Yesterday,,, I asked God to bless

[Mark Doble]

A tree...

Yupper, I found the last birch tree on my Dad's property. The only new Birch tree growing on 75 acres. It is like 3" across and maybe 15' high. Just a baby. But beautiful.
Birch trees are my most favourite tree. So I layed hands on it and asked God to bless it. My other favourite tree is an Iron wood. We have lots of them on the woodlot. Next to them are Maples, Black Cherry, and 225 year old Beach.

I think you can ask God's blessing on anything. :basic05

[Bob Woolley]

Hey Mark! Just thinking! Birch would make better canoes than Iron Wood ! :fav18

Did I just say that?!!

[Mark Doble]

I just like the bark and the way Iron wood burns.

[Joel Merrill]

I miss birch trees. There are a lot of them in Wisconsin where I grew up. Iowa is not very for south but we don't have them here. Some people plant them in their yard but they get wood bores and you have to watch them carefully. I planted a river birch in my yard. They are native here and do fine. They have beautiful bark too but it isn't white like the paper birch. Another tree I miss is the Dutch Elm. There is an organization that has developed a disease resistant one but I will be a very old man before if I ever see another big one.

Joel

[Jen Blackburn]

i guess i really haven't noticed that they aren't around here, are they? (birch trees)

i, too, grew up with millions of them surrounding my home and the area i lived in wisconsin... they are abundant on my aunt & uncle's property on the Yellow River outside of Spooner.

i love the birch trees and also the popple trees there... the poplars are the first to show leaves in the spring, and their leaves sparkle in the sun when the wind blows them during the summer. one of my fond memories of childhood is my grandpa taking a small fresh/green popple branch in the spring and whittling wooden whistles out of them for us grandkids. i'm not sure if anyone else in the family knows how to whittle a whistle like grandpa did. now my grandpa is 89 years old and in the nursing home suffering from severe dementia so he's unable to explain the process to anyone ... i think i need to ask my mom if she knows if anyone else in the family can make them. i'd love for my kids to experience that... but it has to be within just a couple of weeks in the spring - the wood has to be just perfectly wet & green. i'll never forget the taste of that wood in my mouth :)


(interesting -- i just did a google search for a picture of a popple tree & couldn't find any! turns out that they're really called "quaking aspen" trees...)