Seven!

      

        I call it the Elbert Place, because that's from whom I bought it. Hougs were the first residents of it that I remember, George Tate once lived there as did the Cunninghams. Locally it's referred to as a "quarter". That comes from the early surveying of the land. The relatively flat upper mid-west was divided in to mile square "sections" of 640 acres.  Often roads skirt the perimeter of these sections.  So a quarter is one fourth of a section, thus 160 acres. All of this land is either in grass, or wetlands formed by five damns. 

     The Elbert Place had a farmstead with a house, barn and other minor buildings adjoining the road on the north.. These buildings were eventually buried to remove what attorneys call an attractive nuisance. In the south east corner of the quarter lies the pasture of native grass about which I've blogged. To allow cattle access to it from the farm yard a lane was fenced to allow this movement.

    When I purchased this property in the '90s I planted two rows of cedar trees in the lane as wildlife cover. These cedar trees, now about thirty feet tall, return the favor by providing cedar berries for the birds. The birds eat the berries and excrete the seeds in the surrounding grassland. Thus, there are invasive cedar seedlings in the grass.

   There were seven cedar seedlings where I parked the truck near these lane cedars this morning. Mission accomplished!

Takk for alt,

Al

Can you tell I have a thing about grass?

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