever else eats them.  I have eaten them, they are bitter.

The bear has not been back, he was more than likely just passing through.  Thank goodness:) 

Timber

"A nation that destroys its soils destroys itself. Forests are the lungs of our land, purifying the air and giving fresh strength to our people."
-Franklin Delano Roosevelt

Timber is a renewable natural resource here in Minnesota.  Timber is harvested just like a crop. The Department of Natural Resources is in charge of public lands. Now I am not saying that they are  perfect in their management practices..but someone has to manage the timber on public land..and they do a fair job. 

Timber should be harvested from time to time to stop the threat of disease that will wipe out entire species of trees in one area.  The Lodgepole Pines out west are  good examples of why plantings should not be all done at once with the same kind of tree,  when the Mountain Pine Beetles came in..they had a hay day destroying entire stands.

September 2010

Forest Fires are Mother Natures way of taking care of old stands of trees and regenerating the forests.  Logging is one way to keep the threat of forest fires at bay and it opens up the dense canopy and allows new trees to begin growing. Renewable resource..either by fire or logging..at least with logging the lumber harvested is used, and wildlife is not displaced like it would be in a forest fire.  I don’t particularly like the mess left behind by the loggers either..but I have noticed that some logging companies are much neater than others.

 

Far Guy and I like to watch them work..we heard that from this spot back in the woods that you could see Shell Lake.   Way up there..and this was a zoomed in view..I never realized that this hill was that high. 

I wondered if you could see it from Shell Lake..sure enough..

February 2011

One day last week I spotted it.

 

I am not sure if the brush piles will be burned..or just left to decay and be homes for rabbits and squirrels.  Trees will re-grow in this area eventually:)

Curiosity: A Familiar Driveway

I was curious, my curiosity sometimes gets the best of me. I wondered if they were the same, I wondered have they changed? Are Far Guy and I the only people in the whole world who noticed. One day I couldn't stand it anymore.

I drove down the drive, and stopped at the top of the hill to take a photo..nothing has changed, well that is not quite true, lots has changed..but the trees remain the same.

We drove down the drive further, we stopped to visit with Dave. I told him of our mission that day. He has lived there about 5 years and he has never noticed.

I took another photo looking uphill. Can you see it now? It is OK if you don't notice anything..honest. You have to be really in-tune with your surroundings in order to notice.  On a side note the "Poetry Tree" made it through another winter..a long time ago our daughter Jen wrote a poem about this tree it is the Popple that is leaning into the driveway on the right side of the photo.


Long ago, I didn't notice either, then one warm spring day, after I had been to town, as I drove down the drive I noticed the dividing line. The driveway separated a grove of Aspen Trees we call them Popples, they are said to all be connected somehow with one root. I don't know if I believe that..but it is not an important fact to me anyway. What was important to me that day was that our trees on the south side of the drive were all leaved out in their finest green haze, and the trees on the north side of the drive hadn't even broken bud. They looked deader than a doornail. I was upset, I shared my concern with Far Guy when he got home from work, I showed him...we wondered, I worried..was it some kind of bug that was going to wipe out all the trees? A few days passed..I wrung my hands, and lamented the death of a whole stand of trees..a week later my dismay turned to joy when the seemingly dead trees finally leafed out. It happens every spring, for some reason..there is a difference, is it in the seedlings? Are they a different species, were they from a different seed source? Perhaps not tremuloides at all but alba or some other species. ( Far Guy says they are all albas or Silver Popple on the North side.) I am still not convinced..I was always comforted somehow that it was not my imagination, it happens every spring..and I captured it this spring:)

Christmas Mood

Bottomless Lake December 04, 2008

In an attempt to put me in a more cheerful Christmas mood, Far Guy said "I think these woods are getting to you, lets go look at a different part of the woods." I was game, even though I figured Far Guy was just grasping at straws. This time of year, I am easily distracted. So we went off on an adventure. I love adventures.

We headed south, across the big highway (two lane) into the Smoky Hills Forest. Our mission to become more cheerful and to find an old road..the old Corduroy Road..and from there to find the old CCC camp hidden near Bottomless Lake. Far Guy posted part of our adventure over on his blog I Didn't Do it! He took his camera, and it even had batteries in it!

It was a crisp day, a little snow had fallen. We found the entrance to this very old road. It is in pretty good shape, two other people have gone this way today. Chance is helping Far Guy navigate. Lots of logging has been happening, but some areas are being replanted. I love the flow of the forest, the areas of Pines, giving way to Hardwoods, then areas of the piss Popple. Some parcels that adjoin this State Forest have been sold off, they are heavily posted with NO HUNTING signs. Lots of gates are up, and there are a few more hunting shacks than we remembered.

Then I see it, something that angers me to no end. I was too mad to even photograph it. It was a Christmas Tree Hunter, no, luckily for him he was gone..what remained was the bottom part of a very nice Spruce, it had been beheaded..chopped off at it's feet, then at it's waist..then beheaded. The bottom part of the tree was left lying at the edge of the road. Someone stole a Christmas Tree from the State Forest. I hope that Asshole has a miserable Christmas. Then I think, maybe he has kids, and is unemployed. Maybe he really needed that tree. Maybe when things get better for him he will come back and plant two trees.

Far Guy has pretty good eyes for an old guy. The woods have been silent, no birds, no deer, no deer sign, no tracks of anything in the new fallen snow. We know that one person has been here before us today, one of the other vehicles has stopped at a hunting shack. Far Guy slams on the brakes and says "Would you look at that!" Then I see it! A Mink, I have not seen a Mink in a long time. We watch it scampering around on the forest floor, it goes up a tree and comes down again. Far Guy gets out and takes a few photographs, while I hold Chance by the scruff of his neck in the truck. Minks are normally nocturnal, so seeing one in the daytime is a real treat. It is a rare gift we have witnessed. I feel my bad mood lifting.

We wind our way to Bottomless Lake, low and behold we find the remnants of another tree hunter, of a different sort this time.

One with very sharp teeth building a winter home. A beaver. He is only taking out the piss popple. My mood is greatly improved.
What kind of things improve your Christmas mood?:)

Note: Piss popple is actually Populus deltoides, often called Aspen, or Quakies, or here in Minnesota..Popple. I call it piss popple because when used for firewood it sizzles and weeps, moisture comes out both ends of a log. Hence my nickname..Piss Popple..kinda has a ring to it!