Let's Make It One hundred Years, Ma.

 

A portion of the White Spruce trees we planted in 1974.

   Fifty years ago this month, with the help of a friend, I started hand-planting trees in a fifteen acre poplar woods in Roseau County bordered on the west by Mikinaak Creek (the Ojibwe spelling for snapping turtle and not what is written in English on the maps), and a neighbor’s fenced quarter section on its east, where just the summer before, the farmer had bulldozed all the trees and windrowed their debris like a hay field prior to baling. 

I was thunderstruck by their destruction, for that dense woodland lent the creek bottom and my quaint homestead the beauty and privacy I desired, having lived in a city all my life to that point. Its horrific loss underscored to me that I could do nothing about what my neighbors did on their land, and if I wanted such an environment, I would have to plant it myself.

And so I have with the help of family and friends, as planting trees became the best decision I have ever made concerning the farm. Slowly transitioning 160-acres of sandy loam farmland back into trees and wetland, as it was before somewhat, took all of the years between. Thanks to C.R.P. (Conservation Reserve Program), Roseau County S.W.C.D., and my own driving initiative, I tried to recreate the woodland my mother used to walk through on her way to Palmville District 44 West, one-room school (which still stands) on the SW corner of our land, from her family’s homestead a half mile north, (which doesn’t).

One-room school Palmville District 44 West, lower left corner, was built in 1904. My mother walked through the woods to attend school there in the early 1900s.

 

 Every morning our family gazes across the creek at the beautiful towering white spruce that we planted in 1974, and the large old poplar trees and bur oaks among them, where the eagles sometimes sit overlooking the creek; the Great Blue Herons glide silently past, as often do skeins of ducks and flocks of geese; occasionally Tundra swans, and pelicans stop to visit. 

Tundra swans sometimes visit.

The offspring of the spruce and poplar almost block the view of the neighbor’s woodland that grew back up eventually; I can see the still-evident windrows in places east of the fence. Sadly the parent trees were never used; just left to rot back into the ground.

Since '74, we’ve planted roughly 100,000 trees of many varieties; and very few in straight lines, preferring to echo land contours and create islands; or leaving openings and meadows; their hundreds of thousands wild seedlings cast by winds or passed on by animals. 

We machine-planted 16, 500 trees in rows 12-feet apart that echoed one another across the landscape in 2011 and 2012 as well as a half mile strip of Blue Grama (Bouteloua gracilis) Native Grass.

 

We planted 8 different varieties: Red Dosier Dogwood; Hybrid Poplar, Bur Oak, Paper Birch, Norway Pine, White Spruce, Tamarack and White Cedar.

Despite recent weather forecasts for rain, 2024 is beginning to act a lot like 2023 as systems go around us.

We have walking trails through some of our woodland.

Our trees add drama to a landscape.

 

Firebreaks separate areas.

A meadow among the trees

An 'island' of Norway Pine, an island of White Spruce, an island of Tamarack planted a quarter mile apart with paper birch and willows in between look like they've been there forever.

A firebreak freshened this spring offers perspective and beauty one evening.

A wet wetland crossing. You should maybe wear knee boots.

My mother, Violet Palm Reynolds, loved her wild home place, this township. There isn’t a day, I don’t think of her here. She would love the trees, as I do. Recently, through a Minnesota Sustainable Forest Incentive Act covenant attached to the farm, no matter who owns it, I secured the farm’s forested future for another fifty years. 

Happy Mothers Day, Mom.