The Mighty Oak

One of my goals in retirement is to expand my observations of the natural world around me.  To be more cognizant of what is going-on and make an attempt to understand and learn from it. 

Some of you readers know that most of the forested cover here at The Platz was planted there by us.  Historically, we have a general idea of the pre-settlement forest cover from reading the surveyor field notes when the Government Land Office surveyors cruised thru here the winter of 1836.  The notes taken by Sylvestor Sibley indicated the presence of black ash, tamarack, cedar, hemlock, sugar maple, elm and other species.  Of course, with the arrival of European settlers the land was cleared for agriculture and the wildness tamed.  By the time it fell into our hands there wasn't a tamarack to be found.  They'd all be transformed into fence posts and shingles. 

We planted a large number of tamaracks because our soil types are well-suited to the species.  And both the tamarack and northern spruce  have since been repopulating other areas in the forest as the parent trees matured and produced seed.  This seed is subsequently spread by critters and seasonal weather events and we're experiencing natural forest regeneration.  If the deer numbers could be reduced the regeneration would be wildly successful.  I digress. 

In any event, among the trees we planted were thousands of oaks - white, bur, red and swamp white oaks.  Oaks are a valuable tree when you consider their wildlife benefits and future commercial use.  And while once in the past two-and-a-half decades I observed acorns on the bur oaks I haven't observed any since.  Then this happened this spring.  These have been showing-up. 

click on the tiny tree for a closer look

 

Swamp oak seedlings! 

Well, I'll be switched.  Those trees have been producing some acorns and I never took notice.