cedar grove

It was my birthday, and I had some time between appointments and had some time. With the 30x30 Challenge in mind, I found my way into an urban stream. Thankful for my boots and comfortable socks, I stood in the middle of McVicar Creek, sometimes slipping a little getting knocked over by the shallowest running water, suffering a little vertigo for some reason.. 

Suffering great confusion over my photographic demands, my iPhone spat out a few uh, interesting, panoramas. I haven't looked at them all yet. 

The sky was blue and the creek was a swirling mas of bubbles and life rumbling around me. Sometimes a camera just can't capture it, you have to be there.

Where would we be without urban forest escapes? We're fortunate in Thunder Bay to be within minutes of them in every direction. From science at the Tree Farm to Centennial with rivers running between. It ties into why I prefer to be a pedestrian, or on a bike - so that I can take advantage of these escapes. 

Irritated drivers paying the highest price for gas get crankier waiting in dual Tim Horton's line-up for the worst coffee in the world - if only they knew a better perk was right there in front of their eyes, hidden behind asphalt. 

green forest

Tree Farming

 MNR Tree Farm

10 March 2012

Good in Everything ~ A Photo Tour of the Tree Farm

"And this, our life, exempt from public haunt, finds tongues in trees, books in the running brooks, sermons in stones, and good in everything."

As You Like It

Act II. Scene I.

~ William Shakespeare

Take a walk with me, where my plantation is, back to the same old place we long to be. Poplar, cedar, and spruce lined avenues tie together Pine plantations and Black Sturgeon projects where we stroll while dogs leap in jubilation around us. The best trails for tails around, hands down. A delight for the camera as well.

Our tree farm is a Plantation Demonstration and Assessment project, and is part of the Government of Canada's response to "climate change". I believe it's greater response is to beauty. 

The forest floor, a world within a world at our feet. The fungi is fodder for the camera ~ a late summer quest to find them popping up through mulched layers under the trees. I could search the Tree Farm endlessly collecting snapshots for my collection and never run out of unique specimen.

Through fields we roam.

Science and the Forest side by side for miles.

"I frequently tramped eight or ten miles 

through the deepest snow 

to keep an appointment with a beech-tree, 

or a yellow birch, 

or an old acquaintance among the pines."

Walden

~ Henry David Thoreau  

Forest regeneration.

Pinaceae

Blue Spruce

Norway Spruce

Forest generation.

 Wildflowers for me.

Common Blue -eyed Grass, Sisyrinchium montanum

Orange Hawkweed, Hieracium aurantiacum

Red Clover, Trifolium pratense

Meadow Buttercup, Ranunculus acris

Wildflowers for her.

Claire in a field of Oxeye Daisies Leucanthemum vulgare

Summer Bird Vetch (Vicia cracca) for butterflies,
rose hips in autumn,

 and wild strawberries (Fragaria spp.) for a trailside snack.

The trees reach the heavens,

And provide a haven on earth.

With tree tag addresses

 on rose lined streets.

Rosa canina and Claire

Twenty minutes from home, from the Great Lake, 

we breathe deep in the conifers.

unquestionable serenity

A murder on a row.

Captivating year round, 

captured by my camera.

Common Fireweed, Chamerion angustifolium

new Tamaracks <3

 ~ ~ ~ ~ ~

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read more:

• Natural Resources Canada
• Tree Nurseries for Seeding Trees (Helping connect Greenhouses with Re-Forestation, Natural Resources, Fruit Tree Growers, Christmas Tree Growers and Private Landscapers)
• Ontario Forestry Association
• Trees Ontario
• wood dictionary (yes, a wood dictionary)
• Fungi 
• Field guides to Fungi