In mid-August of 2022 I traveled to Norway with my three daughters. With the help of some relatives we made arrangements to visit a couple family farms and stay with my cousin’s daughter mother-in-law. We arrived in Oslo and rented a car then drove to a town in western Norway called Seljord. When we arrived…
Unusual trees in my woods
I find it interesting to grow different trees in my woods. Most are rare in Southern Minnesota. They may also be marginal for our zone 4 climate. Below are some of the trees I have planted in the last few years. Bald Cypress: a tree well known in the south. I have heard of a…
Hymns of My Father
I did a complete review of the green Lutheran Book of Worship which was published in 1978. My Father, a Lutheran Pastor, tracked when he chose each hymn. The hymn he chose the most was Let Us Break Bread Together with 57 dates. I want to list some of the most popular hymns below. But…
Acorn Observations
Our woods has four types of native oak trees. Red Oak, Black Oak, Bur Oak, and White Oak. All of these native oaks are large and have good crops of acorns most years. In new plantings I have added Chinkapin Oak, Swamp Oak, and various types of hybrid oaks. Per the literature the native oaks…
Types Of Cold
Cold weather does much more damage to trees than hot weather. Hot weather generally means less moisture which can be fixed by watering – at least for smaller trees. In addition most established trees have extensive root systems which can reach deep for water in case of extended drought conditions. I would like to talk…
The Great Watering of 2021
It is June 14th 2021 and it hasn’t rained in two weeks. On top of that we have had many days in the 90’s. This spring I planted 112 trees and shrubs. Of those 58 were planted in tree bags in our garden/nursery. Last year I planted about 44 new trees. I have found over…
And it starts
The emerald ash borer has arrived in my woods and is killing Ash trees. Our 25 to 30 acres has white, green and black ash. Most of the Ash is in the bottom land forest, but some Ash is located on our limestone ridges. Pictured below is a tall thin ash that didn’t leaf out…
Bridge in the Forest
Our forest has around 10 acres of bottom land along the Zumbro River. That bottom land also has a creek running through it. Because of two ridges on opposite sides of the creek I have to have two bridges to get to the section along the Zumbro River. In June of 2019 we had a…
Coast Redwood Trip
In March of 2021 I took a hiking trip to the California Coast Redwoods with two of my daughters. I had driven through the Redwoods a couple times many years ago but had never hiked into the core forest. It certainly was a wonderful experience going deeper into the Redwoods. The big story of this…
The Big One That Got Away
I had posted about big trees in the Kenyon area and talked about a big Bur Oak which had died. I found the pictures and it was a very large tree. The first picture is a close-up of my oldest daughter, my Mother and my Dad’s cousin standing in front of the trunk. Based on…
GothicTrees 