On Aug 28, 9:57*am, jeff wrote:


that was fun!! *thanks.

You're welcome. It was fun being there. Like anything else, though,
it wouldn't be everyone's cup of meat. Might be fun to rewrite the
whole thing from the perspective of someone with an enitrely different
mind's eye view of an idyllic country retreat.

is this place over by, or on the way to, the kickapoo? i'm trying to
remember the topography up there, and the only rolling hills of any size
that my diminishing gray matter can recall were on that side of the
state in the journey from milwaukee...

The tree farm is roughly thirty miles north of where we camped on the
west fork of the Kickapoo. Frank could probably give you a more
precise figure.....he drove it just a couple of weeks ago.

And your memory serves you well. There are some other hilly sections
in the state, but none that we travelled through and that leave such a
strong impression.

chestnuts still agrowin, though
something has taken a liking to the leaves/leafs on one. *plan to
transplant from pots soon.

Good news.....despite the sylvicidal bugs.

We will have nowhere near the number of nuts this year that we did
last. Late frost wiped out walnuts and butternuts entirely and put a
big dent in the chestnuts. The only thing that appears to have come
out unscathed is the hazels.....and the squirrels will doubtless do
their customary outrage to that crop. However, only a small fraction
of the chestnuts we collected last year were sent out to prospective
growers. If the demand is no greater for this year's crop, there
should still be enough to go around.

The bad news is that the two surviving seedlings from our first batch,
collected and sprouted two years ago, are dead.....or near enough that
funeral arragements could hardly be premature. The trustworthy
individual to whom we entrusted them turned out to have a not very
keen eye for plants severely and chronically distressed by lack of
water.

giles