This year we are in the height of fall colors during the first weekend of October. Saturday was bright and clear Sunday was overcast, but the views were still striking. Maple leaves in the upper row, red oak and hazel leaves in the lower row
Tag Archives: trees
Paul Bunyan Trail in mid-August
The Paul Bunyan Trail is a paved recreational trail in northern Minnesota that runs 120 miles from Brainerd to Bemidji. It is an ideal route for biking and running in the summer and for snowmobiles in the winter. The photos below are from a recent bike ride in the middle of the trail, between Hackensack …
Nobletts Trail in Uinta National Forest, Utah
The Uintas Mountains are an east-west trending sub-range of the Rocky Mountains that contain the highest mountain in Utah, Kings Peak (elevation 13,528′). Nobletts is an easy hiking trail on the western flank of the Uintas, its trailhead is about 50 miles west of Salt Lake City. The trail follows Nobletts creek for about 2 …
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Minnesota Nice Weather
North-central Minnesota has been blessed with good weather recently. Unlike the arid conditions in 2021, late spring and early summer of 2022 has brought sufficient rain, interspersed with temperate sunny days. Overcast skies have provided enough rain for the lake to be several inches higher than last year. Today a small storm skirted by the …
Native Flowering Shrubs
From late May through mid-June, we have noticed a succession of native shrubs blooming in north-central Minnesota. Each of them has similar small white flowers, and seemingly take turns blooming one after another. Serviceberry was first, in late May. It was followed by Red-osier Dogwood, then Viburnum in mid-June. Serviceberry Red-osier dogwood Viburnum Two species …
Quaking Aspen and Paper Birch
Quaking Aspen and Paper Birch are both fast-growing trees common in Northern Minnesota. While they are similar in some respects, they actually belong to different plant families. Paper birch (Betula papyrifera) belongs to the birch family, Betulaceae. Paper birch is distinguished by its white bark that readily peels off of the tree. The leaves of paper …
Oaks of Northern Minnesota
Seven species of oak trees are native to Minnesota, according to the website of the Minnesota DNR. Three of these are found in northern Minnesota; the Bur Oak (Quercus macrocarpa), Northern Red Oak (Quercus rubra), and Northern Pin Oak (Quercus ellipsoidalis). There are two main groups of oak trees, the white oaks and the red …
Mistletoe
During walks with the dogs through our Louisiana neighborhood in January we noticed irregular balls of green leaves in tall trees that were otherwise barren. We eventually found a clump of this near enough to the ground to take a reasonable picture, and the ‘Picture This’ app identified it as oak mistletoe. Of course we …
Sweetgum Balls
The American Sweetgum tree (Liquidambar styraciflua) is the second most common tree in Louisiana forests (the most common is the Loblolly Pine). Sweetgums are also plentiful in our local suburban landscape despite a significant drawback, the spiny seed-carrying balls that fall from their branches by the hundreds this time of year. The sweetgum is a …
The seasons are changing again
Late October seems too soon for fall to transition into winter. Nevertheless, this is what 2020 has brought to north-central Minnesota. Beautiful, but couldn’t it have waited for a month?
North MN Outdoors 